The Gameboy was a titanic success for Nintendo; it quickly became their best-selling system, and still is today. A Nintendo console could absolutely not go on without at least one Mario game, and to start it off was Super Mario Land. It earned fairly good reviews and sold a massive 14 million copies, making it one of the best-selling games ever. Strangely, though, the creator of Mario, Shigeru Miyamoto, had nothing to do with this game at all. Instead, it was primarily made by Gunpei Yokoi, who also invented the Gameboy itself. About how much of a difference does this make in the game's quality? For a Mario platformer, a fair bit, but I'm not saying it's a bad game, no, it's actually pretty good.
Storyline: 7.1/10
In the country of Sarasaland, the 4 kingdoms - Birabuto, Muda, Easton, and Chai - are all ruled by the fair Princess Daisy. But, seemingly a fate of most princesses, she is kidnapped. Her kidnapper is an alien named Tatanga, who also hypnotizes all of the kingdom’s inhabitants into becoming aggressive beasts. Mario steps up to the plate and goes to destroy Tatanga's generals until he finally finds and pummels the kidnapper himself.
It's both a Mario
game and a platformer, both of which are not known for their storylines.
Plus, I don't really look for good stories in non-RPG games, so I think
a 7.1 would fit for this. Yes, it's a princess-kidnapping story and I won't
exactly rave about it, but it wasn't as stale at the time as it is today.
Gameplay: 7.3/10
Here you've got a game very similar to Super Mario Bros. No overworld map, no saving, just linear sidescrolling. Now I'm always willing to try out a game in my favorite genre, but Super Mario Land still seems like a step back for the Mario series. While it's still a fun game, it's also very familiar and quite shallow. I repeat, it is very similar to Super Mario Bros. in many ways. In fact, there's not much stuff here to cover. And I'm usually able to ramble on and on in the gameplay section...
Well first of all, the Fire Flower's gone, but you got an item that's extremely similar to it, simply dubbed "Flower". When getting this, it allows Mario to shoot Superballs around the room. While they have the same basic point as fireballs, they have some more advantages and nuisances. First, they don't obey gravity as much and just bounce off of every wall they touch, which can make it harder to hit enemies on the ground, but is formidable against aerials. Superballs also collect coins when they touch them, which is helpful for clearing out large clusters of coins. I think I would have very slightly preferred the normal Fire Flower because of their accuracy, but I'm not gonna whine.
Two of the levels
in Super Mario Land apply multi-terrain vehicles to help Mario through:
the Marine Pop and the Sky Pop. The Marine Pop is a submarine in the deep
seas of Muda, which can shoot torpedoes to destroy enemies and blocks.
The Sky Pop actually isn't much different other than being found in the
skies of Chai, and shoots missiles. These scenes can be compared to some
games: the battles of Gradius, the Heart of NOVA boss in Kirby Super Star;
it's like normal platforming but with more freedom and control.
Graphics: 4.9/10
Aye, I can see this game didn't have the most experienced graphical designers. The backgrounds are very bland with little to no detail to speak of. The environments look a bit better. At least the frame rate is pretty solid. But let's get to what REALLY got this score so low.
The sprites in
the game... They're just way too small. A full-grown Super Mario, I've
mistaken for just normal Mario quite a few times. The Goombas appear to
be so small that eyebrows couldn't seem to fit on them, and all these sprites
really look quite sloppy. The blocks in the game can be more of an annoyance
than all of these, though. These blocks are tiny and can be a pain to hit;
if there's one in the air that you're trying to land on, you're in even
more of a dilemma. It's bad enough that this game has poor graphics, but
interfering with the gameplay as well? No thanks.
Music and Sound Effects: 8.3/10
All right, I was pretty impressed by Land's acoustic package, especially for a Gameboy game. In fact, I really like most of the songs in the game, but perhaps that's just because there's not much of a variety. Something that did catch my interest is the somewhat foreign music. The best example of this is the Chai theme, which is blatantly Chinese or Japanese, I always get those 2 countries mixed up.
Lacking variety
and whatnot, there isn't much I can say about the music. Either that, or
I'm just tired because it's 12:52 in the morning right now. Nonetheless,
I'm going to find something to ramble on about and there's little you can
do to stop me. Umm, now let's just talk about specific tracks I like. The
Ruins theme is the one that stands out the most, a pretty atmospheric Egyptian
theme that seems to sound really good with the Gameboy's sound chip. The
Birabuto theme as well; again, it sounds good with all the bleeps and bloops.
Plus, it shows up often so you'll be hearing it a lot.
Characters and Bestiary: 7/10
Errrr... How many times did the translators have to leave work early to go to their kid's soccer game, aye? What I mean is that the names of the enemies do not sound English nor Mario-related at all. Many of them have names that are hard-to-pronounce and are rather obtuse. Chichibo, Huyihoi, King Totomesu, try saying all those guys' names. Maybe it was intended that those names were foreign-sounding, but for such a simple game, yeesh...
This isn't an
RPG where there's gonna be personalities and character development. You
can't expect much out of characters when you're dealing with a platformer.
Yes, we all know Mario and Daisy well, and Chichibos and Nokobons appear
to be foreign Goombas and Koopas, respectively. But otherwise, we're just
gonna have to go by how the characters look. I always thought the emperor
of Easton, Hiyoihoi, was kind of cool, King Totomesu and the Gaos as well,
just because cats are cool.
Length and Difficulty: 5/10
4 kingdoms and 3 stages each, that's 12 levels. Hey, I'll be Captain Obvious when I need to be, thank you. So you can't save in the game, so you'll be forced to beat it in one sitting; but you could, in fact, beat it in that time even with a save feature. There are no Warp Zones or Warp Whistles, but the game is easy enough that you wouldn't need any of those in the first place. The lack of levels is disappointing, but it DOES save the game from being a tedious mess: a ton of levels, no saving, and no warps - you'd be having to leave your GameBoy on overnight for that one.
The 5 is an obvious
sign that the game is both too short and too easy, but the difficulty curve
is pretty accurate, if not a little too sudden. It was at Easton where
I found the game to get considerably more difficult, what with the narrow
platforms you have to jump to and when you do that a Suu drops down and
takes you out. That's just something that always happens to me there, but
the point is to be prepared. And, uh, work on your jump accuracy.
Replay Value: 5.9/10
2 fives and a
4; now don't get the impression I'm gonna deem this game mediocre, remember
that I said it was pretty good. Yet another similarity to Super Mario Bros,
the main point of the game is to beat your high score. Honestly, I could
ask for some hidden levels or maybe just a few easter eggs, but the Gameboy
only has so much power that can be crammed into it. But since you can't
skip over any of the levels, you can't go back and see what environments
you missed out on, like Mario Bros. 1-3 allowed you to do. So, just...
go for the high score, yes? This can make for a couple extra playthroughs,
but don't count on being addicted for the next month.
Fun Factor!: 7.4/10
I am a sucker
for platformers, being a Mario fan and all, that, and I'm entertained pretty
easily. When you first arrive in 1-1, you feel refreshed and you know there's
a whole new Mario adventure waiting to be played. You go through your quest
and have a jolly good time, then you rescue Daisy and you turn off the
system for the day. When you go back to replay it... Well, it's just not
nearly as charming as it was the first time around, now was it? Well, of
course all games are like that, but Land does this on a bit more of an
extreme level. The levels are pretty easy to memorize, there aren't many
secrets to go back and find. What I'm trying to say here is, the game is
fun, but that fun is too short-lived and when you replay it, you know you've
done everything before. Don't you sometimes want to give yourself a good
walloping in the head so that you get amnesia... Then you could go back
and play your favorite games, and enjoy them just as much as you did the
first time around. Wait a minute, that might be a good idea... Well, I'll
find a hammer later. When you're playing Land, be sure to squeeze all the
fun you can out of your first playthrough, because if you don't, you may
end up regretting it later.
Overall: 77/100
When it comes to Mario platformers, this is one of the lowest points, but I'm not saying it's a terrible game. The 77 may be a little hard on the eyes, but keep in mind that's still a good score. Super Mario Land, while not the grand Mario evolution you might have been hoping for, is still a platformer that anyone can have at least a decent time with. Some people I know have had a rather negative experience with this game, but don't set your expectations too high for a game that came this early in gaming. Mario Land is an old game indeed so you're not gonna find it in stores, and finding it online may be a little bit too much of a hassle, but if you've got spare time and money, I say you should probably go for it if you have no other games to play. Super Mario Land - In short, it is a good game, but too half-baked to fully recommend. If you get a golden opportunity to get your hands on this game then take it, but just keep in mind that Mario games can do a lot better.
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