Yoshi Island 1, Super Mario World: First Levels
The first level of any videogame should be all of the game in one sitting.
This isn’t a novel observation. I had a professor in college who would continually teach me (and I suppose the other students in the classroom) that we should always write the introduction to any essay last. Several years after I had graduated college, tried teaching and learned that I hated it, tried being married before realizing we had both made a grave error in judgment about that endeavor, survived a literal global plague, and eventually started writing essays about videogames for a website that no-one but myself seemed to realize even existed, I would watch a video[**WHAT VIDEO**] on YouTube where Shigeru Miyamoto would communicate the exact same message. Miyamoto wasn’t talking about academic essays for college level classes, he was talking about the opening level of videogames. I do want to clarify I’m not suggesting anything beyond coincidence here. It’s just unique that he and my professor (who as far as I know has never met Shigeru Miyamoto) would both advocate the same lesson to students and players about the openings of their creative works.
Now the golden standard of “First levels” in videogames is World 1-1 of Super Mario Bros for the Nintendo Entertainment System(NES). That level is usually followed by Episode 1, Mission 1 of DOOM often referred to as E1M1 by players and videogame critics. I have, as of this writing, already written essays about both of those videogames and those levels (though not really about the levels themselves(that needs to change)), and so as I thought about a “first level” to write about I kept thinking back to the image of a purple dinosaur and a giant black bullet.
My brain may have glitched for a few moments as I was dropped through an oblivion of contemplation and consideration of the endless enormity of creation and the existential pang of meaninglessness when facing the realities of existence.
And then I had another cup of coffee.
And then I thought about Super Mario World.
**Cover for Super Mario World provided by Mobygames.com
Super Mario World for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System(SNES) was released in Japan 21st November 1990, in North America 23rd August 1990, in Europe 11th April 1992, and finally in Australia 1st July 1992. Apart from being one of the best reviewed Super Mario games in history, it’s also regularly hailed as one of the greatest videogames ever made. And critics aside I love this game and have loved playing it since I spent most of my childhood playing it alongside Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past and Donkey Kong Country. I still find myself humming the iconic melody of literally every level of the game as I’m making copies or ascending the ungodly vertical nightmare that is the three flights of stairs at the Library where I work. I still recall, and this is one of the few positive memories of childhood that I have, the night one of my babysitters (who I totally had a crush on) showed me how to find the secret levels in the region “Forest of Illusion.”
Rachel wherever you are, you rule for that.
The game takes place in a fantasy dimension called Dinosaur Land where, after a very brief introduction where the player is given a text box and Mario staring out into very depths of your soul with his cold dead eyes, we learn that Boswer has (spoiler alert) kidnapped Princess Peach along with all the friends of a Dinosaur named Yoshi. Yoshi asks Mario (and Luigi(he’s there too)) to help him save his friends from Bowser and the Koopalings who have invaded Dinosaur Island.
With that the macguffin is established, and the game begins.
The “first level” of Super Mario World is Yoshi’s Island 1. Technically the player begins at Yoshi’s house on the map and can actually go straight to the second level (Yoshi’s Island 2) and potentially never play Yoshi’s Island 1. None of the levels besides the castles have much in the way of narrative depth and so if the player decides to skip a level it’s not the end of the world. I would sometimes start at Yoshi’s Island 2 just because I could, and sometimes I would only later come back to Yoshi’s Island 1 because I needed to get to the Yellow Switch Palace. This level is important however because it provides players with a perfect start to the game, and I mean perfect because Yoshi’s Island 1 exemplifies everything that players can and should expect from every level that follows it.
Here what happens.
The level opens as a shell-less Koopa rolls down a diagonal hill stopping just short a few inches away from Mario.
The game literally drops an enemy at the player’s feet and waits.
Anyone who’s ever played a videogame will immediately understand the assignment, but even to a player who is new to videogames this will almost certainly be enough visual information to trigger a response. The player can press A or B and will jump or spin -jump onto the koopa. Jumping with B will simply crush the Koopa, while pressing A will create a chirping sound with Mario leaping into the air and colliding on top of this Koopa. A firecracker pop will que, and the Koopa will literally explode.
One obstacle, er enemy down, Mario can continue.
The player will take Mario only a few steps past the diagonal hill when somewhere off screen to the right there is a dull, albeit loud explosion off-screen.
Super Mario World is a 2D scrolling platformer like Super Mario Bros, Super Mario Bros 2, and Super Mario Bros 3 before it. What this means is that as the player moves Mario across the screen more of the world will open up, enemy non-playable characters(npcs) will appear, and changes in terrain such as gaps in the floors or rising hills become visible. This colossal bang is the first time players will become aware that there is a world outside of what they can see and that new knowledge is vital because after just a few more steps a colossal black bullet with a wicked grin will propel through the air. This character’s name is Banzai Bill and he’s a larger version of the familiar Super Mario enemy Bullet Bill which are airborne torpedoes. At this point Mario is small enough the bullet will fly right over his head if he remains still, but the player can also jump on top of this bullet, and like the Koopa before it, destroy it, scoring a few points.
Just a few seconds in and the player has already learned that they options on how to interact with enemy npcs: they can jump over them, or on top of them.
That lesson becomes important in the next step.
The player only has a few more paces before yet another enemy npc shuffles forward, specifically a purple dinosaur named Rex. This enemy isn’t a great threat; he literally just shuffles slowly to the left towards Mario and can be jumped over completely. But I’d like to remind my reader that I was a little boy when I played this game for the first time so I never did that. It was (and is)far more fun, and visually thrilling to jump on top of Rex because unlike Koopas and Banzai Bills, Rex will not simply disappear. Regardless of whether Mario has grown or remains small, jumping on Rex with a “B-jump” will cause his body to, well…implode. Rex’s body will crumple inward like an accordion leaving the poor dinosaur squished and shuffling away, almost certainly calling Mario names they couldn’t include in a Nintendo game.
Butthole.
That’s what Rex would call Mario.
Always fight censorship kids.
Rex’s implosion is a fun visual gag, and I loved (and still love) replaying Yoshi’s Island 1 over and over again almost solely because it was funny crushing these Dinosaurs and watching them waddle away.
This silly presentation by itself reflects the design philosophy of Nintendo and especially Super Mario World’s designers Shigeru Miyamoto, and lead designer Takashi Tezuka. While Miyamoto is often credited everytime a new Super Mario Game is released, it’s important to remember that the man acted mostly as a producer and creative advisor on the development of the game. Tezuka actually helmed the project as lead designer over the team that would make Super Mario World.
I note as an aside if the reader is interested, Norman Caruso, a.k.a. The Videogame Historian did a wonderful documentary about the design and release of Super Mario World for his YouTube Channel and I would absolutely recommend it. It’s been a reliable resource for this essay, as well as reference for other essays I’ve written or plan to write.
Tezuka and Miyamoto are both brilliant videogame designers who have approached the world of Super Mario largely as games and products rather than art. Part of this has to do with cultural paradigms in Japanese society and business culture which is an entire topic unto itself. What’s important for this essay is that Super Mario World was designed to encourage play and inspire joy. While researching for this essay I found a translated interview on the website Shmuplations which is an archive of translated interviews with Japanese videogame designers. Published in a guidebook for Super Mario World the interview includes several notable quotes from Takashi Tezuka, Toshihiko Nakago, Hideo Konno, Koji Kondo, and Shigeru Miaymoto about the productions and design choices that went into the game. The team is asked what they want for the future of console games and Miyamoto’s response only further demonstrates the concern for design to inspire joy. He says:
Miyamoto: I want to see console games become a “destination for play” — a world that kids feel a kind of affection and attachment to, and want to return to again and again. And how awesome is it that kids have all these worlds they can visit, all inside a console and game library small enough to fit in a dresser?
Also, as a parent my eyes have been opened to something new recently. I’ve noticed that when a parent sees their child reading a book, they think that’s a good, proper thing. But sitting their children down in front of a TV to play a video game somehow makes parents feel guilty, even though games are an active experience. Why is that, I wonder? I’d like to make a game that, when a Mother sees her child playing it for the first time, she thinks, “Ah, good! My child is old enough to play video games now!”
I played a lot of Super Mario World growing up instead of going outside. I had, and still have allergies that leave me, to quote my lovely girlfriend, “terminally indoors” and the result of this was that I had to learn to entertain myself in ways different than most of the boys my age. Other boys played videogames, that’s just a fact, but they played videogames on the latest and most expensive consoles while I played the same games over and over again until I was fortunate to “upgrade” my systems at a slower pace. This came with the understanding that I didn’t talk about videogames that I played, especially around adults. What I’m getting at is that videogames remained a constant in my life and I have to admit I never really owned it. I spent hours playing videogames like Frogger, Animal Crossing, Legend of Zelda: Windwaker, Pikmin, and Super Mario World but I never talked to anyone about that because there was usually the implied understanding that videogames weren’t important media. Another way of saying that was videogames weren’t the media that was going to, “get me somewhere in life.”
Well, I’m “somewhere in life,” and that somewhere is a point where I don’t feel any sense of obligation to others for saying I’m glad I played videogames because they managed to teach me a great deal through their design, and through the sheer joy of playing them.
Stomping on Rex's head is fun. That sentence is deceptively simple, but it’s true.
This first level presents Rex Dinosaurs as a way of engaging players and getting them to recognise the joy of moving Mario across the scrolling platform. That joy also translates into desire to learn the controls of the game, specifically how best to time jumps during movement so as to create the ideal effect, in this instance stomping Rex’s head, but in later levels simply removing an enemy or else jumping on them to springboard Mario to the next available platform.
You know, it’s almost as if Super Mario World creates a Joy of Movement[LINK?].
I’ll get back to that at a later date.
For now I need to get to the last enemies, er obstacles, no wait I had it right that time.
Oh well, moving on.
Yoshi’s Island 1 is not populated solely by large iconic bullets and goofy looking dinosaurs. And because I’m me and I enjoy charts, spreadsheets, and data I’ll include the exact number of enemies in a chart below which is available on MarioWiki.
The last three enemy npcs listed (though technically it’s really only two) each offer their own challenges because they teach the player one final lesson before they walk through the final gates marking the end of the level.
The Jumping Piranha plants that leap up from the various pipes that rise up from the ground are unbeatable, or at least they are when the player is first navigating this level. Jumping on one of them the first time I learned this lesson painfully and watched tiny Mario hop up into the air, his face burning red with embarrassment(or maybe pain) before disappearing beneath the edge of my television screen. The next time I actually had a Magic Mushroom, and tried jumping onto the character Big Mario shrank (with that classic animation punctuated by the “whah-whah-whah” audio file which is burned into my neurons) and continued on his way. Later I would try a spin-jump on them, and while Mario did not shrink this time, you will have to imagine my raw fury as I watched Mario simply bounce off the villain who retreated back into its pipe seemingly unharmed.
The lesson became clear, some enemy npcs simply could not be defeated, no matter how I jumped on them.
Later I would return with a fire flower and learn that Jumping Piranha Plants only think they’re hot stuff. Fire burns even the strongest of wills and egos.
And damn if ain’t a creepy sentence.
The player by this point will be confident and learned enough to navigate the rest of Yoshi’s Island 1 without much fear of failure…until they arrive at the final test.
This last challenge arrives in the form of Chuck.
I have to be honest, this character scared the snot out of me. That’s not hyperbole on my part, Chuck legitimately filled me with terror. I suspect this first reason is because his character is designed to be loud.
First of all Chuck will often hop up and down, and his audio files for jumping are cacophonous synthesized horn blasts that would push the speakers of my parents’s television sets to their limits. Like Banzai Bill before him his loud jumps and clapping begin off screen to the right indicating to the player that some trouble lies just outside of their current vision. Despite this, approaching Chuck the first time the player will be likely instilled with a sense of confidence based on their experiences with Rex. A quick jump should be enough to dispatch whatever loud enemy this is ahead. My reader must imagine my surprise when hopping on Chuck’s sprite pure horror instantly consumed me because Chuck did not immediately perish, nor did his head implode the way Rex’s had.
Instead he shook his head, turned back to me, and began to charge.
The audio file for Chuck’s jumping and clapping was a synthesized, amelodic horn; the sound of his feet stomping into the dirt while he primed an elbow to slam into Mario became a rapid drum beat that sent my young body into heart palpitations.
To put it in perspective, the closest enemy in videogames I had encountered that inspired such similar fear to Chuck was the Angry Sun or Boss Bass from Super Mario Bros 3. After three jumps on his head, he hopped up and disappeared from the world.
Nevertheless, the damage was done, and there ended the final lesson.
Chuck’s imperviousness to attack is not solely because he’s dressed up as a baseball umpire wearing a football helmet. Looking at this character from a design perspective he becomes an important lesson and preparation for the various bosses in Super Mario World. Each “region” of Dinosaur Land has a single castle which is run and operated by one of Bowser’s children, a.k.a. The Koopalings. Apart from being some of the most distinctive npcs in the game, they are all unique for the fact that they require Mario to either stomp on their head three times, or, have Mario stomp on them to push them off platforms. The first castle on Yoshi’s Island is run by Bowser’s son Iggy Koopa and requires this exact strategy. Chuck’s place at the end of Yoshi’s Island 1 simultaneously reveals a concern for level design because of his unique resistance; he’s preparation for the bosses players will eventually have to defeat. Chuck stands in the way, a final reminder that every level of the obstacle course that is Super Mario World will find some way to challenge the player, and remind them them the challenges are only going to increase in difficulty as they progress.
Mario can defeat Chuck, or simply jump past him and pass through the gates instantly ending the level. I usually chose the latter option. It was easier, and funny sometimes because Chuck would instantly dissolve into a gold coin.
I’ve written far, far more than I originally intended to in this essay, and somehow, I still don’t believe that I’ve accurately explained and explicated Yoshi’s Island 1 enough. And, I have to be honest, I struggled to write even this much.
I’m almost certainly repeating myself at this point, but dissecting the first level of any videogame is an insightful exercise for understanding the role and importance of design. Yoshi’s Island 1 is a fun level that I’ve played over and over again, absorbing its content and lessons over the course of multiple decades. That familiarity with it frankly blinded me while I tried to write this analysis because the nostalgia for this videogame is terribly strong. What I can’t deny is that Super Mario World prepares its players almost, or even just as well as the first levels of every Mario game which preceded it.
Yoshi’s Island 1 is not listed or credited as often as it should be in videogame writing, criticism, discourse, or general content creation and I honestly can’t understand why. It’s an impressive level that deserves far more attention by creators and fans for the careful execution of choices, reactions, and lessons it can impact on players.
At this point, I honestly can't think of anything else to say or write.
I guess I’ll leave it where I started: Yoshi’s Island 1 is a perfect “first level.”
Joshua “Jammer” Smith
1.1.2025
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