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Super Mario Land 2 Game Review

Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins is a 1992 platform video game published by Nintendo for Game Boy. It’s a pretty strong sequel to an uneven predecessor.

While the original ‘Mario Land’ was released in 1989 and was among the first releases for this handheld system, it was hardly great despite its importance. It was very short and overly strange in some gameplay mechanics. This sequel fixed most of the issues of the original by being a more enjoyable, streamlined version of a Mario handheld experience, effectively showcasing how some sequels can be infinitely better than the original.

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Gone is the odd exploding of enemies from the first game, but instead you kill enemies by jumping on their head in a regular platforming fashion, though there are some enemies that cannot be defeated this way, but rather evaded. The use of Warp Pipes was excellent in this game and the fact that it’s not a typical side-scrolling left to right experience, but that it went in all directions was quite impressive for the Game Boy.

The predecessor had some similarities to the first ever Mario game, but this one was quite different in that it emulated more the feel of ‘World’, but more specifically ‘Super Mario Bros. 3’. The lower and higher areas of some levels, the vastness of some levels and the overworld map are clearly reminiscent of the aforementioned classics, and in particular the map here is tremendously well done. Yes, it was confusing a bit, but that puzzle-element to it was very intriguing as it required some interesting exploration to arrive to certain zones.

In terms of the power-ups, you have the usual Super Mushroom, Fire Flower and Starman, but there were two new additions here that were exclusive for this game, and both worked so well that they are among the highlights of the whole experience. The feather in the camp was memorable, but the Magic Carrot power-up is the highlight as this bunny version of Mario can jump higher and even elevate you in air, which was super helpful in some areas.

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I wish I could say the same about the bosses, but unfortunately they were quite weak, and by far the worst aspect of the game. Many could just be beaten by jumping once on their head and then quickly twice more, which was a cheat that I did not like at all. The only positive exception was Wario himself, an angry rival of Mario’s that was not only a great multilayered last boss, but also a great storytelling hook. You see, Mario here doesn’t save a princess, but he has to retrieve his castle from this nemesis of his, and that difference in plot made the game unique.

Super Mario Land 2 is also a much longer game than the first Land game as it has six instead of four zones, not counting the last Wario zone, which was the best of the bunch as it was very difficult and memorable. Other zones worth mentioning are the super cool physics-based Space Zone and the fun and unique Tree Zone.

The game is in black-and-white once again and there is nothing particularly strong graphics-wise here, but the soundtrack is at least quite solid. The level design is overall quite efficient, but the controls were a bit slow and clunky in certain places.

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