Super Mario Advance 2/Super Mario World
(SNES) Comparison & Changes Guide

version zero point five
©2002 The Original L5
http://mike.now.nu

· Overview ·

I'm sure when people see this guide available, alot of people may have just
wondered what it was about or why I would want to do this.  Yes, it's true,
Super Mario World: Super Mario Advance 2 is an excellent port of the original
Super Mario World.  But many things have been altered, changed or tweaked to
make the game better for GBA.  Not nessecarily flaws mind you, but just
differences.  I am here to point out those differences for a few reasons.  One,
you might want to know what you're getting should you go out and purchase this
title.  Two, you might be like me, noticing the differences, and would like to
know if there are more out there than the ones that you have found.  Lastly,
you might just be intruiged by the fact that the conversion has so many minute
details that have been tweaked.  Let me state that I LOVE this coversion.  I
LOVE having Super Mario World in the palm of my hand.  So I'm not bashing this
game in any way.

I still need to compare the game to SNES SMW v1.1!  Both the cart and rom of
SMW I've been working with are 1.0 (you can tell by the logo on your SMW cart,
1-line is 1.0; 2-line is 1.1)  If anyone would like to be really cool and check
these things against a 1.1 cart please let me know.  Note that for emulators,
I'm NOT counting any sound differences, since ZSNES nor SNES9x emulate the
sound perfectly, however close they may be.


· History ·
03.19.2002 - v0.5 - I'm back, with a few new things, and a new E-mail address
no less!
02.25.2002 - v0.4 - A handful of new stuff.  Trying to get as much as possible
before my E-mail goes down.
02.19.2002 - v0.3 - Thank you EVERYONE for your e-mails and support!  More
changes in this version!
02.17.2002 - v0.2 - Beat all 96 worlds, as well as the game itself, off to get
the rest of the Dragon Coins!
02.13.2002 - v0.1 - Bought the game today, and noticed differences, so here we
go!


· Gameplay Changes ·


Obviously, the addition to play as Mario and Luigi (both having different
abilties) is the biggest change from the original game.  Mario plays exactly as
he does in SNES SMW.  Luigi differentiates himself from Mario in many ways.  He
has that floaty jump from SMB2/SMA, complete with a new sound effect similar to
a continuing cape spin sound.  Luigi's fireballs bounce much higher than
Mario's do.  Luigi also has a different mode of play while on Yoshi.  While
riding Yoshi, Luigi can spit out any enemy that would normally be swallowed. 
The effect is similar to SNES Yoshi's Island, the enemy rolls in a circular
fashion, and dissipates on impact.  Luigi also for some reason smashes all the
coins out of a 10-coin block in one jump.  Changing characters is as simple as
a press of the R button on the map.

Voices have been added for Mario, Luigi, and some of the bosses.  Mario and
Luigi's voices are similar to those in the first Mario Advance, some have been
ripped out (Lets-a-go!) and others are new.  Boss voices have yelps when you
defeat them.

EVERY review I've read on the game up to this point has skipped this change
except IGN's 02.11.2002 blurb:  You get 1 extra hit all the time now after
you've powered up.  Example: if you're in cape or flower mode, and take a hit,
you will revert to Super (plain Big) Mario.  You also do NOT lose the item in
your box if you have one.  You only drop your boxed item if you get hit while
Super Mario, thus putting you back in Tiny Mario status.  In SNES SMW, if you
were in cape or flower mode and took a hit, you went down to Tiny Mario,
dropped your boxed item, and kept going. My only practical explanation for this
is that Nintendo probably wanted to make the game easier for the now almost
fully kid audience.

Dragon Coins are now in almost EVERY level, even the ghost houses, fortresses,
and Koopa Kid Castles.  This means to get them all, you need to get around 350
(!!!!!) Dragon Coins!  Almost all of the 74 courses, 5 coins per course.

There is a new (and actually semi-cool) intro depicting the Bros. and Princess
flying on a hot air baloon to Dinosaur Land.  Upon landing, Mario and Luigi get
capes, fly about for a while, and as they return, they notice the Princess has
vanished.  After you beat the game, the intro changes to the Bros. and Princess
getting ready to bust out a picnic.

There is a very useful status screen that can be accessed by pressing select on
the map screen.  It tells you how much time you have played, how many goals
have been cleared with Mario, how many with Luigi, how much time in hours,
minutes and seconds you have played, the exits cleared to each course (by
character), and if you've gotten all the Dragon Coins for a specific course...
Whew!  After getting all 96 goals, you have an arrow on the stat screen that
warps you to the level you choose.  Makes things much easier.

Since the game is portable, Nintendo has added the ability to save anywhere, on
a map, or even inside a course.  Note that as you finish a switch palace, ghost
house, castle, or every other Special World course the dialogue box still comes
up asking you if you want to save. ^_^

Saving itself is more useful this time around.  SMA2 now saves your amount of
lives, the power and item box contents, and whether or not you have a Yoshi.

No more having to get colored Yoshis from Star World!!!  After you unlock all
four Yoshi colors (green, red, blue, yellow), you will start to randomly get
them in "?" blocks that contain a Yoshi Egg.  To get these based on power:  You
need to unlock ALL FIVE YOSHIS!  Not just the yoshi colors.  Then it works as
follows:  Tiny Mario gets a random Yoshi.  Super Mario gets a Yellow Yoshi,
Fire Mario gets a Red Yoshi, and Cape Mario gets a Blue Yoshi.  Note that if
you haven't unlocked all five, you will still get them randomly, but uh.. it'll
be random. ^_^  Note that this DOES NOT ALWAYS WORK!  Even after unlocking all
five dinos, I still sometimes will get them out of balance.  Not like it's a
bad thing, it rarely happens, but I have to point out it's not 100%.

Speaking of colored Yoshis, the different colored ones now give you different
power-ups besides mushrooms after 10 berries.  Blue gives you a Cape Feather,
Red gives a Fire Flower, and Yellow gives a Starman.

The maximum lives you can have is now 999.

The maximum lives you can get with one sprite is now 5-up, as opposed to 3-up.

When earning multiple 1-ups from stomping over 8 enemies without hitting the
ground, or killing 8+ with a star, you will hear "Bravo, Mario/Luigi!" and a
flower followed by how many lives you got will scroll across your screen.  My
top score so far is 335 in a row, I'm looking to try and get 999 in a row, but
I dont think that Forest of Illusion 1 has enough time, even if you start from
the middle.  I finally figured out that the number of lives you need to get in
a row to trigger this is either 10 or 11, I'm not sure.

After getting all 96 goals, you get the fall theme that was previously
available after just beating "Special" World.  Upon completing it, you get to
see a cutscene of Luigi and Mario doing things that change the enemies,
followed by a "Congratulations" screen.

For every 1,000,000 points you earn throughout the game, you earn one star on
"Super Mario World" in the Game Select screen.  You can earn up to 5 stars.

Upon beating the game, you can go back and redo the castles you have beaten. 
This helps to get the Dragon Coins that you missed.  They go back to unraized
form, but have the funny little white flag still on top.  ^_^

There are more "speaker blocks" throughout the game.  They are now headed with
the phrase "Tourist Tips" at the top of each one.

In Donut Plains 1, there is a block that puts up how many coins are in the
bonus area with the cape feather (600 coins!) and counts how many you have left
as you collect them.  Likewise, coins were added.  Collect them all for a 3-up
(plus 600 coins technically makes it 9 extra lives).  I think there is another
one in the game somewhere, but I can't remember where :P

In Special World, there is a high school score for each level, the current
score for that level, and which character put the last high score up all
displayed at the bottom of the screen on each course.  This only occurs after
you've beaten either all 96 goals or all the Special World courses.

After getting all the Dragon coins in each course, there is a Dragon Coin icon
in your status screen.  You also get to see a cinema of the coins changing from
Dragon Coins to Princess Coins


· Coversion Oddities/Changes/Additions ·


The music suffered the most in this translation.  Orchestra hits (most
noticably from Vanilla Dome and Valley of Bowser) are much higher pitched, and
honestly sound kind of funny.  Yoshi's bongo drums sound like tin cans now. 
Alot of different instruments were used.  Overall the music is pretty close,
but if you were to listen to both right after each other, the difference is
quite noticable.  Sound effects also are quite different in some places, the
1-up sound effect is completely different, even from the one in SMA.

Echoing in underground levels is longer and more spread out than it was in SNES
SMW.  Sounds more like a digital delay pedal on a guitar. ^_^

Veritcal scrolling in the game has been truncated in order to display correctly
on the GBA.  This means that if you scroll up slowly, you'll notice a "wobble"
effect on some horizontal lines.  This is most noticable on the map screen, and
when using the cape parachute technique.

In the bonus rounds with the 9 roulette blocks, if you earn 1-ups, the pipe now
makes a mushroom sprout noise when the mushrooms appear.  This was not the case
in SNES SMW.

Scrolling on the world map (changed from Start on the map to L on the map) now
produces a chime when it's activated, a strange sound similar to Luigi's wacky
feet jump when you scroll, and a sound when you hit L again to go back to your
characters.

Green Star blocks emit a sound if you fail to get a 1-up from them.

Reznor now spits fire with a SMB3ish "foosh" and not the sprout noise from SNES
SMW.

Point values/extre lives "zoom" in.

You now have the same "Skid" sound effect from SMA.

Top Secret Area is now a smiling bush on the map.  In SNES SMW it was just a
yellow course dot.  Note that the Top Secret Area bush stays green in the fall
theme after you get all 96 goals. ^_^

In SMA2, there is a newly imposed time limit in Top Secret Area.

Mario & Luigi have gained the ability to move a Yoshi that is just standing
still.  As long as you are not running, the Yoshi will scoot along as you walk
against him.

The Item box has been changed.  It's 2 brackets now.  Note: in the beta shown
at Space World 2001, the box was still a box.

Magikoopas now have a teleport sound effect.

During the bonus game after you get 100 stars, if you fail to get any 1-ups
during the bonus, Mario/Luigi hang their heads in a "D'oh!" fashion.

You now need all 96 goals to get the "fall" theme with enemy changes.

The "pokey" cactus enemy has been changed for the fall theme.  It now looks
like some jagged razor blades shimmying back and forth.

The "Goomba" enemy now is all one color and wears sunglasses for the fall
theme.

The "roullete" item blocks have a rotate sound effect.

The flying Hammer Brother has a sound effect for throwing hammers.

Bowser has been given a sound for the giant iron balls falling out of the the
clown car.

Your entire status screen shows during the fight with Bowser

You now recieve points after beating Bowser.

Spinning gate on fortress level gratings now have a different sound effect when
you rotate them.

1/2/3/5-up sprites are enlarged.

I need to check this directly against the SNES version, but I think that both
the Map Theme and Final Battle Theme music had parts of their melodies changed.
 They may simply sound different because of the different instruments of the
GBA version, so I'll have to check.

Ok:  After e-mails about how wrong I was about the Special World, I've FINALLY
somewhat figured it out!  I thought that the logo was there after an e-mail
telling me it was, however today when beating courses for Amanda (she tries,
but hell, she's not an expert) I've realized it is NOT THERE INITIALLY!  I
don't know what unlocks it yet, I'll have to see if it's all 96 goals or just
the Special Courses.

Chargin Chucks now have a sound when you hit them with fireballs, and yield
coins when you kill them with fireballs.  They give 2000 points instead of
1000.

Barely worth mentioning and techically not a change, but when small Luigi ducks
on Yoshi, he uses the Mario sprite, even though you can still see his face. 
^_^

The "The End" Picture is now completely different than the one in SNES SMW. 
It's followed by a camera flash/sound and "Press Start"  letting you continue
to play after the ending screen, unlike SNES SMW.

You can now spin jump off of certain enemies you couldn't on SNES SMW.  Most
noticeably Little Boos, Fireballs (called Podobos?) and Yoshi can bounce off
almost all the fish enemies.

There are now warning tones when your "P" Balloon is about to run out.

Yoshi no longer turns blue after beating a course with the Wings.

I've gotten several e-mails about this, but it doesn't work 100% of the time
for me.  When beating a course, I've been told if you can spring a Yoshi
THROUGH the gates when jumping off him, Mario will jump back onto him.  I can
finally get this to work alot, but it's pretty hard to FLING the little bastard
through the gates.

Unless you KILL a Yoshi (making him fall into a chasm or lava) during a course
or leave him by going to a parallel part of a level (through a pipe, etc) he
will remain there, thus explaining where these "random new 1-ups" are.  Not
1-ups, just the simple fact that your Yoshi is bouncing around in a course
somewhere

In Lemmy Koopa's Castle (World 3) the stationary mushroom is now a Cape
Feather.  As if this game wasn't already easy....

Power-Ups are no longer translucent in the Ghost House Courses like they were
on the SNES.

Depending on who you beat the game with, that will be who is in front during
the end credits,  ie: if you beat the game with Luigi, he walks in front of the
princess who rides Yoshi, who is trailed by the Yoshi eggs, with Mario taking
up the caboose. ^_^

The Yoshi eggs you see after beating each World and during the ending are now
Red, Blue, Yellow and I think there are some green ones in as well.  In SNES
SMW, they all had goldish spots.  However, they still sprouted into colored
Yoshi babies in the ending.  How friggin' cute.

Boos now laugh.  Big and small.  Also, Big Boob will "peek" on occasion as you
are facing toward him.  His laugh is lower than the other Boos.

Yoshi's House now has 10 berries instead of less (I'll find the exact number
later).  This is most likely so you can get an item (depending on your color
Yoshi).  I couldn't imagine why anyone would want a starman in Yoshi's House
though. :)

I don't know if I should place this is Gameplay Changes or what.  You can now
run up vines and ropes by holding B, much like you can run off of any flat
surface.  This will not let you gain speed to fly however.

You can now leave Yoshi on top of message blocks.  In SNES SMW, he would fall
through, now he just stands there flapping his mouth, but he doesnt bounce
while doing this like in any other situation.

Looks like Luigi is back to his green/blue clothing as opposed to his
green/purple (yuck) scheme from the SNES days.

After beating each world, the text at the bottom of the cinema is different
(mostly to reflect Mario AND Luigi's names).  The graphic scrolls down in order
to fit in the GBA's lower resolution.  Note that after beating the game and
regaining access to the castles, you can skip these scenes.  ^_^

In Castle #6 (on Chocolate Island), after the first room with the giant spiked
pillars in the area where you jump around on the moving platforms, there is a
particular moving block that move's a little different then it used to.  It is
the first of two lightly colored block that moves horizontally in this area. 
It used to move farther and coincide with the next platform, but now it stops
right next to it.  This change makes this part of the castle a little easier,
as you don't have to worry about getting pushed off the block. (Thanks to
pacmak1 for this)

In Castle #4 there is an alcove in the second area with a midgate.  This part
has been expanded for more power-ups, koopas and a dragon coin.  It no longer
goes straight up, there are several paths you can take.

The status screen just says M x 5 or L x 5 for lives instead of say.. Mario x 5
in the SNES version.  (Note: I found this out before I even bought the game,
but I gotta laugh knowing that it took me until v0.5 to actually put it in)

The bottoms of pits in stages (including water levels) have a "shaded effect"
at the bottom of the screen, probably to let you know that if you fall down it,
you will die.. heh.

The Yoshi gulp sound effects don't have the coin sound effect mixed in like it
was in the SNES version.

I'm not totally sure, but I think the GBA version of the brick smash sound
effect is no longer in stereo, as it was in the SNES version.

You get ALOT more time to beat the Final Bowser Castles, 800 seconds to be
exact!

In various castles and ghost houses, there are platforms and level changes made
to accompany the dragon coins, making them easier (or in some cases just make
it POSSIBLE) to obtain.  Specifics are in this guide, however I don't yet have
all of them.

Fire Mario and Luigi have a skin tone change. Their skin appears more tan after
they collect a Fire Flower, unlike in SMW where there is no change.  A good
place to see this is Top Secret Area, if you switch between Cape and Fire
power, you can see the change easier.

When you collect all 5 Dragon Coins, in SMW the Dragon Coin count went away in
the status bar.  On GBA, the counter stays at 5, showing you that you got all
the Dragon Coins in that course.  This is most likely because the game now
keeps track of which courses you have collected all the Dragon Coins in.

Star World 3 now actually has 5 Dragon Coins, it didn't have any before.   To
get the last 3 behind the gate (so I DON'T GET ANY MORE E-MAILS ABOUT THIS...)
take the cloud, go behing the gate but from the TOP OF THE COURSE.  Don't just
fly over the gate, that finishes the level.  Go up to where the key is and to
the right, and go ALL THE WAY over.  Then drop down and snag the last 3 Dragon
Coins.  Whew..

When eating green apples (berries) there is a +20s point value that pops up.


· Some "bugs" or cheats in the SNES version of SMW don't exist in the GBA
version ·


The 1-up rooms with the 3 Green "O" Blocks no longer trigger with a cape spin. 
In the SNES SMW, it was possible to always get a 1-up by hitting the edge of
the block with the edge of your cape.  Note: This actually does work, but not
like in SMW.  You need to be RIGHT up on the damn thing, plus it's no longer
100%.

One of the quick point earning tricks is now gone.  In SNES SMW, this trick
allowed you to have Flower power on and a Cape in the box or vise versa, jump
to where the box is onscreen and rapidly press select, earning 1000 points
whenever you got the cape.  Now the cape does not give you points when it is
dropped out of the item box.

While on Yoshi, you can no longer spit keys out while the keyhole is opening to
get that elongated spit out sound effect.

The 1-up bug from Forest of Illusion 1 is now changed slightly.  In the SNES
SMW, you could keep jumping on the koopa troopers and wigglers for 1-ups, but
after a few 3-ups, the score/1-up sprite would turn into garbled pixels, giving
you coins and massive points.  In SMA2, it actually works better for lives but
almost null for score.  Since you can now get 5-ups at a clip instead of just
3-up, you can get lots of lives much quicker than on SNES.  However,
1-ups/2-ups/3-ups/5-ups don't give you points.  And I wanted to see that max
score on this version... d'oh! ^_^

A new weird bug/mode of getting points and lives.  Now, if you cape whack a
shell with spin jumps ONLY in succession more than 8 times without letting it
hit the ground, it will result in points then 1-ups.  I found this very
strange, it works best in the "Gnarly" Special World course, since the wall
goes all the way up and down, and they oh so conviniently give you a blue
shelled koopa.  ^_^

Not really a bug or a change but something I notcied:  (Rant mode on) The sound
effects from SNES SMW that were in the original Super Mario Advance (you know,
that crap known as Super Mario "2") are actually DIFFERENT than the ones in
SMA2.  Weird, because upon replaying the original Super Mario Advance, the
music and sound effects sound closer to thier SNES counterpart than SMA2 does
tot he original SMW.  Possibly an issue with GBA's RAM, since it doesn't have a
dedicated sound processor like SNES did.  Even so, I wished they hadn't messed
with the sounds from the original SMA... (Rant mode off)

· Credits/Contact Info ·

ALL of the people who were cool enough to send me E-mail praising this guide. 
It's because of you guys that I want to keep this thing going!

Heh.. well.  Me. :)  I played through the game vigorously to find these
changes.

My girlfriend Amanda.  Me being the nice guy I try to be, bought her a copy for
Valentine's Day at the same time I got mine (thank you $22.99 at Best Buy!). 
She also helped me point out various inconsistencies.

My extensive experience with the original Super Mario World.  Even with finding
the 999 Lives maximum, the game still only took 04h 05m to finish all 96 goals.

My old E-Mail NO LONGER WORKS!  So don't use the old one that was in 0.4 or
lower!  The following anti-spam e-mail is valid:

(the original L five at comcast dot net)  Likewise you can instant message me
on AIM (the original L5)

my homepage is located at http://mike.now.nu (it has nothing to do with this
FAQ so I doubt you would want to go hehe).

I'm pretty sure I'm almost done, so I'm no longer accpeting contributions.  You
can however, feel free to e-mail me about errors.

Stuff I WILL respond to via e-mail:

Praise :)  Additional changes I have missed, stuff I may have incorrect and any
other constructive criticism.

Stuff I WILL NOT respon to via e-mail:

GAMEPLAY QUESTIONS!  I've gotten such an assload of e-mail and IMs regarding
how to beat such and such level or find this or that secret exit!  The game is
NOT hard.  It is NOT hard to find even all 96 goals.  And if you are having
difficulty, there are many GREAT guides on SMW on GameFAQs and many many other
places!  I don't want to be a dick about this, but I didn't imagine all the
e-mail I would recieve, much less all the e-mail I've gotten regarding gameplay
questions.  If you can click on my guide, you can also hit back and check the
several other guides.  They are now COMPLETE, so there no excuse not to look at
them.  These guys have worked plenty hard as well, so instead of looking at a
guide that has NO gamplay strategy, look at one that does.  Until I do a guide
(IF I do one that is), use theirs or another guide on SNES SMW.  Also being an
idiot and flame mail will just get you blocked from my e-mail.  So it's a waste
of your time.. hehe. :)

I'll be reviewing the game on GameFAQs shortly, and if it gets posted, I'll
note that here.

· Copyright Info

The whole thing is ©2002 The Original L5 (that's me!)

This means:  NO PUBLISHING!  Yes that's right.  I don't want this guide
published.  Online or not.  It's has nothing to do with playing the game in
itself.  It's more like one of those special interest joints.  So don't try to
ask me for written consent so you can publish it.  I've heard EGM frequents
GameFAQs, so I'm just covering my ass. ^_^

Speaking of which, I will NOT post this guide anywhere but GameFAQs and
possibly my homepage, so if you find it anywhere else, tell that person they're
naughty.

If you "borrow" info from this FAQ, please note it.

Don't edit it and put it out on your own.  Only complete retards do this.

.fin