While Nintendo was never afraid of experimenting with Mario's identity, providing numerous detours in aesthetic and thematic imagery just by jumping from SMB1 to SMB3, Super Mario Land definitely earns its distinction of being "the weird one".

It interprets the plumber's magical landscape as one filled with ancient history and sci-fi cultural artifacts from our own planet that somehow feel more alien than what the Mushroom World has accustomed us to. There is definitely something very otherwordly and dreamlike about starting a level with the implication that Mario arrived on a UFO and that the enemies you will be facing are Easter Island face fellas, and the changes made to accomodate the limitations of the hardware, such as the exploding turtles and the bouncing ball power up, further elevate Super Mario Land's odd quirky vibe.

What I love the most about it though is its brevity. Low of difficulty and brisk paced, Super Mario Land is beatable under 30 minutes with little chance for game overs and with enough variety sprinkled inbetween that makes picking it up for a high score attempt highly leasurable and absolve it of the settling monotony that plagues the repeating assets and levels from SMB1. Add to that the beautifuly simplistic monochrome sprite line work and eternal earworm tunes that will never leave your head for all of your life and I'm very tempted to call it a perfect game, despite its lackluster platforming physics. A priveledged Mario that preceeds its own brand, that's pretty neat.

Try not to feel joy while listening to this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0f1I1i_t94E&ab_channel=GilvaSunner%3AArchive

Nintendo has always been overly protective of its franchises, but in a year where they made more than a billion dollars with a film that attempts little more than a barrage of "hey, recognize this from that game?"-moments for ninety minutes straight, they seem to be more occupied than ever with the recognizability of their most lucrative brand. Playing Super Mario Land against this backdrop in 2023, it feels refreshing to discover how little regard a Mario game could have had for aesthetic continuity with the rest of the series more than thirty years ago. The adventure takes place in a different kingdom after all, and that is all the justification the game needs to throw some of the weirdest combinations of settings and characters at you. In only twelve levels, Mario faces a roster of enemies that includes skeleton fish, robots, aliens, hopping tarantulas, running moai heads and zombies from Chinese folklore. What’s more, the few returning enemies like Goombas and Koopas have been considerably shrunk down in size, as if to demonstrate their diminished relevance. The fact that Koopas turn into time bombs when jumped upon could almost be seen as an act of anarchic rebellion against the conformity that most other Mario games have unfortunately succumbed to over the decades. Tellingly, the only element from Super Mario Land that stuck with the franchise is princess Daisy, but only years later in her revised form as Peach in a different flavor. Apart from that, the entirety of Sarasaland has been banned to the realm of lore that is merely mentioned in future games to give an extra talking point to the "did you know?"-gamers.

However, I would be cautious not to overestimate the audiovisual idiosyncrasy on display here. One of the core strengths of the Mario series has always been how little sense its world made. There is almost nothing tying together its different components, they simply have been shown in the same combination so frequently that it has become the most natural thing to see an Italian plumber jump against floating blocks to pick up flowers that let him shoot fire balls at walking mushrooms. And while most spin-off titles content themselves with repeating the same formular over and over again, the main series has never shied away from introducing the most outlandish new elements into the mix without ever jumping the shark. Remember the initial outcry provoked by the reveal that regular sized human beings were to be a part of Super Mario Odyssey? Somehow this appeared to be the most jarring decision in a game that later advertised itself with a literal T-Rex out of nowhere. Yet upon release, the human world New Donk City quickly became one of the most beloved levels in the whole series. Nintendo has simply gotten extraordinarily good at integrating the most disparate pieces into a coherent experience. In comparison, Super Mario Land seems less like an act of aesthetic defiance than a mixture of lack of experience with the new hardware and poor game design.

I never thought I would finish a 2D-Mario game without ever using the run button. You never need it and the change in speed is so devoid of any sense of momentum that if feels more like you accidentally pressed the speed-up button instead. The game’s version of the Fire Flower also manages to always shoot its projectile at the least useful angle. It still technically works as a platformer, but there is nothing to get excited about. Levels tend to loop the same sequence of obstacles multiple times in a row before moving on, with only minimal variation between iterations. The only "original" ideas are two of the blandest Shoot 'em up levels I have ever played. In the end, Super Mario Land neither succeeds at adapting the elements it tries to carry over from previous games, nor does it establish an interesting identity of its own.

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More Super Mario reviews
Super Mario Bros.
Super Mario Bros. Deluxe
Super Mario Bros. 3

BOMB JACK ROM HACK

The hero of videogames - our 1-UP Boy - appropriated into the world of sloppy, accidental 80s platformers. Mario can be anything, and here he proves that includes "a bit shit".

Super Mario Land plays like a joke aimed towards anyone who's ever felt something significant about a Mario game. When you get a Starman - the McGuffin of Universal Pictures' current megahit - it plays kitty kitty cancan. You idiot. You fool. They should have packed dunce caps in every box.

In territories where the NES/Famicom never really took off, this game served as many peoples' introduction to Mario, subsequently inspiring many people to either get really into Tetris or submit fanart to Sega Power of Sonic and Tails commanding a firing squad against the man. This is the game Sega thought they were up against when they made Alex Kidd.

Once you swallow the bitter medicine, get the Galaxy and World out of your head and start viewing this in the context of stupid old platformers like Dangerous Dave and B.C.'s Quest for Tyres, you can start to appreciate what Mario Land has to offer. A game with sphinxes who turn around on the spot when you run past them, and big bouncing flies. OH! DAISY

Is it any wonder that Shigeru Miyamoto personally commissioned the tie-in rap single and had the music video shot in Chessington World of Adventures? Hip Tanaka's soundtrack's a stone cold groove, man. The shift to minor chords on the third bar of 2-1 before the resolve? That's fear and romance. That's adventure. Beauty itself. What better accompaniment for jumping over firebreathing seahorses?

There's something enjoyably pathetic about the Superball. How it bounces off the ground, one step from Mario, and uselessly flies off into the air forever. Yes, it has unique utility, but those flubbed shots are very funny. The ozone layer over Sarasaland cluttered with petrol station footballs. Seeing them bounce around uselessly in the bonus rooms while the universally-recognised "look at this fucking idiot" themesong plays is grade A stuff.

The shmup levels interject themselves into the game just to reassure you there's no interest in making an actual Mario game, here. They're more welcome than SMB1's water levels, and the goatbleat sound effect when you shoot the bosses is a lot of fun.

The game feels horrible. Enemy hitboxes are fuckin' anywhere, and you drop like a rock when you let go of the d-pad. There is no chance the game would be elevated above a Sunsoft cartoon license if not for the fondness gamers have for the jumping man. It does retain a funny charm, though. Where else are you going to see Mario fight against jiangshi? All fans have to subject themselves to this 40 minute running time, and see how that distorts their impression of The Children's Hero. Nintendo are too embarassed to put this on NSO and have players compare it to Jelly Boy, and honestly, I sympathise with them. It's probably right that new audiences will have to go digging before they can play this version of Mario.

You have to, though. "There ain't no place like Super Mario Land."

A short review for a short game, Super Mario Land is more interesting as a historical artifact in being a launch title for that good ol' original Game Boy and being the first portable Mario game than as a fun gameplay experience. The biggest thing that sticks out about it is the wackiness on display that makes it feel like a successor to Super Mario Bros. 2 USA (in fact when I was younger I constantly thought Daisy came from SMB2 rather than SML due to that!), with alien UFOs as stage transportation, flying Moai Statue heads as attacks and Mario having actual shmup sections! It's a kind of playfulness outside the norm, in this case being before the norm was established in 1989, that gives it an endearing quality of its own, and there's some things that would be fun to revisit like the shmups.

The playful creativity is brought down by the game itself, which feels undeniably crunched to fit in with a still burgeoning Game Boy, with extremely simple level design and enemy placement. Combined with the much shortened length from something like Super Mario Bros. 1, Super Mario Land feels more like the start of a game than a complete showing. It isn't helped by some questionable physics and MORE questionable hitbox detection. It's no Castlevania: The Adventure, but difficulty judging sprite hitboxes and with the run button were the main reason I died in an otherwise very easy game. It's very easy to overshoot when running due to Mario's overly tuned acceleration, but Mario's actual air mobility is limited and momentum is barely preserved, so if you try to weave back you're liable to fall like a rock. I also repeatedly ran into the issue of the game not registering my jump input if I tried to jump TOO soon after starting a run, which was annoying.

On the plus side, the game's very generous lives system thanks to a pretty easy minigame means too much game overing isn't an issue. The game's checkpoint system is bizarrely flawed, but it isn't frustrating since it is flawed in the player's favor: Multiple times I died and then the game put me on a checkpoint further in the game, causing me to end up "skipping" small parts. The graphics are super simple, although I kinda dig Mario's sprite along with some like the adorable 8-bit jumping spider, but the soundtrack is actually kinda fire. Pretty bouncy tunes.

Overall, though, Super Mario Land is a mildly enjoyable and obviously flawed look into the past of the series, it's genuinely fascinating to see what Gunpei Yokoi and company thought was critical to keep or not keep in such a limited form of a Mario game. Mushrooms and Goombas? Critical. But fire flowers and how Koopas work? Exchangable. It's super short, an hour or less if you don't game over, so check it out if it looks vaguely interesting and don't sweat it if it doesn't.

I've had a hankering to try the Wario Land games, and figured I'd build towards the "Super Mario Land 3" aspect of that first Wario Land by replaying its predecessors. Crazy to think that this deranged little thing was all the Super Mario there was on a handheld for a while. It resembles Super Mario Bros. enough that you think you know how it works, but everything's just a bit off... Play it and you'll see what I mean. It took me about 45-minutes to beat and it's not exactly mind-blowing, but it's got a personality all its own, so I'd say that's 45-minutes well-spent.

I'm replaying some GB games for ranking, and this game isn't great. The physics and momentum feel off, and the platforming is some of the most stress enducing i've experienced. It doesnt have a good flow, as there are times where I had to play without run button held so i don't fall off. due to strange acceleration. Unlike Super Mario Bros. games on NES, where you can hold run and, well, run though the levels without any issues as they have great flow and the levels are mindful of the player's capabilities. For this game however, you're likely to die in a pit trying to land on a moving platform with stiff midair controls. Even the first Super Mario Bros. game has better physics. Sure, that one also has stiff controls, but at least the momentum and gravity are predictable, while in this game, you gain high speed the instant you hold a direction with run button held. I managed to accidentally fall into a pit a few times due to this. This game isn't bad, it's actually pretty short and has decent music, but I'd rather play any other Mario game over this.

This kind of feels like you’re playing a secret unlicensed knockoff Mario game by a really talented third party developer. Everything is technically here but it just doesn’t have quite the right vibes? The jump feels good but it’s not a MARIO jump. The music is top of the pop but it’s not MARIO music. The enemy designs are sick but they’re not MARIO enemies, or when they are they’re like fucked up weirdo Mario enemies, like turtle shells turning into timed explosives instead of projectiles. There’s a distinct sense of actual geography to the level progression in this game as you track through obvious recreations of real life Africa and Asia. Worlds end in rail shooter levels, and this is the final boss as well?

And all of this stuff fucking slaps this game was made by some of the all time great Nintendo legends and it shows but it’s interesting to compare its unique vibe to that of its sequel, which is a slavish recreation of the look and feel of Super Mario World, or as close as you could match that on a Gameboy.

My dad’s side of the family has an annual reunion on Christmas Eve and I occupy a weird position in the family timeline as the youngest son of the youngest son where I’m a generation younger than my next-oldest brother and cousins but a generation older than my next-youngest, so as a kid I often spent these parties in a corner somewhere on a Gameboy, and I very distinctly remember the year that I finally beat this game for the first time, and upon realizing that the game was extremely short and the only one I had brought that evening, just played it over and over and over (we would be at my aunt’s house from like 5 to 11 PM) until I was beating it in what I have today realized was times rivalling modern world record speedruns. I did not do that today but I did have a blast running through it. My fingers remembered exactly what to do, all the little nooks and crannies you can force Mario into, the secret blocks.

Feels good to revisit, but even if it was my first time I’m pretty sure I would still think this game was sick.

Super Mario Land ain't no ordinary Mario game. It's a wacky what-if scenario where Mario's girlfriend is a brunette and the land is crawling with demented sphinxes, meatball throwing moais run amuck from Gradius and a last stage that takes place in some Chinese-esque locale complete with mildly-racist chopsticks music.

The jumping is probably slightly fucked, but I wouldn't know because I played this game so many times that the "Battletoads-Double Dragon" effect is probably kicking in where I can't actually tell what the shitty things are. Well, besides the dumbass bouncy ball that Mario gets in this game, that thing sucks. I really like how when you kill the bigger enemies they get knocked motionless, and their corpses make a buzz sound and leap into the bottom of the screen, probably going straight to hell I'd assume. I wish it was like that in real life. The shmup stages fuckin' rule, they're the highlight of the game even if it's baby's basic bitch patterns, I seriously don't care. It's fun.

By the way, they're called "Goombos" and "Bullet Biffs", totally different. smh, not knowing lore of Mario Land on Game Boy. tsk tsk. You're allowed to mildly dislike the game due to physics and it's short length, but if you slander the music you're inviting a bonk on the head. No exceptions.

Anxiously awaiting the day crazy running moai guy makes it into Mario Kart.

So for a long time I kind of refused to play the GB games because, I'm gonna be so real, the idea of a platforming game on a GameBoy sounded miserable to me. I mean, the GB is already on par with the NES, and I only like one platforming game on NES, Super Mario Bros. 3. Note how that means I don't like Super Mario Bros. or Super Mario Bros. 2.

That being said, recently I decided, why not? I'll try it out a bit. I didn't expect to finish the game, much less actually enjoy it. My preconceived notions were wrong. Don't get me wrong, I still wouldn't prefer to play this game, especially not in 2024 where I can not only play Super Mario Bros. 3 in three different forms on multiple handhelds, but I can play Super Mario Bros. Wonder on the go. But for what this game is, its fun. The controls are surprisingly good, the gamefeel is even more surprisingly good. This honestly feels better to me than the first two Super Mario Bros. games on the NES. Really, there's nothing to fault it that isn't just a symptom of it being a GameBoy game.

To be clear, it isn't joining the ranks of Super Mario Bros. 3 and Super Mario Bros. Wonder as "the 2D Mario games I actually like", but I did not have a bad time playing it.

~ 3DS Homebrew Journey - Game 11 ~

The whole reason as to why I started playing this old-fart of a game in the first place was thanks to AutomaticPause’s video “Wario Land Series Retrospective” (2022), which is a very enjoyable 3h+ in-depth video about pretty much everything revolving our favorite nose-picking, motorcycle riding, chunky Mario wannabe — Wario, and his Wario Land series. So what does Wario have to do with Super Mario Land one might ask? Well, the third instalment in the series was weirdly named: Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3 (1994). This makes it the third instalment of the Super Mario Land series but also the first of the brand new Wario Land series. As someone who has recently been playing a lot of WarioWare have I grown to really like the guy. I wanted to give Wario Land a shot, but also Super Mario Land. So instead of just jumping into the third Mario Land, I thought I’d start from the top with Super Mario Land(1989)

I heard people talking about platforming being floaty. What. Are. They. Talking. Bout. ? I mean, a little float, but it’s barely noticeable. I guess I was too busy being mesmerised by the soundtrack. Which evolved into this. Thanks @lasagnaloverleo for bringing it to my attention. Aside from those bangers, when receiving a star power-up you don’t get the iconic Star Theme but instead this, which I think is a sample from the classical masterpiece Infernal Galop, which is odd but fun. It took me less time to beat the game than to write this review, so not much bang for the buck if one bought the game back when it was released. It has some simple yet somewhat challenging platforming with no Mega Man bullshit platforming. It strikes a good balance, including its world themes. The auto-sidescrolling plane sections are great and a good way to implement some variety — something most other 2D Mario games lack. The final boss being a plane section was also a really good way to end things. It sure isn’t the prettiest game but it gets the job done and then some. The zoomed-out view making everything look a little smaller may make for some more challenging platforming, as it is harder to see but it also gives the game a picturesque and unique feel, unlike any other 2D Mario.

they can put him in a World, but first they have to put him on a Land

Super Mario Land feels like a Super Mario Bros. from another timeline, a lot of the staples you’d expect from a 2D Mario are either not here or done very differently. there’s no Mushroom Kingdom, Bowser isn’t here, and Mario is rescuing the princess of Sarasaland “Daisy” for a change of pace. I’m guessing there was a brief moment in time where Mario lost interest in Peach and instead sought out to gain Daisy’s affection instead and I don’t blame him Daisy’s waaaaay better haha

did I tell you how weird this game is? the Koopas explode after you jump on them, the Flower power up lets you throw bouncing bowling balls, there’s sentient moai head enemies, the villain is some purple alien dude who you fight in a horizontal shmup, the Star theme is the god damn CAN CAN, what the HELL were R&D1 taking when they were making this game and where can I get that stuff

Sarasaland kinda kicks ass when you think about it. not only is each Kingdom based on real life locations such as Bermuda and Easter Island, but each Kingdom is also associated with the four elements. Birabuto is Fire, Muda is Water, Easton is Earth, and Chai is Air. there’s a good chance that the element thing is unintentional but I don’t care, I still think that’s pretty cool. not revisiting Sarasaland feels like one of the biggest missed opportunities this franchise has taken, I feel like it couldn’t hurt for a new 2D Mario game to do just that. not only would we be able to visit more fleshed out versions of the Kingdoms, but maybe there’s another four Kingdoms that we might not have known about, expand the world building of this place that’d be neat. I don’t know, maybe there’s some Super Mario World hack that does just that and it’s slipped past my radar.

I used to think Super Mario Land was just “Mario but he take place in the desert!!!” but nah it’s more than that. there’s only twelve levels with three for each world, but I have to say they really did their best to make sure you’re getting a memorable experience out of this. somehow this goofy ass Game Boy launch title with simplistic graphics has more soul than a majority of the Mario games that are released nowadays, how did we get to this point? oh yeah the game’s fun btw. the ladders at the bonus stages are cool; they remind me of Donkey Kong.

I like Donkey Kong

A surprisingly remarkable and interesting adventure to look at.

The "surprisingly" might shock some people single the game on the matter is Super Mario, the franchise well-known for marking billions of childhoods across the globe and remain today just as influent. But to me, the Mario platformers never did as much as to entertain me... with the exception of the Super Mario Land series; There's just something in these games that prevents me from feeling bored as it's usually the case with any Mario game. Even though it's Mario, this game has something jammed in its very core that makes it interesting. I'm talking about a simple yet exotic adventure, giving life to the iconic Gameboy. There are two ways to face a game as old as Super Mario Land: take its era in consideration and think about its legacy or just put it on a modern context and avail if the game is worth checking out nowadays, and I certainly pick the second choice.

That being said, it's hard to talk about Mario without mentioning its legendary legacy. Many games I love wouldn't exist if it weren't for Super Mario. Nintendo always brings something related to Mario as a launch title and this is the living proof of its influence, its developers know mighty well of the titan they hold in their hands. And as a launch title for the Gameboy, a handheld that sacrifices hardware for the convenience of being a handheld, Super Mario Land adopts different design philosophies than its predecessors; while Super Mario Bros. 3 and Super Mario World expanded exponentially upon the previous games while remaining considerably consistent to a somewhat stablished formula, Mario Land essentially took the opposite way. In black and white and with graphics comparable to those of the early NES era, this is an exotic game that in a few hours restructured the formula created in Super Mario Bros. so that it could fit in a less powerful hardware. Just like the Gameboy itself, Super Mario Land essentially sacrificed size for creativity, sometimes barely feeling like a Mario game.

A change illustrated in its different scenario, Super Mario Land is no longer settled in the Mushroom Kingdom but instead in Sarasa Land, with new stages, new enemies, new bosses and even a new princess, Daisy, whose kidnapper is not your usual Bowser, but an alien, Tatanga. From the very moment the player sets foot in Sarasa Land the game explicitly tells that this is going to be very different from Mario's previous adventures.

Said change is also present in its soundtrack, that even though when compared to Koji Kondo's legendary work in the Super Mario Bros. series it is - in my opinion - less iconic and possesses less depth, I believe they do win when it comes to originality. Every song has an unique tone to it, bringing an extra layer to each stage and enrich the journey as a whole. Even though I'd much rather to have each overworld theme as "world exclusive" and not randomly distributed as them seem to be, the sound design took the major role on making this game so memorable to me, specially the touch of genius that was the ending theme; the final moments of Super Mario Land are the most vivid memories I had when I first played it, starting with the relatively smooth and sad melody of "Princess Daisy", that played every time you seemed to have found her just to find out it was an enemy in disguise, but this time it is different, she was indeed Princess Daisy and the "sadness" from her theme is now not about the fact that you didn't save her, but that your mission, just as your adventure, is over, a feeling cut off short almost immediately by a radiant song that scales with the airplane that Mario pilots with Daisy in sight, flying towards the credits' direction. This, with no hint of doubt, is one of the most memorable moments I had with the Gameboy, showing its potential in an exquisite manner.

And for all the weirdness in the level design, while I see the argument that some overworld themes fall under the stereotype side of the regions it's inspired by, songs such as Ruins and Chai Kingdom are so distinct from on another I can't help but to think they are undeniably effective, I truly feel I'm traveling throughout a Land and making progress on my quest.

I was never fond of the NES archaic controls, and even though that unlike Super Mario Bros. 3, Mario Land's controls don't give me actual aneurysm, they are still so stiff and clunky they make it for a huge handicap for me to truly appreciate the game; the inflexible and outdated controls probably weren't such big deal back then and maybe even a improvement from NES games, however the feeling of moving around the stages is awful nonetheless, really giving away this game's age. Falling off a cliff or on the water for the lack of control adaptation is frustrating. Super Mario Land is not a difficult game, but since it's so short it simply lacks a save feature, so upon getting a game over one would have to start from the beginning, something I'm really not fond of, specially if it happens close to the end of the game. Even though it's a short game, losing an entire hour still means a lost hour. So for games like this, the only way for me to get some enjoyment out of it would be to utilize the spoils of modernity, save stating at the beginning of each level, at least this way, the punishment doesn't literally take me away from the game. Call me unfair, but this kind of feature is comparable to nowadays' Roguelikes, a genre where each death also means starting from the beginning and redo each level again and again to the point where you naturally master them, Super Mario Land doesn't do it because it's meant to be mastered like that, but because it lacks content and this is how it "makes up" for it. It doesn't come as a surprise that these games come with an official save state feature on the Wii U and the 3DS. I find its control scheme to be rather obsolete and as much as I wouldn't necessarily call the save system flawed, I'd still say it's something to be aware of before deciding whether to try it out or not.

Super Mario Land is assuredly a simple game, yet its creativity, diversity and short duration make the game more accessible and interesting for what it's worth. To those willing to forgive its limitations or just enjoy old school games and would see these things as strengths, Super Mario Land equals an hour or two of laughter and fun. Since at the end of the day, as weird as it is, Super Mario Land is still a Mario game.
As for myself, facing such temporal barriers added to the simplistic nature of the game were too much of a deal breaker to me and its qualities weren't as effective.

As the very first handheld Mario game, it does a pretty decent job at bringing the classic gameplay onto a simple Game Boy. Sure, it may not be the most jam-packed entry in the series, and it is very weird, but it still provides a decent amount of fun for the most part.

The story is... well, what do you think?, the gameplay is fun enough, the controls are fine except for your momentum, which makes you go from 0 to 100 in a split second, the music is simple yet catchy, the variety in gameplay, while there isn't much, is nice to see, the boss fights are incredibly easy, and speaking of easy, this game is VERY easy once you get a hang of it.

Out of all of this though, my one big complaint about this game is that it is WAY too short. It only has 4 worlds with 4 levels a piece, and you can beat every single one in about 30 minutes if you are good enough. I know it is a very early Game Boy game, so I can't complain about this too much, but it is still a bummer.

Overall, it is a neat little time waste, and there are definitely worse options in terms of platformers on the Game Boy.

Oh yeah, this game also introduced Daisy. That's also pretty cool.

Game #7

more than anything, i appreciate this era of mario for being a weird middle-ground in which what mario WAS as a game was being established, but at the same time the identity of the series from an aesthetic point of view was very much up in the air. hell, mario madness/2 usa is one of my favorite entries in the series thanks in no small part to its oddball approach and surreal atmosphere which helped define something of a counter-standard in mario which a few titles - such as this game and its sequels - would find a family with.

here's the issue: super mario land is a slog to play, which given the length of the title, is a huge blow considering that's the entire point. much as i love the score, and sarasaland as a location, and the weird superball power-up in theory, an hour long platformer that plays with extreme jank and disconnect in control can't run off vibes like that alone. and the gameboy was capable of some really great platformers, too, so it's not system limitations coming into play - in fact, i'd call the sequels system highlights and strongly recommend them in place of this first entry.

today, super mario land is something of a historical bauble with influences touching the modern entries such as mario maker 2 and odyssey, but as a game itself... it's not much to write home about. if you're looking for a gameboy minimalist platformer you can beat in an hour or less, i'd be way more inclined to recommend you kirby's dreamland.

O melhor: Boa variedade de inimigos e cenários pela curta duração
O pior: Lamentável o downgrade de apenas um tiro por tela com a Fire Flower Superball
Covardes: Tragam as fases Shmup de volta!

Como o primeiro jogo da série para o Game Boy, é notável o quão cedo Super Mario Land deixa de ser tão familiar ao primeiro jogo de NES. Talvez no momento em que uma música "Can Can" começa a tocar quando se obtém a estrela de invencibilidade, ou quando um Koopa simplesmente explode quando se pula em cima dele. O melhor desse jogo pra mim é o quanto ele não se prendeu tanto assim aos temas daquele que é um dos jogos mais importantes da história.

É um jogo bem curto, apenas 12 fases divididas em 4 mundos, mas cada mundo traz cenários e inimigos únicos, além de uma música que combina bem com o tema da fase. Algumas fases apresentam um level design mais interessante até do que o SMB original, mas infelizmente o jogo acaba cedo demais para explorar algo realmente marcante. De todo modo, é uma recomendação fácil pelo tanto de coisa que ele apresenta em 1 hora, em um cartucho de Game Boy de 1989.