The Star Road in SMW is often referred to as that game's version of the Warp Zone, but what I've always found strange about it is that it doesn't actually function like one. When you first get access to it (usually via the Donut Secret House), you can traverse it and unlock more stages and Star Road warp points, but if you take said warp points from within the Star Road, you'll reach a dead end and will be forced to go back, only giving you a glimpse of the area they're found in, and the only way to actually use those warp points is by unlocking them from the world map itself. The one exception is the one in Valley of Bowser, which lets you go straight to the final level. Shouldn't all the other ones have allowed you do do likewise?
It's more equivalent to fast travel. You can skip to areas of the map once you've unlocked the fast travel point.
Why did they hide the lore to this place in the Japanese guide for YOSHI (the puzzle game) of all things?https://www.mariowiki.com/Gallery:Yoshi_(game)#Scans
>>12472515>you'll reach a dead end and will be forced to go back, only giving you a glimpse of the area they're found in, and the only way to actually use those warp points is by unlocking them from the world map itself.This is the best and soul way to make warp zones
Why Star world 3 is short like that?
>>12473318Tricks you into thinking you just have to run forward to the goal post, and then you get booted back to Star Road and realize you have to scroll up.
>>12472515The purpose of the warp zone in SMB1 is to make up for not having a save feature or to let you skip back ahead to where you died because no continues(if you dont know to hold A when pressing start). Super Mario World has a save feature and if you run out of lives you just go back to that save point so they didn't give you the option to skip levels, you won't have replay the entire game if you turn it off or die.
>>12472515I guess the point is to allow early access to the final stage, as opposed to a Warp Zone with broader functionality. Maybe this was done to incentivize more traditional playthroughs, so you can't just quickly warp to wherever from the beginning, while maintaining the SMB3 novelty of "did you know you can warp right to the end of the game from near the start of the game"
>>12472967Never knew about this majikant thing.Hmm, well, APE (the Itoi company) released several guide books including the SMW red and yellow ones (bless scanbro hope he's doing great).Miyamoto produced Mother, and the 5 main Mario team guys were inteviewed for the book. I can imagine it actually being a magicant reference, especially when you consider Magicant and Star World (or "Native Star", as it's called in Japan) are somewhat similar as a strange otherworld warp zone that you access through objects around the map
