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.