Mario’s 25th anniversary game collection has bounced from goomba to turtle shell and finally landed in North America.
After making North America feel like it might never see the Super Mario All-Stars limited edition Wii collection announced for Japan and Europe already, Nintendo has finally acquiesced to my demands. Nintendo announced today that the re-release of the classic Super Mario collection will now also be brought to the U.S.
Super Mario All-Stars was originally released on the Super Nintendo and included Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. 2, Super Mario Bros. 3, and Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels all upgraded to SNES quality graphics. The Lost Levels is what Japan knows as Super Mario Bros. 2, with North America’s version actually a re-skinned Doki Doki Panic. Nintendo was afraid that The Lost Levels would be too hard for overseas audiences. So now’s your chance to experience the extreme difficulty of… *gasp*… poison mushrooms that will actually make you smaller when you eat them!
The Super Mario All-Stars limited edition includes the original collection of four games on a single Wii disc, but also adds a few bonuses inside the box. Buyers get the Super Mario History soundtrack CD, which is a collection of Mario’s musical accompaniments through his entire videogame life. Also included is the Super Mario History booklet that features lots of behind-the-scenes details on Super Mario Bros.‘s history, including secrets such as how Mario used to be a space marine.
The collection can be played through any control method that you wish, whether it be Classic Controller, GameCube controller, or Wii Remote. All this, my friends, for the price of $29.99. That’s about $10 more than the individual prices of each game if purchased on the Wii’s Virutal Console, so it’s not a bad deal considering the bonus content. The Super Mario All-Stars limited edition will be released on December 12.
