Nintendo Okie

Nintendo introduced the Game Boy to the world in 1989. When it launched there was one game that showed that you could get a console experience on the new handheld, and that was Super Mario Land. It wasn’t a great game, but it showed that it was possible to take a Mario game with you wherever you went. It wasn’t until a few years after that, 1992 to be exact, that we got a far superior game in the form of Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins. That title improved on every aspect of the first game and really brought Super Mario to a handheld.

Let’s just start with some of the things that were brought over from the console. Many people will tell you that Super Mario Bros. 3 is the best game to come out in the Mario series. It was the first game to introduce an Overworld map that allowed you some freedom as to what levels you chose and what order you played them in. Super Mario Land 2 took that one step further and allowed you to play any of the six worlds in whatever order you wanted. They weren’t laid out in a World 1, World 2, and World 3 fashion. Instead there were six different areas that you could explore and it didn’t matter how you approached them. It really gave you the ability to choose how you approached the game. If you thought Macro World was too hard, you could head over to the Tree Zone and stock up on lives before going back. As long as you finished all six zones that was all that mattered. Then you could go on to tackle Wario in the final showdown.

The levels themselves weren’t too difficult. You could breeze through the game in a couple of hours at most and probably do so with plenty of extra lives to spare. It was just fun to take Mario with you in the car, to the bowling alley or at a restaurant waiting for your meal. Nintendo really took the opportunity to explore some strange places and change up the game play of Mario unlike anything before that. Some worlds were completely underwater, while other took you inside the belly of a turtle. These levels were strange in that you could almost complete entire levels without ever touching the ground. Gelatinous areas allowed you some freedom of movement and could take you to new heights with proper timing. Follow that up by areas in space where you could jump to almost infinite heights. It really made for a completely new Mario experience that hadn’t been seen on the consoles.

Many of the traditional console power ups were available, and brought back the console play. Fireballs in the first Mario Land game were more like rubber balls that would bounce once and then fly off into the sky. In Super Mario Land 2 they were the more familiar bouncing fireball that you were used to. Even the Tanooki Suit was available, sort of, in the form of the bunny ears that allowed you to float through the air for very long periods of time. Many of these were accompanied by visual clues in Mario’s costume because you couldn’t get any variation in the color palette. Fire Flowers now gave you a feather in Mario’s cap, the carrot gave you bunny ears. One ups now took the form of hearts to differentiate them from the Mushroom power up.

Visually the game looked great. It looked like what I would expect Super Mario Bros. 3 to be on a console. Mario looked like people were expecting. The environments were full of detail and the enemies were all very recognizable as they appeared on consoles. Visual improvements were light years above the first handheld game where Goombas where simply a ball with a couple of feet. Koopa Troopas actually had some bulk to them, and didn’t explode anymore. You could carry Koopa shells above your head to throw at enemies.

The one low point I would say, would be the boss battles. All of them basically boiled down to wait on one side of the screen until the boss wandered that way and jump on their head. All of them followed essentially the same pattern and there wasn’t much variation to their actions. The environments were different and that might have affected the way you jumped, but it still came down to jump, wait for enemy to come back and jump again. Do that three times and finish the level.

The biggest introduction that the game has is that of Wario. While the actual fight against Wario itself wasn’t very epic, this final boss would go on to be one of the biggest characters in the Mario universe. The follow up to this game would actually give him the starring role for the first time. Since then he’s gone on to star in a number of games in the Wario Land series. He would also get another set of spin-off games called WarioWare that would see numerous releases over a number of different consoles. Many of Nintendo’s most popular characters were introduced because of the Mario games, but I don’t think there are any more popular than Wario.

I never experienced Super Mario Land 2 on the Game Boy. The introduction of the 3DS Virtual Console has finally allowed me to play the game and I’m sure is introducing the game to a number of people who haven’t had the chance to play it before. Even today it holds up really well and is a great Mario game to have with you. Being downloadable means it’s always on your system and it’s a great little distraction for a few minutes. Will it ever rival Super Mario Bros. in terms of the number of times I’ve played it? Probably not. I still think Super Mario Bros. is a far superior game, but don’t pass up the opportunity to play this gem on the 3DS. If you don’t have a 3DS and you can find a cartridge then you’d be crazy not to buy it. It’s worth your time.

Final Verdict: Buy It

Super Mario Land 2: Six Golden Coins is available on the 3DS Virtual Console for $3.99.