Released in 1989 and developed by Nintendo, even though it wasn't necessarily the first Gameboy game, it was certainly the most iconic of its launch. A game from Nintendo's most famous series at the launch of the console represented a huge selling point, and indeed, Super Mario Land was one of the best-selling games on the original Gameboy, and is still one of the best-remembered to this day.

It's a game with a real story, albeit a simple one because it's an old Mario story. In this game, Mario has the mission of saving Princess Daisy, in her first appearance in the franchise, and the inhabitants of Sarasaland from Tatanga, the little villain on the ship. Sarasaland is a very different world from the standard Mushroom Kingdom in Mario games, with each stage based on a real-world location, and the enemies, although similar to the originals, are different versions, such as the Goombo instead of the Goomba.

Another notable difference is in the gameplay, where the classic fire flower has been replaced by the Superball Flower, which launches balls that bounce off walls, adding an interesting but sometimes problematic dynamic when you get stuck in a loop.

In addition, the game features spaceship stages, where you control a submarine called Marine Pop and an airplane called Sky Pop, providing an experience similar to a shooting game. The Sky Pop stage is particularly challenging, almost like bullet hell, but with hellish birds instead of bullets.

Returning to the story, to save Daisy, Mario must travel and conquer all four kingdoms present here, Birabuto Kingdom, a desert kingdom based on ancient Egypt, Muda Kingdom, a water kingdom, Easton Kingdom, a kingdom partly based on Easter Island, and Chai Kingdom, a kingdom inspired by mythical ancient China, this last one I can also call INFERNO, because my god what a difficult business, the enemies are positioned in a way that was either completely deliberate to make it difficult, or it was a very poorly thought out level design, every two steps you take an enemy from beyond appears to kill you.

At the end of each kingdom you meet Daisy and she's actually an enemy in disguise, every time...

At the end, after the Sky Pop stage mentioned earlier, you defeat Tatanga in his armed airship, the Pagosu. After defeating him, Mario finally rescues the real Daisy, and the two of them set off together in a spaceship.

That's the basic story of the game. Although it's simple, it's good to have a narrative attached to the game, as it makes things less random, although they are still quite random.

I don't know why they made all these changes, perhaps to innovate or attract attention, but perhaps it wasn't the attention they wanted. Although it sold very well, being the console's fourth best-selling game, the game was heavily criticized in reviews at the time for its graphics, which were too ambitious for the power of the Game Boy, which is understandable, and for its length, which was considered too short, and I disagree with this last point.

Yes, the game is short, but I think that's an advantage, firstly because I'm not the biggest advocate of "length = quality". Besides, I think the greatest quality of this game is its brevity. It's possible to finish it in less than an hour if you play well, and I think this was an important quality for Game Boy games, especially in the early days when it was convenient to be able to play for short periods of time during the day.

The main negative point for me is the gameplay, specifically Mario's movement. They've implemented a kind of momentum on him, so that when you stop pressing the direction button, he keeps moving a little until he stops completely, just like in real life. This mechanic would be bad enough for a platform game that requires some precision like Mario, but the problem is that it only works sometimes, which makes everything confusing.

Another problem with movement is that sometimes Mario simply turns into a rock and falls like a meteor into the holes in the scenery, which is quite annoying.

Despite this, Super Mario Land isn't a bad game, it could just be better. The shortcomings in the gameplay I attribute to the Game Boy's architecture, especially at the beginning, when they still couldn't get the most out of the console, so I put that down to a bit of relief.

The thematic and story part is a bit random, honestly the worlds don't even seem to be part of the Mario universe, they're just a generic desert, a generic ocean, Easter Island and a generic Chinese place. The only good thing that came out of it was the introduction of Daisy, who later became important in the franchise.

All in all, the first great Game Boy game, Super Mario Land, has many flaws, but it occupies an important place in the console's history and is remembered to this day as a classic.

My rating for it is: 3 stars.

I LOVE Outer Wilds, and I did really loved this DLC, it builds up on the already established lore without messing anything up, it presents new mechanics and aspects that makes you think in a different manner and awesome visuals and worldbuilding.

But I can't let the bad parts of this DLC alone... As soon as the "horror" part of the DLC started I was getting more and more frustrating, for a game that is heavily about you discovering the lore and mysteries of this world, this sections feel really frustrating, I do love the horror aspect and it gave me chills for the most part, but when I needed to repeat the same sections again and again because they're ridiculously hard I started to get frustrated, not just because it's hard, but because it took me away from the main thing of this game, discovering... I really think this DLC would benefit from a little more fairness in those parts, they were just too annoying for me.

But don't get me wrong, this is still and AMAZING DLC for anyone that loves Outer Wilds, and even with those missteps I truly loved basically everything here, this is how you do a expansion right, if you're reluctant about buying this, trust me, if you liked the main game you'll have a blast with this!

(and as the devs said that this would be the one and only DLC for Outer Wilds I can't wait to see their next game, I don't want, or think it'll happen, a Outer Wilds 2, but whatever these guys will do I'll be there to watch, or play I guess xD)

- Will Neot

What an game! It's not perfect, nor is Platinum's best game, but what a awesome experience!

The game is "Pure Platinum" (see what I did there?), it has amazing action sequences, incredible characters that hold the ball up the whole game, it doesn't overstays, and it's exactly what I want from Platinum, and what I think they do the best, medium length hyped up action game, they're the masters at this "genre" and Bayonetta is a example of that.

All of that being said, the story was kinda confusing and when it reaches the end I was a little lost, but overall this is an AWESOME game, that you should definitely play. And now I need to buy Bayo 2 and wait for the third entry!

What an absolute masterpiece!
This is without a doubt my favorite Castlevania and one of my favorite metroidvanias ever, it's so well made and thought out, it's not unnecessarily long, and it plays so good!

The only "down" side would be the story, or lack of, but for me it was enough to get myself invested in the game and it didn't overstay it's welcome.

Overall an AMAZING game!

Well... That was... Okay, i guess? Like, the voice acting is great, James McAvoy, Daisy Ridley and Willem Dafoe are amazing as always, but like, the premise of the game is actually pretty good, as a fan of time travel stuff like Doctor Who i'm really into these types of stories, but this was like when you're fishing and you think you just caught the biggest fish ever just to realize it was a boot. The mysteries that the game tosses at you are cool to discover but the ending... It could be so much more with some tweaks... And i'm not even starting to talk on how buggy the game is sometimes, i had to repeat the same loop multiple times at points because of the flimsy controls.

Overall is a 'okay' game, with so much wasted potential.