While Miyamoto was hard at work on Super Mario World, the late Gunpei Yokoi and a skeleton crew got to work bringing the Super Mario experience to the palm of your hand. The Gameboy is a very versatile device, but it took a long time for developers to get a hold of it. Super Mario Land would be the product of every limitation of the era.
Much like every other Gameboy title, the two-tone pallet has a lot of charm. Sprites are incredibly small, and there is little variation throughout the journey. Mario doesn’t feel anywhere as good to control as the console counterparts. Mario is stiff and controls similar to Mega Man in his first outing. You’ll find the Super Mushroom and Starman, but the Fire Flower is nowhere in sight. You’ll instead have access to the item from Super Mario Maker 2! I mean the Superball Flower! It leaves at an angle but bounces off of the floor and walls. You can only shoot one on-screen at a time.
Super Mario Land is an incredibly short game. This review was my first experience, and I elapsed a total of twenty-eight minutes from start to end. You’ll go through four worlds with three levels each. I’m not used to a Mario game with only twelve levels. Maybe this really was a Mega Man? Conspiracies aside, Super Mario Land was decently enjoyable for what it was. If you’ve still got a Virtual Console capable system lying around, or can find it used for a low price, I’d recommend giving it a look. Here’s hoping they don’t try selling us this for $60 like a certain adventure of Link’s…
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