It has been noticed by savvy consumers proficient in the black art of arithmetic that the new Super Mario All-Stars Limited Edition for Wii may not actually be the best deal. PC World recently advised against picking it up, noting that all four of the included classic Mario games can be purchased from the Wii Shop for a total of $21, which is $9 less than the $29.99 MSRP of the new Wii compilation. The author points out that with the money left over, you could throw in Super Mario World, which was inexplicably left out of the Wii remake, despite the fact that an alternate version of the SNES Super Mario All-Stars game also included Super Mario World, rounding out the collection with 5 games and making it an incredible value. They have a point.
That means the Super Mario All-Stars Limited Edition has the following advantages over the original (non-SMW included) SNES version and the Wii Shop downloads:
– Bonus 20-track soundtrack CD with music and sound effects by Koji Kondo
– 32-page booklet detailing history of the Mario series
– Features the same updated graphics as the SNES Super Mario All-Stars, which means this is the only way to play the updated versions on the Wii, since the versions in the Wii Shop are still the 8-bit originals (which are actually preferred by many gamers, making this more of a disadvantage than an appealing feature to some)
What do you think? Does the convenience of having all four installments of Mario’s NES exploits in a pretty Wii case with a couple bonus goodies warrant the $29.99 price tag? Or does it seem that it really wouldn’t have been that difficult to pack a few more Mario classics (say, Super Mario World 1 and/or 2) onto that ample Wii disc? Do you already have the original games and the Super Mario All-Stars SNES edition, and either way, will you be picking up the Limited Edition for Wii? Weigh in, Infendo darlings.
