Super Mario 2009: The Stars Story

Mushroom Kingdom has a hard time staying peaceful for too long, given all the disasters that hit it on a regular basis. Hence, whenever a new Super Mario clone comes out, it must also feature a conflict of sorts, otherwise the action doesn’t make any sense. After so many years, it’s no wonder that the plots feature ridiculous premises, especially in the case of indie productions.

Super Mario 2009: The Stars Story is about as classic as it can get from a gameplay point of view, because it tries to emulate the original titles as close as possible. Hence, the mechanics are almost the same and any fan of the initial release should feel right at home in this spin-off as well. On the other hand, repetition can also get boring, especially if there’s nothing new to catch your attention.

The story starts with the Shroobs invading the Mushroom Kingdom yet again after Bowser finds a way to reopen a black hole. Naturally, Mario must protect the land once more and save Princess Peach, who got kidnapped for the second time. However, the in-game goal is to collect a certain number of stars, which are spread across the levels in hard-to-reach places.

As previously mentioned, the gameplay is as classic as possible, which means that your primary purpose is to avoid the plethora of Koompas and Goombas that try to make your progress more difficult. Eating mushrooms helps Mario grow, while the flowers allow him to use fireballs to deal with the enemies. Collecting one hundred coins rewards you with an additional life, which surely comes in handy.

From a technical point of view, the game looks very classic and retro, although it can run in fullscreen mode at wide resolutions. In essence, the same kind of graphics as in the classic Nintendo releases was used, with minimal improvements. However, it should work wonders for the nostalgic among you, because the level design is quite nice and effective.

Super Mario 2009: The Stars Story may not be worthy of a prize, but it did quite well for itself, considering the fact that it’s an indie production. Hence, if you are aching for some Nintendo classics, this may very well do the trick, given the good level design and the nice graphics.