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| Title Screen |
Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins sold over 10 million copies over its lifetime and became the fifth best selling game for the Game Boy (Color), only to be beaten by the first Super Mario Land, Tetris and two sets of Pokémon games. It sold twice as much as the 6th placed game, Dr. Mario.
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| Wario stole Mario's castle. Luckily for him, redesigning didn't take a lot more than turning the letter |
This game is a 2D platformer in the vein of the home system games. It improves significantly over the original, which released in 1989, while this game in particular released on October 21, 1992. The original had somewhat odd looking and very small sprites, bland environments and very little variety in gameplay. Super Mario Land 2 meanwhile feels like it was made for a different handheld due to how many more features it manages to pack into a Game Boy cartridge.
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| Comin' through |
First up, sprites are a lot bigger. In general, you see a lot less of a level, but what you do see ends up being much more visibly pleasing as a result. Some games, like the Mega Man series on Game Boy, don't work this way because they are usually much more difficult and when you have a small screen like this, enemies showing up at the edge of the screen being right next to you can become a problem. In Mario, that didn't feel like an issue to me because the difficulty felt pleasant at all times. In Mega Man: Dr Wily's Revenge on the other hand, you are much more susceptible to unfair hits because you just can't react that quickly.
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| The level select screen of the Space Zone |
Second, environments look much more varied. Instead of same-y settings, the game is divided into six zones with their own themes. So you end up having multiple basic "tree" levels that you will remember from the opening levels of Super Mario World, but you also have water levels, the Mario zone with its moving floors and lego levels (here, what look like Lego bricks are actually N&B blocks from Nintendo which competed against Lego in the 60s and 70s) and there is even a Space Zone where you explore the moon and where Mario changes into a spacesuit. It's all done on a pretty basic level of course, since this is a Game Boy game whichever way you slice it, but presentation and variety does a lot to keep things fresh and interesting, and ends up putting this game into 'Recommended' territory for me.
To conclude, here is a summary of my thoughts on each area of the game.
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| Boss fights are simple but well-designed |
STORYTELLING/CHARACTERS |3/10
Story is explained in the manual. Wario took control of Mario's castle in Mario Land. That's it.
Wario is a new character in the Super Mario franchise at the time of this game's release. This fact plus keeping things consistent with the enemies is where the game gets the points from me
There is a commercial on YT for this game that introduces Wario. Very much worth checking out
GAMEPLAY | 15/20
Great controls for the most part, but sometimes they can feel a bit slippery
Next to your typical power-ups, there is a new one, the "Carrot", which is fun to use
Well-balanced in terms of difficulty
Plenty of variety, such as the water levels, the space levels and the Mario zone levels
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE | 7/10
No voice acting
You'll instantly be familiar with the sound effects. As per usual, they are fantastic
Good soundtrack, but no memorable tracks and not as good as for other Mario platformers (my favorites: Athletic, Tree Top and Star Maze)
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN | 7/10
Graphics on the poorer side with the industry now firmly in the 16-bit era
Game makes up for the Game Boy's limitations through presentation
Varied locations make for a pleasant experience for the eyes, unlike the original Super Mario Land
ATMOSPHERE | 8/10
Great overworld with 6 unique zones
Plays and feels like a typical Mario platformer
CONTENT | 8/10
6 zones with multiple stages on each
A few extra optional stages
Bonus levels for ringing bell at the end of each stage
High quality and varied content
Enjoyable boss fights
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN | 9/10
The game allows you to choose in which order you want to tackle the zones
The zones have variety in style and challenge
Difficulty is fair, stages never felt like they were made extra difficult just to pad playtime
CONCEPT/INNOVATION | 6/10
Conceptually not different from the home console Mario platformers
Added a couple new features like the Carrot power-up and balloons that you can ride into the 'sky'
New iconic character introduced
Probably did as much as they could with the Game Boy's limitations
REPLAYABILITY | 2/5
Main replay value comes from beating your high scores
You can find a few extra secrets
PLAYABILITY | 5/5
Worked well at all times
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