Platform: Game Boy

Developer: Nintendo R&D1

Publisher: Nintendo

Release Date (NA): August 11, 1989

Genre: Platformer

Nostalgia Rating: 11 out of 10

Nerd Rating: 4 out of 10

Ahhh, Super Mario Land…

Doesn’t it bring you back?

It brings me back.

Brings me back to a time when- uh oh…here comes an “I’m getting old” story…

The year was 1997 – or 1998 – and my school had taken us to a place called “Jekyll Island” for a weekend trip. One night during a terrible thunderstorm, a friend of mine, who had taken a terminal liking to my Game Boy Pocket, found refuge in said portable device while we were stuck inside. As lightning grew more severe, violent, our electricity vanished. Determined not to let any natural misfortune interrupt his fun, he grabbed a flashlight and tucked it gingerly between his cheek and shoulder, shining light onto the primitive screen. And what game was he playing during this hellacious storm? Why, Super Mario Land, of course.

I think.

Anyway,

This story may seem gratuitous, but it is included to illustrate a point. Such a manner of playing video games is, by today’s standards, highly dated. Back then, however…it’s all we had.

This is how I view Super Mario Land.

Super Mario Land was Mario’s first adventure on the small screen. Well…okay, technically he appeared in some Game and Watches. And of course, you can’t forget those nifty tabletop Donkey Kong games made by Coleco in the 80s… But this was his first real adventure on the small screen. Or at least on the Game Boy. We can all agree on that, can’t we?

One can only imagine the excitement gamers had at the opportunity to carry around their favorite mushroom-eating plumber everywhere they went. It must have been amazing at the time. This begs the question: Has Super Mario Land stood the test of time? Well…

No. This game is simply no good. There, I said it.

It did not age well at all. Here’s the thing – take Super Mario Bros., which was simple (although it was way ahead of its time and still holds up today as a great game) and divide everything by two, the result is Super Mario Land.

It’s half the length, half as difficult, and looks half as good.

Super Mario Bros. had eight worlds. Super Mario Land has four. The former is the perfect length – just long enough to be engaging, but short enough to be both manageable and beatable in one go. The latter is long enough to complete in…I dunno, maybe an extended bathroom visit. You can play the game half-assed and still unexpectedly beat it. I’ve had farts last longer than this game.

It’s easy. Insultingly easy.

Okay, I’ll admit, when I picked it up to review I already had an idea in my head how little I’d struggle to finish the game. I was wrong. I actually died frequently. But here’s the deal – I was expecting a certain difficulty, and as a result played haphazardly. I wasn’t serious about beating the game, yet I did so without breaking a sweat. Though I will admit, the final boss is not terribly easy.

There is a “hard” mode, though it’s the same as the second quest in Super Mario Bros., which has you play the entire thing again from the beginning. The only difference on this go around is a heartier supply of enemies, but it’s not much of a bump in difficulty. Regardless, repeating a game to artificially extend its length is a total cop-out. The first time you beat it it’s done; no reason to play it twice back-to-back. 

The only real obstacle I faced was the controls.

You heard me right. Bad controls. In a Mario game.

We had this same problem in Super Mario Land 2 (yes, I reviewed the sequel first) and here you can see where the poor handling stems from. Mario drops like a lead weight and can easily slip off platforms. It’s almost as if there’s a slight magnetic pull anytime you land a jump.

Awkward controls, unless done right, is no way to make a game more challenging.

Either way, extra lives are abundant and easily gained through a game of chance, which is earned depending on the way you exit a level (a pattern we’ll see evolve throughout the Mario Land series into Wario Land). Good luck running out of lives.

Alright, now for the most superficial part of this review. Looks.

Super Mario Land looks terrible. I mean, it’s like a watered-down version of a game that was already somewhat archaic. I’m obviously not faulting it for the black and white, but…

Okay, so here’s the thing – Super Mario Bros. was, in fact, primitive looking, however, its design is appealing. It has a very angular, rigid structure. It’s stylistic.

Some other contemporary NES black-box games had a tiny bit more detail and were slightly less blocky. It’s almost as if Nintendo tried to use limitations to their advantage when designing a look for Super Mario Bros, and it’s genuinely pleasing to the eye.

This is not the case with Super Mario Land. The sprites are far too small and lacking in detail, the design simply isn’t there, and the graphics don’t have quite the same appeal as they do in Super Mario Bros. It’s dull, drab, depressing. The three D’s.

Well, okay, the backgrounds are kind of pleasant to look at. But still.

One thing I will note about Super Mario Land is how, just like it’s sequel, it feels highly out of place in the Mario universe. Even Princess Peach wouldn’t touch this one. They had to get some second-rate princess named Daisy to fill in for her.

I will at least give this game credit for attempting to be original. The underwater and airplane stages were fresh for the series – an honest effort to break up the monotony. Instead of a fireball, Mario hurls a…rubber ball of sorts? It collects coins too. That’s kinda cool, I guess…

You have enemies in this game you’d never see again, worlds only found here, and the music is…well…let’s talk about that.

This is the most positive part of the review. The music.

I love the music in Super Mario Land. It’s delightful! Absolutely delightful!

Now, to dissipate any credibility I have left as a reviewer, I will go on record and say I don’t typically love music in the Mario games – even Super Mario Bros. But Super Mario Land…it’s my favorite soundtrack in this series – at least in the line of Mario platformers. There are a limited number of tracks, but who cares? It’s so light, carefree, happy, upbeat. It just makes you want to go!

This game’s not all bad. It certainly carries a lot of nostalgic appeal. I love it for the places it takes me. But is that helpful or useful to anybody reading this review?

Hell no!

Super Mario Land is among the Game Boy titles to give me a bad impression of handheld gaming. It lacks the sort of depth and difficulty necessary to make it feel like a worthwhile experience. There are plenty of good portable games out there, but this certainly isn’t one of them. Don’t let that deceptive mustache fool you – Super Mario Land is by no means a good game.