A meta-game of sorts for the
Super Nintendo Entertainment System (
SNES) that combined four full-sized
Mario games onto one
cartridge:
Super Mario Brothers (1985)
Super Mario Brothers 2: The Lost Levels
(1986, originally released only in Japan, but introduced later in America with this cartridge)
Super Mario Brothers 2 (1988, not released in Japan)
Super Mario Brothers 3 (1990)
Originally, all these games were on the NES platform. In 1993, Nintendo decided to publish all the games again for the SNES.
Not only were the original games re-released in their entirety, but the graphics were improved, the sound polished, and saving features added--all thanks to the technological improvements of the SNES!
Some may say that the modified versions of these classic games diminish the simplicity and beauty of the originals. This may be correct to a point (especially in SMB3). However, applying SNES technologies also exhanced the original designs somewhat. Nintendo even left many of the bugs of the originals in All-Stars just to make old-timers feel at home!
When the SNES first came out in late 1990, Nintendo included Super Mario World with all systems. After the initial release of All-Stars in 1993, Nintendo bundled the NES games onto one cartridge with SMW so that new owners of the SNES could experience Mario World (with its incredible graphics and design) along with the newer All-Stars. By doing this, Nintendo advertised a game that exploited the power of the SNES as well as a game that offered many hours of gameplay nirvana. This way, Nintendo offered a better buy over competitor Sega's Genesis platform. However, Nintendo decided to call this new cartridge All-Stars as well, leading to some confusion. Namely mine... ;)