Super Mario Land

The Good
For being one of the very first Game Boy games, the music in this game is fantastic. Every track (maybe aside from the boss music) is really good and I have fond memories of the first stage music. The music that plays in the third level of each world (incorrectly referred to as Easton Kingdom in the soundtrack) is my favorite. The whole game is very derivative but honestly I kinda like it. Most of the classic Mario powerups and enemies are gone and replaced with unique enemies not found in any other Mario game (don't confuse the Goomba-looking things for Goombas, because they aren't!) and the Super Ball is actually quite a fun powerup that I'm surprised didn't see any sort of reference to until Mario Maker 2, to my knowledge. Also, this game's version of Koopas explode, so that's fun. My favorite part of the game was the shmup sections, which are genuinely quite good and add a bit of a nice break from the platforming.

The Bad
This is where it goes downhill. The platforming is absolutely horrendous. I don't know if it's just me that sucks at it or if it's just bad but it feels very stiff, almost as if you have to stick to your jump (although you don't have to). The enemies can be rather brutal, too, so having a mushroom is key to getting anywhere. I posted this review under 3DS as I played the game through the 3DS's Virtual Console. I'm so glad that I did because goodness gracious, I had to CONSTANTLY use restore points. I got tons of cheap deaths because of the stiff platforming. The bosses are also rather hard, ESPECIALLY the final boss who's constantly firing bullets at you. This is a Mario game, not a bullet hell! The game is also rather short, but in my case I couldn't be happier that it's short because it felt like an eternity to beat.

The Bottom Line
If you're a Mario die-hard, check this game out. It's a unique game in the franchise that broke many of the rules set in place by previous Mario games (being even more deviant than the American Mario 2 in some cases). However if you're new to the franchise and are looking for somewhere to start, avoid this. The brutal platforming and difficulty is infuriating at times.

The Good
Being one of the first games released on the 'Brick' as I like to call it, Super Mario Land isn't a bad shot by Nintendo to re-create Super Mario Bros. At least here they've added a new story line and some updated characters to the mix.

The game plays fairly neat, although compared to nearly every modern platform game it doesn't fair well, so I won't start with that. Controlling Mario is a breeze, and some of the later levels include a few things the rest of the Mario series has never really gone into since, vehicles. Underwater or in space, it's all here, which is a nice diversion from the same old platform environment.

The Bad
The graphics are the real down side here. Everything seems so small, which can at times make it difficult to see what's going on. The only character that seems well done is Bowser, who you only see every once in a while.

And, as is usually the case with a majority of the original Game Boy titles, the music doesn't hold much either. There are a few harkbacks to the original Mario Bros score, but it's all just beeps and a little noise here and there, nothing much to shout home about.

The Bottom Line
Even to this day, I get this out for a quick game or two. It's a nice, simple and addictive little platformer, and although the graphics and sound are far from brilliant, it doesn't really matter.

The Good
I have to admit I'm not a fan of platformers, and this is one of the few that I've played until completion when I got it new. Just the sheer mind-numbing series of timed jumps and such just drives me to distraction with no real feeling of completion when it's over.

Mario Land does the what it does well though, and is a solid piece of classic platformer action, complete with annoying tune. The game is obviously very linear, and flows smoothly across as you try and complete the game in one sitting, attempting to gain the graceful arc of jumping in the correct sequence to avoid bumping into the wrong things. It's really something for kids to enjoy, not that that's a negative thing.

The graphics are simple and do the job admirably, you can tell all the characters apart easily and what will happen well enough.

The Bad
Of course the game is repetitive and very long as you have to play in one session, meaning a good few hours of thumb mashing to get it done, the only break you got would be to press pause and walk away without switching the Game Boy off.

The Bottom Line
Not really a game that anyone will play any more, unless you're obsessed by playing every Mario game. This does provide a good example of a solid game from the era when the platformer was the king genre, but nowadays it's an empty enjoyment. Of course when I played it as a child I was amazed that I actually completed a computer game.