The pixelated sprite of Cape Mario riding on Yoshi might be my single favorite image in all of gaming. Super Mario World was a launch title for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, which came out when I was 10 years old. That’s an impressionable age, and boy did Super Mario World make an impression on me. The rich colors popped so much harder than the NES’s limited color palette did. The backgrounds of the levels had layers, and the music was catchy and crisp, with identifiable instruments.
Super Mario World was an improvement gameplay-wise, too. Yoshi was more than a power-up: the green dinosaur was an adorable and faithful friend. And now Mario could get a cape that, if you had the skill (I had the skill), could make him fly through entire levels.
It all added up to the single greatest video game I had ever played. Over 30 years later, Super Mario World is still my all-time favorite game. Playing it feels like coming home. So when LEGO announced the Mario & Yoshi set, there was no way I was not going to build it.
The set comes in 15 numbered bags. You build the base first, followed by a vertical post that acts as the spine of the set. The post is sturdy enough to support the completed build, and it contains all sorts of socketed connection points that allow the finished product to move.
The rest of the build has you piecing together a series of panels that you’ll slot and press and snap carefully into place. Some of these panels are difficult to fit together – or difficult to see how they should fit together in the instruction book’s diagrams. It looks like a simple set from the front, but various parts are connected using rubber bands, hinges, and ball joints. That’s partially why this build is aimed at the adult age group, because it’s complicated.
These panels are also the canvas on which you’ll place the smooth, colorful, blocks that make up Mario and Yoshi's "pixels" on the front of the set. It can be challenging sometimes to tell the difference between the, for instance, three different blues that make up Mario’s overalls, but they’re labeled with numbers in the booklet, and the detailed work is well worth it – the end result looks stunning.
Occasionally in the past, I’ve been disappointed by the size of a completed LEGO set, because they've turned out smaller than I expected. That’s not a problem here – this thing stands 15.5 inches high and looks suitably large and eye-catching. The colors are bright and bold, just like in the game, and they pop right off the bricks. It’s like the designers at LEGO took that 16-bit sprite from the game and blew it up using the SNES’s amazingly futuristic Mode 7 technology.
Better yet, this Super Mario World LEGO set moves. Turning the crank on the side uses all the intricate machinery you've assembled behind the scenes to animate the whole build. Yoshi’s feet glide in a jogging motion as his body rises and falls, bringing Mario with it. His mouth opens and closes and his orange arm swings. His whole head moves back and forth slightly, in a way that looks just right for his happy gait. Meanwhile, Mario’s cape lifts gently with each stride, as if in the breeze. On the back of Yoshi’s head is a knob you can turn to make him open his mouth and stick out his tongue, just like he does in the game to gobble up fruit and enemies.
But you’re not going to be moving it most of the time, so it's good that it looks fantastic while standing still. It has a pronounced 3D aspect that the photos don't really capture, and the extra depth adds a lot to the set's "presence." This thing is eye-catching. It’s a 16-bit video game sprite come to life.
Hidden in the base is a Mario action block that you can swivel out to use. This is a block stamped with a QR-code-like design that can be read by the blocky Mario figure that comes with the LEGO Super Mario Starter Set. To make it work, you first have to update the Mario figure by connecting it via Bluetooth to the LEGO Mario app. Once that’s done, you can set Mario on the block to have his LCD display show a Super Mario World video, accompanied by the game's music. There was some noticeable video lag when I tried it, but it didn’t detract much from the overall effect.
All in all, LEGO Super Mario World: Mario & Yoshi gave me a strong dose of nostalgia as I pieced it together over several evenings. It's my favorite Nintendo LEGO set to date, and it looks so good on my desk that I’m going to leave it there for the foreseeable future. I can’t get enough of this thing.
LEGO Super Mario World: Mario & Yoshi, Set #71438, retails for $129.99, and it is composed of 1,215 pieces. It is available at Amazon and the LEGO Store.
Chris Reed is a commerce editor and deals expert for IGN. He also runs IGN's board game and LEGO coverage. You can follow him on Threads.
