Whether intentional or coincidental, Luigi’s updated sprites in the Super Mario All-Stars re-release of Super Mario World reference two common misconceptions about Mario’s sprites from the original Super Mario Bros.: spitting fireballs from his mouth and hitting blocks with his head.

In the SNES game, Mario and Luigi can not spin jump on some enemies that they can in the Game Boy Advance game, such as Boos and Podoboos. Also, in the Game Boy Advance game, Yoshi can jump off of fish enemies.

An anime re-telling of the game was produced titled Mario to Yoshi no Bouken Land (translated to Mario & Yoshi’s Adventure Land), and released exclusively in Japan in 1992 for the Bandai VHS system Terebikko. Using the fake phone device, players would interact with it when prompted to answer questions and press one of four colored buttons. The VHS animation ran for twenty-eight minutes.

In the western localization of the game, the Special World's levels are all named after 90's American surfer lingo, with the names being Gnarly, Tubular, Way Cool, Awesome, Groovy, Mondo, Outrageous, and Funky.

However in Japan the first two levels are named "Fun Course", third and fourth are named "Even the Mario Staff is Shocked Course", fifth and sixth are named "Specialists' Course", and seventh and eight are named "Championship Course". None of the shared names are even differentiated through numbers, like "Fun Course 1" or "Fun Course 2".

Among the files included in the Gigaleak, a massive 2020 content leak of internal data from Nintendo, is a tileset associated with Super Mario World depicting a Bullet Bill variant so big that it nearly occupies the entire screen. While the idea was scrapped in favor of the much smaller, but still large Banzai Bill, it would eventually be revisited in New Super Mario Bros. Wii with the King Bill enemy.

If you stare at a Boo for around 13 seconds, the Boo will make a funny face back. If you stare at a Big Boo for around 25 seconds, the Big Boo will briefly peek out from hiding in its hands to see if you are still looking.

The player can re-play a castle by simultaneously pressing the L and R buttons in the SNES game. In the Game Boy Advance game, the player cannot re-play a castle until Bowser is defeated; after Bowser is defeated, the player can then re-play the castles by entering it the same way they enter any other level.

In the SNES game, punching a Climbing Koopa awarded 100 points. In the Game Boy Advance game, this was changed to 400 points.

Points awarded in the SNES game are lower than the Game Boy Advance game for defeating Charging Chuck. Also, in the Game Boy Advance game, coins are awarded for defeating Charging Chuck with fireballs.

Yoshi turns into Blue Yoshi if he has wings when a level is completed in the SNES game. In the Game Boy Advance game, Yoshi will not change into Blue Yoshi if he has wings when completing a level.

Yoshi can spit the key out after entering a keyhole in the SNES game. This was removed from the Game Boy Advance game.

In the SNES game, when fighting Bowser, only the box with the reserve item appears at the top of the screen. In the Game Boy Advance game, the full HUD is displayed.

By holding the run button, Mario and Luigi can climb vines faster in the Game Boy Advance game.

In the SNES game, Yoshi will always produce an egg containing a mushroom when he eats ten red berries. In the Game Boy Advance version Green Yoshi will produce an egg with a mushroom, Blue Yoshi will produce an egg with a feather, Red Yoshi will produce an egg with a Fire Flower, and Yellow Yoshi will produce and egg with a Starman.

In the original SNES release of Super Mario World, Yoshi has orange arms regardless of his body color, though he has green arms on the SNES box art. In the Game Boy Advance version, Yoshi's arms are the same color as his body. This updated sprite would later be used in the Super Mario Maker games.

In the SNES game, player 1 controls Mario and player 2 controls Luigi. In the Game Boy Advance game, the player can choose to play as either Mario or Luigi by pressing the R button on the world map. Additionally, in the SNES version Luigi is an exact copy of Mario with a different color palette. In the Game Boy Advance version, Luigi was changed in several ways including:
• Luigi is taller and skinnier than Mario and more closely resembles his modern apperance. Luigi also wears blue overalls instead of his purple overalls from the SNES version.
• Luigi jumps higher, moves slower, and scuttles in mid-air much like he does in Super Mario Bros. 2 (U.S. version). He also runs slower and has worse traction than Mario.
• Luigi flies higher with his cape than Mario, but also flies slower.
• Fireballs from Fire Luigi bounce higher.
• When Luigi rides Yoshi, Yoshi doesn't instantly eat enemies; Yoshi can spit enemies out, and use some of them as weapons, but swallows them after 7-8 seconds.
• All coins will fall out of a block if Luigi hits it, whereas the coins come out one-by-one when Mario hits the same block.

In the Game Boy Advance game, earning at least 10 lives consecutively will cause a flower and the number of lives earned to scroll across the screen.

In the SNES game, the player can only save after completing certain stages or finishing any Ghost House or Fortress. In the Game Boy Advance game, the player can save inside of a course or on the world map; the Game Boy Advance game also saves the player's power-ups and life count, whereas the SNES version starts the player out as Small Mario with 5 lives each time a saved file is loaded.

In the Game Boy Advance game, different colored Yoshis can be found in question blocks on regular stages after finding each colored Yoshi on Star Road. Cape Mario/Cape Luigi can find a blue Yoshi, Fire Mario/Fire Luigi can find a red Yoshi, and Super Mario/Super Luigi and Small Mario/Small Luigi can find a yellow or green Yoshi. In the SNES game, only green Yoshis can be found in question blocks outside of Star Road and the Special World.

Ghost Houses and Fortresses do not have Dragon Coins on the SNES version, but appear in every level in the Game Boy Advance version. Because of this change, some level designs were reconfigured. The Dragon Coins will also turn into Peach Coins (after a cutscene) if all five Dragon Coins are collected in every single level in the Game Boy Advance game.