Super Mario Land

The Good
Since the general idea has been used, and probably reviewed at MobyGames, many times, I will not comment to much on that. The graphics were very good with no lack in details. The same can be said for the environments. I spent half the time looking at the background instead of looking at Mario. At times the game could get difficult, but the very good controls help you get out of the tricky situations. The levels varied much from each other, extending the durability of the game.

The Bad
As before the story was to rescue Daisy from the bad guys. It would have been great to have a different story. But enough about that... The sound effects was one of the few things that could have been better. Whenever an explosion happened it sounded like someone scraped to cookies against each other.

The Bottom Line
If you have played other games with Mario, then this game will probably not interest you much. But true Mario-lovers will love this game.

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.

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.