Super Mario Land

All of this just works. ― Todd Howard

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Super Mario Land
Mario's back for his best adventure yet!
Genre(s): Platform Platform(s): Game Boy Release: JP: April 21, 1989 NA: July 31, 1989 EU: September 28, 1990 AU: November 15, 1990 Developer(s): Nintendo R&D1 Publisher(s): Nintendo Series: Super Mario Successor: Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins

Super Mario Land is the first game in Mario Land series and the first Mario game for the Game Boy overall.

Plot

As opposed to the setting of most other Mario games, this one is set in Sarasaland, where Mario has to rescue Princess Daisy (who makes her debut in this game) from the evil alien Tatanga. Mario travels through many exotic worlds and defeats numerous enemies and bosses, and at the end flies to the unknown with the princess.

Why It Rocks

1. Despite being a early Game Boy game, it has very good and solid graphics.
2. Every world is different from each other.
3. Fun bosses, each one with different strategy to defeat.
4. Introduces Princess Daisy and Sarasaland.
5. Two of the twelve levels, 2-3 and 4-3, have Mario traveling in a submarine for the former and a plane for the latter. In the said levels, the player shoots enemies.
6. Fantastic music.
7. After the player completes a level on the top door, there is the possibility of a player entering minigames which can give the player either more lives or a Superball Flower.
8. Later revisions of this game have fixed a screen wraparound glitch and slightly altered the soundtrack.

Bad Qualities

1. The duration of this game is very surprisingly pretty short, with some sources saying that the game can be completed in one hour. Even for the most experienced players, they can beat it in 30 or 15 minutes.
2. The English release of the game did not translate most of the Japanese enemy names.
3. The bosses, while fun, are extremely easy to beat since the player can just jump over or damage boost through most of them.
4. King Totomesu, the game's first boss's in-game sprites depict him with a goatee, yet in promotional artwork he doesn't have one.
5. The controls of this game have aged rather poorly, as it feels rough and slippery, for example, Mario's jump is stiff and awkward as such a simple jump can cause unnecessary deaths and even falling is abruptly fast, especially if you have fallen without skip.

Reception

Super Mario Land was a smash hit, selling over 18 million copies, more than Super Mario Bros. 3.

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