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Super Mario Land Game Review

Super Mario Land is a 1989 platform video game published by Nintendo for Game Boy. It’s a very dated and short, but undeniably fun playing experience.

Back in 1989, Nintendo released their first ever handheld console in the form of Game Boy. One of the first games that landed on the system was a Mario game that started the whole franchise within the Super Mario franchise. Yes, Land was important in the history of this series, but it is also rather idiosyncratic for better and for worse as it has a lot of elements that were never again repeated in subsequent entries.

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First off, the length. It’s terribly short, there is no other way around it. This is such a ridiculously thin game in terms of length that it can be beaten fairly quickly despite its demanding difficulty at times. That made it super forgettable and lacking in repeat value entirely. Having just four worlds with only three levels each was simply a bad choice that hurt this game much more than any technicality out there, but more on that later.

Let’s talk about the gameplay. It is reminiscent of the first ‘Super Mario Bros.’ in its very simple and hard levels and Mario’s rather clunky movements and especially jumps. Because I adore the original, I respected the nods to it made here. You only scroll right and you cannot return. This isn’t Mushroom Kingdom, but Sarasaland, and you have to rescue Princess Daisy instead of Princess Peach. This is just one of the numerous changes made to the canon here.

When you jump on Koopa shells, they actually explode, which was such an odd choice that made the game too strange and different from others. I did not like that at all. The end-level platforming that leads to options for power-ups was a fine choice actually that made the game more diverse, but the bosses themselves were forgettable with the exception of the last painfully difficult one.

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There are so many weird enemies here and strange lands with Easter Island being one of the locations. For the most part, I liked that. However, the shooting levels done in the classic shooter style of the eighties and nineties were too different from any other game in the series. It came out of nowhere and it stopped feeling like a Mario game in those moments. Still though, with that being said, I actually liked these levels maybe even the most as they were by far the hardest of the bunch.

The first world is clearly the easiest with the insects being weird additions and the Ancient Egypt level being also odd, but very memorable and spooky in music and atmosphere. The second world is water-oriented with the submarine level being the only one set underwater. The third world is the Easter Island one. It’s the strangest one for sure. The fourth one features ninjas for some reason and is by far the hardest of the bunch.

Super Mario Land is technically quite weak. Due to the limitations of the Game Boy’s software, Mario had to be super small in sprites. The end result is awkward animation and very poorly utilized mushrooms. The backgrounds are also too plain and the game is black-and-white with no color to it whatsoever. It’s by far the weakest-looking Mario game. The score, though, is absolutely incredible with so many amazing earworms that it is bound to make you happy while playing it.

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