This review contains spoilers
Super Mario Land 2 is one of those highly praised Mario games I hadn't played until now. Just like the other Game Boy Mario game I visited (Donkey Kong '94), I found myself enjoying my time with this game. It's short, but honestly sometimes I'm just looking for something short to blow through while still having fun. I find that the Game Boy is a great source for these kinds of games, perhaps because developers tended to want to emphasize the "Take it on the go" aspect of the Game Boy.
Admittedly, I haven't played the first Super Mario Land for more than a minute or two through a friend's copy, so I won't be mentioning that game more than a few times when talking about its sequel here. I think the core gameplay of Super Mario Land 2 is good, maybe even great. The physics are a little odd to get used to at first, mainly just because Mario's jumping feels slower and floatier than in most Mario games I've played, but once you get the hang of it Mario feels good to control. This game has a very basic platformer move-set, but hey this is classic Mario so I'm not gonna complain about that. One thing I will say is that the game does experience some occasional slowdown and screen crunch, but frankly those two quirks feel pretty much inevitable to pop up at some point with the Game Boy (although I'm no Game Boy connoisseur so take that with a pile of salt) and it was never the cause of any deaths for me. If you're really worried about it, just keep a steady slow pace and always be on the lookout for incoming enemies. Something I really like about the gameplay of Super Mario Land 2 is the way its structured. As soon as you make a save file, you get the choice of which world you want to go to in a hub area that's a bit similar to Super Mario Bros 3 and Super Mario World. With the exception of the final area, everything's available to you right out the gate, so you can finish the worlds in any order you want. Might not matter to some, but that freedom of choice is pretty nice for others. Also, the difficulty curve manages to feel pretty natural for the most part even despite the freedom to pick any world as your first. The final level definitely beat me up a few times and gave me my first (and second) game over, but I expect the final level of a game to give me a tough time and its not some kind of tough as nails platformer.
Something I want to give props to is the visual design of this game. It looks really nice for a Game Boy game, although unfortunately I wasn't able to play it in color because the 3DS never got an option to use GBC colors on GB games and I will never understand why they didn't do it. The sprites are a bit big, unfortunately, so that adds to some extra screen crunch than what would've happened if things got scaled down (kinda like what happened with Donkey Kong Land but not anywhere near as terrible). Not too big of an issue, though. I love how the worlds are so strange and goofy, there's no way we would get a Halloween themed world or a level made up of bricks that look like LEGOs in a modern 2D Mario game. One of the enemies in that Halloween world just straight up has a Jason Voorhees style hockey mask and that was so weird to see in a Mario game. Yea, some levels have more generic themes than others, but there's also some pretty creative and fun visuals here. Space Land is pretty cool, although I don't get why Mario needed to wear an astronaut suit when he can indefinitely swim underwater with no need to breathe. That world also sees the return of Tatanga, the boss of Super Mario Land...which, as far as I know, is basically the only thing that ties this game to the first Super Mario Land. Overall, some pretty memorable and cool level designs here.
Unfortunately the music is less interesting than Super Mario Land to me. The fact that pretty much every song in Land 2 is a remix of the main theme or incorporates it into the melody in some way (I'm not a music guy I don't know what they call that) is rather disappointing, especially after Land had a great soundtrack of all original tunes. They're good and serve their purpose but I can't help but feel a bit disappointed with it.
Overall, pretty good game and definitely one of the greats out of the Game Boy games I've played. I rate it a solid 4 stars.
Admittedly, I haven't played the first Super Mario Land for more than a minute or two through a friend's copy, so I won't be mentioning that game more than a few times when talking about its sequel here. I think the core gameplay of Super Mario Land 2 is good, maybe even great. The physics are a little odd to get used to at first, mainly just because Mario's jumping feels slower and floatier than in most Mario games I've played, but once you get the hang of it Mario feels good to control. This game has a very basic platformer move-set, but hey this is classic Mario so I'm not gonna complain about that. One thing I will say is that the game does experience some occasional slowdown and screen crunch, but frankly those two quirks feel pretty much inevitable to pop up at some point with the Game Boy (although I'm no Game Boy connoisseur so take that with a pile of salt) and it was never the cause of any deaths for me. If you're really worried about it, just keep a steady slow pace and always be on the lookout for incoming enemies. Something I really like about the gameplay of Super Mario Land 2 is the way its structured. As soon as you make a save file, you get the choice of which world you want to go to in a hub area that's a bit similar to Super Mario Bros 3 and Super Mario World. With the exception of the final area, everything's available to you right out the gate, so you can finish the worlds in any order you want. Might not matter to some, but that freedom of choice is pretty nice for others. Also, the difficulty curve manages to feel pretty natural for the most part even despite the freedom to pick any world as your first. The final level definitely beat me up a few times and gave me my first (and second) game over, but I expect the final level of a game to give me a tough time and its not some kind of tough as nails platformer.
Something I want to give props to is the visual design of this game. It looks really nice for a Game Boy game, although unfortunately I wasn't able to play it in color because the 3DS never got an option to use GBC colors on GB games and I will never understand why they didn't do it. The sprites are a bit big, unfortunately, so that adds to some extra screen crunch than what would've happened if things got scaled down (kinda like what happened with Donkey Kong Land but not anywhere near as terrible). Not too big of an issue, though. I love how the worlds are so strange and goofy, there's no way we would get a Halloween themed world or a level made up of bricks that look like LEGOs in a modern 2D Mario game. One of the enemies in that Halloween world just straight up has a Jason Voorhees style hockey mask and that was so weird to see in a Mario game. Yea, some levels have more generic themes than others, but there's also some pretty creative and fun visuals here. Space Land is pretty cool, although I don't get why Mario needed to wear an astronaut suit when he can indefinitely swim underwater with no need to breathe. That world also sees the return of Tatanga, the boss of Super Mario Land...which, as far as I know, is basically the only thing that ties this game to the first Super Mario Land. Overall, some pretty memorable and cool level designs here.
Unfortunately the music is less interesting than Super Mario Land to me. The fact that pretty much every song in Land 2 is a remix of the main theme or incorporates it into the melody in some way (I'm not a music guy I don't know what they call that) is rather disappointing, especially after Land had a great soundtrack of all original tunes. They're good and serve their purpose but I can't help but feel a bit disappointed with it.
Overall, pretty good game and definitely one of the greats out of the Game Boy games I've played. I rate it a solid 4 stars.