I love this thread, it's rare to hear about someone playing SMW for the first time these days(atleast in my circles it is).

Anyway, Have fun with Tubular.

The special levels are fairly difficult, aside from that the game is pretty easy. Lost levels is the only difficult game in the franchise.

No, Super Mario World isn't super-difficult. There are certainly levels that are more challenging than others, but the first level should be fairly easy. If you've never played a classic 2D Mario game, just keep at it, get used to the controls, and it should make sense. As others have mentioned, make sure you're running. If you're trying to walk through a level, you're going to have a bad time. You don't have to bring Yoshi to the end of the level. You don't have to kill every enemy or get every coin. Just get to the end of the level without dying.

this thread is something I'd never expect to see. fascinating!

an hour and a half is an especially long time to take to get used to its controls, but then again my first experience with Super Mario World was 20 years ago, so...

its controls have always felt extremely intuitive and so good, especially compared to the NSMB entries. take a look at @wraithtek's manual image--maybe you're missing something key like running, as mentioned before.

or your HDTV is somehow introducing a bunch of latency. I've never tried using an SNES on an HDTV, but I can say that the virtual console version plays just right.

or you're real bad at learning mechanics implicitly (and exploring your controller). If you're talking about the first level, Yoshi's Island 1 (to the left of the yoshi house, blue background), it'll teach you real quick on how the game works.

i'm gonna have to pop a cap in your ass here, sir

newer mario games (with the exception of sunshine which is just okay) are fantastic and don't you dare insult the things i like!

This is why people complain about new games coddling us. SMW wasn't even really as hard as other games of the era but it still expects way more of the average player than modern games. That's horrific. I remember when repetitious failures were a part of the experience, and not just something to blame the game for. I sound like an old man.

@laxbro19: I thought this game WAS relatively a "nice ride in the park". Granted, I played it a lot as a kid, but could never figure out the secret exit in Choco Mts. (so close!) and it took a while before I beat SMW for good. Though, I never found it as punishingly hard as you say. It GETS that hard, sure, but I certainly never thought this to be the case in the early game.

Using dark souls as a generic term for hard is getting really old.

And no, the first level is not hard....

Games of that era are harder than most modern games. I bet you'll get used to it though.

Gonna be honest...I don't know what it is but I find Super Mario World really really hard...like a stand out amongst the 2D Mario games...

Played and beat Super Mario World on an HDTV in a single day within the past six months or so. Wasn't that hard - you may just need to get your platforming legs back under you. Still the best Mario game out there, though!

I am also 21.

I just want to clarify that not all 21-year-olds can't play Super Mario World. It's one of my favorite games of all time.

To address the actual post:

It's not that hard. I'd say the first time you can really call a level "difficult" in that game is after beating the third castle, and even then, not really. You clearly just need to get more of a feel for the controls, and if you're a regular game-player, I'm sure you'll get the hang of it eventually.

And, like has been said before, never take your finger off the run button. Jumping should be considered pushing the bottom half of your thumb against the jump button rather than the moving of your thumb from one button to another. Once you run and jump around enough and have an actual feel for it, you won't die again until at least the first castle, and then probably not again until the first auto-scrolling stage.

Really, it's just a matter of figuring out the physics. Once you do that, you'll find that the game is actually pretty balanced and well-paced as far as games go. It's in fact one of the most well-paced video games of all-time.

Old school mario games are hard, well at least at first. When I first played world and 3, they kicked my ass. I remember growing up when my sister first got to the desert world in Mario 3; we didn't want to turn off the NES cause it was nearly impossible for us to get that far. But now I've played them so many times that they seem real easy. So yea, they are tough. But you get used to the controls and physics.

Since nobody has mentioned this yet, I figured I mise well put in my two cents.

Seems like patience is the bulk of your issue here. The fact that your first reaction to failure was to come to a forum and compare the game the to dark souls in an attempt to make yourself feel better about said failure, makes me wonder how much time you actually spent with the game.

As somebody that is your age I can relate with these games not feeling like 'second nature', but with a little concentration it shouldn't be too hard for you to get it to start clicking.

I'd say it's a good "tough" though for the most part; the only thing that sucks is that you have lives...if you run out of lives in a level, you may be tediously set back a few you've already beaten. Other than that, it's probably the best side-scrolling Mario.