Uploaded March 2019 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
Super Starioland was made by Top Byte Software in 1995 exclusively for the ST, despite there being rumours about a Jaguar version of the game, I'd imagine that that died when the Jaguar met its death in 1996. I'm not sure what the plot is supposed to be as I don't believe it received a boxed release and thus I do not have a manual on it. But since it is an obvious rip off of the Mario series one can only presume that we are saving the princess from an evil fire breathing reptile. It’s worth noting that there are two different versions of this game, a standard build and a 1MB version, but I couldn’t tell you what the difference between the two is.
I think that everyone and their dog is familiar with a Super Mario game by this point, you run from left to right, trying to get to the end of the level. Unlike those Nintendo titles you cannot go down the pipes on any of the levels, there's no hidden or secret areas that I know of and there's also a distinct lack of end bosses (I don't consider an 'enemy rush' an appropriate replacement for a real boss battle). Stario's main form of attack is of course stomping on enemies, but he can also pick up potions to make himself grow larger in order to survive an additional enemy hit and another potion give s him the ability to fling fireballs. I did notice that these power up drops seem to be rather infrequent in the later levels, but that's just a minor quibble on the level design, there's a more obvious problem that I will go into later.
Visually the sprites are fairly small and simple, but everything is animated really well with some good designs of the enemies even if they repeat a little too often for my liking. It generally plays very smoothly. My major complaint is the music where you are once again given the option of either music or sound effects and that music isn't great.
Controls wise it plays well with the joystick with it feeling very similarly to Nintendo's franchise as you'd probably expect by now. In terms of difficulty it is quite a bit harder than the average Mario game simply because it seems to drop the power ups a lot less which leaves you much more vulnerable, particularly during the levels with those bloody flying fish, if you can't get through first time then you are screwed as it ends up being a die with one hit experience. There are some levels where there is only one power up, or sometimes none which means that you have to be point perfect, it gets really difficult in the later levels because of this.
The other major problem with this game is the level design itself. The stages seem to generate randomly using set configuration of blocks, what this means is that you can often be playing a level and see the same platform and enemy pattern three times giving the impression that you are simply going round and round in circles and not progressing. Maybe this was done to conserve disk space but it just gives the impression that the levels haven't been properly designed but a mishap of level assets. It certainly makes the levels feel less memorable and repetitive than a platformer where someone has taken time to properly design the pitfalls and traps. It’s also a pretty linear game, there’s no warp wipes to go down as far as I know, all the pipes are just there for show and I don’t think that there are any secret areas.
Despite being an obvious rip-off and not as good as the NES classic, although saying that looking at the level structure I suspect that it was based off of Super Mario Land on the Game Boy. Whilst it does look nicer than that Game Boy game, the level design and music makes it feel worse than what it should be. Super Starioland however does still have some decent game play and is a platformer well worth picking up although there are better examples on the ST such as Magic Pockets or Rolling Ronny.
If you're interested in seeing more retro or current game videos then feel free to subscribe or check out some of my playlists:
Atari ST: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfzF1WNCk2yjFs9SNEZUf6o3
Sega Mega Drive: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfzY6iR6W6cRsFRt7zUlgHIE
Sega Master System: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfySbjh71hXweL28cqu-DbR5
Windows PC: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfxkkqPP6dWcSarH94BPrbvr
Super Starioland was made by Top Byte Software in 1995 exclusively for the ST, despite there being rumours about a Jaguar version of the game, I'd imagine that that died when the Jaguar met its death in 1996. I'm not sure what the plot is supposed to be as I don't believe it received a boxed release and thus I do not have a manual on it. But since it is an obvious rip off of the Mario series one can only presume that we are saving the princess from an evil fire breathing reptile. It’s worth noting that there are two different versions of this game, a standard build and a 1MB version, but I couldn’t tell you what the difference between the two is.
I think that everyone and their dog is familiar with a Super Mario game by this point, you run from left to right, trying to get to the end of the level. Unlike those Nintendo titles you cannot go down the pipes on any of the levels, there's no hidden or secret areas that I know of and there's also a distinct lack of end bosses (I don't consider an 'enemy rush' an appropriate replacement for a real boss battle). Stario's main form of attack is of course stomping on enemies, but he can also pick up potions to make himself grow larger in order to survive an additional enemy hit and another potion give s him the ability to fling fireballs. I did notice that these power up drops seem to be rather infrequent in the later levels, but that's just a minor quibble on the level design, there's a more obvious problem that I will go into later.
Visually the sprites are fairly small and simple, but everything is animated really well with some good designs of the enemies even if they repeat a little too often for my liking. It generally plays very smoothly. My major complaint is the music where you are once again given the option of either music or sound effects and that music isn't great.
Controls wise it plays well with the joystick with it feeling very similarly to Nintendo's franchise as you'd probably expect by now. In terms of difficulty it is quite a bit harder than the average Mario game simply because it seems to drop the power ups a lot less which leaves you much more vulnerable, particularly during the levels with those bloody flying fish, if you can't get through first time then you are screwed as it ends up being a die with one hit experience. There are some levels where there is only one power up, or sometimes none which means that you have to be point perfect, it gets really difficult in the later levels because of this.
The other major problem with this game is the level design itself. The stages seem to generate randomly using set configuration of blocks, what this means is that you can often be playing a level and see the same platform and enemy pattern three times giving the impression that you are simply going round and round in circles and not progressing. Maybe this was done to conserve disk space but it just gives the impression that the levels haven't been properly designed but a mishap of level assets. It certainly makes the levels feel less memorable and repetitive than a platformer where someone has taken time to properly design the pitfalls and traps. It’s also a pretty linear game, there’s no warp wipes to go down as far as I know, all the pipes are just there for show and I don’t think that there are any secret areas.
Despite being an obvious rip-off and not as good as the NES classic, although saying that looking at the level structure I suspect that it was based off of Super Mario Land on the Game Boy. Whilst it does look nicer than that Game Boy game, the level design and music makes it feel worse than what it should be. Super Starioland however does still have some decent game play and is a platformer well worth picking up although there are better examples on the ST such as Magic Pockets or Rolling Ronny.
If you're interested in seeing more retro or current game videos then feel free to subscribe or check out some of my playlists:
Atari ST: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfzF1WNCk2yjFs9SNEZUf6o3
Sega Mega Drive: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfzY6iR6W6cRsFRt7zUlgHIE
Sega Master System: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfySbjh71hXweL28cqu-DbR5
Windows PC: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfxkkqPP6dWcSarH94BPrbvr
