Review: Super Mario Land 2 - 6 Golden Coins (Gameboy)

I remember the release of Super Mario Land 2. My (then not-yet) Stepfather in the run-up to one of his first Christmases with us asked me what I wanted. Despite being told it was too expensive I was adamant - the only thing I wanted was this game to add to my Gameboy library - which had for some years consisted of... Tetris.

Lo and behold, he surprised me and sated my need for some Mario. Bear in mind that at this point in time I had only ever owned two gaming machines, an Amiga 500+ and a Gameboy, so my experience with Nintendo was limited to visiting the couple of friends I had that owned one. Super Mario Bros and its sequels were staples in the library of everyone that owned the console, and so their legendary status was cemented in my psyche.

This time round there is no princess in distress.
Instead, Mario must reclaim his castle from new
nemesis, Wario.

At the time the game amazed me. It was basically Super Mario Bros 3, but on Gameboy! I've since, of course, been able to enjoy Super Mario World (released in 1990, between SMB3 and SML2) and now recognise that that SNES game also brought many influences to this game.

Rather than saving a princess, this time Mario seeks to reclaim his castle from Wario (in his first appearance!), but first he must defeat the bosses of each world, recovering from them the titular 6 golden coins to break Wario's seal on the castle.

Mario Zone hints at the imagination at play
in this game.

If I had to sum Super Mario Land 2 up in one word, it would be "freedom". After the initial level you are free to explore the map, visiting each world in whichever order you see fit. The variety of stages is massive, with settings atop a tree, in space, in a sunken ship, in a haunted mansion, a giant house, and a toy Mario. The bosses reflect their respective worlds, and convey a similar level of imagination - thought none of them will present a huge challenge. Level design is also strong, and with the screen able to scroll now in any direction there are myriad secrets to find.

One element carried over from Super Mario World is the secret levels and stage completion count shown on the game select screen. Certain levels have a secret exit, found through exploration and sometimes with the help of a power-up. These levels are not essential to completing the game, however completionists will want to seek them all out.

New themed enemies include the hockey-masked
Jason-a-like in Pumpkin Zone.

Some series staples carry over here - goombas and koopas are present and correct. Stomping a koopa allows you to then kick his shell along the ground to wipe out enemies it hits. Bullet Bill makes an appearance, as do piranha plants popping out of pipes. A range of new enemies and obstacles appear, sometimes reflecting the theme of the stages they appear in,

The final stage of the game is far and away my favourite final stage of any Mario game. Split into several sections, and far more difficult than any other stage in the game, with no checkpoints, you finally face off against Wario himself. Not once, not twice, but three times, as he uses each of your available power-ups against you. It's a rewarding experience and closes the game on a strong note.

The carrot is the newest power-up, bestowing
Mario with bunny ears and enabling him to float.

Talking of power-ups: Naturally the game contains series staple the Super Mushroom, serving it's purpose as an extra hit point for Mario. As Super Mario, our hero can also break blocks with his head, and by holding down on the D-pad as you jump he will perform a spin jump that can break blocks beneath his feet. The fire flower also makes an appearance, this time performing as you expect - you can throw up to two fireballs at a time, and they bounce along the floor in the traditional manner (a difference to the game's predecessor). The newest power-up is the carrot. Yes, you read right - the carrot! Collect the carrot and Mario sprouts bunny ears that, by holding the A button mid-air, allow him to float. Besides not granting flight, it's not dissimilar to SMB3's raccoon tail. All of the power-ups can be used to access secret areas - by floating across bigger gaps with the bunny ears, blasting away certain blocks with a fireball, or knocking away blocks as Super Mario.

Finally, you can obtain series stalwart the invincibility star. As you run through your enemies now, you will notice a counter tallying your kills, with every enemy dispatched beyond 5 rewarding you with an extra life. With every 50th enemy defeated, a star will fall from the top of the screen, granting you an additional opportunity to grab some extra lives.

No prize this time. That was a waste of 200 coins!

Coins serve a different purpose here to the norm. Whereas in any other Super Mario game you collect 100 coins to earn an extra life, in Super Mario Land 2 you spend coins in a sub-game, resembling a one-armed bandit of sorts, in the hope of winning extra lives as a prize. You can hold at any time a maximum of 999 coins, and when playing said sub-game you can choose from four options of increasing cost. As the price of a play increases, so do the prizes, with a maximum prize of 99 lives (which is itself the maximum number of extra lives you can carry). Of course, you might win nothing more than a handful of coins back.

Bosses are imaginative. The Three Little Pigs attack
one at a time using different patterns.

This game's music was composed by Kazumi Totaka, who has composed for many Nintendo games including Mario Paint, Yoshi's Story, and Luigi's Mansion, and also provides the voice for Yoshi in the series. The soundtrack is typically jaunty and fun, with recurring themes throughout. Each world has a style of music to match its theme well. Personally, I find it weaker than in the previous title, but it is still strong and stands as one of the best Gameboy soundtrack, but it is not amongst the best in a Super Mario game.

As mentioned in my previous reviews of Tetris and Super Mario Land, this game has a custom palette when played on Gameboy Color. The backgrounds are primarily blue, and Mario red. It looks good enough, but I tend to prefer to play with the standard grey palette. There are some minor issues with rough edges that become apparent when viewed with the expanded palette that are enough that I prefer not to use it, but of course your mileage may vary.

6 Golden Coins have been collected, the door to
Wario's Castle stands open, and Mario prepares
for the final challenge.

The impressive graphics, large sprites and open level design come at a price - slow down. Whilst Super Mario Land suffered from occasional slow down in its busiest moments, this sequel suffers from it frequently. It's never quite game-breaking, but can be annoying at times. This is truly the Gameboy hardware being pushed to (and beyond) its very limits. The controls are tight, though they feel sometimes a little grid-based, Mario not reacting to input as smoothly as you might expect having played others of his games.

Wario sits on Mario's throne.

Despite these gripes, this remains an essential game. Given the choice between this and it's predecessor as a Desert Island game, I'd select the first Land, but this sequel would be a close second choice. It's a shame that Nintendo hasn't seen fit to continue the series in any real way. From the next game Wario takes over the reigns, and subsequently the Super Mario Land title is lost. The closest we have to it now is Super Mario 3D Land on 3DS, which does a similar job of shrinking the full console's "World" game down to a handheld "Land", though this is a fully 3D Mario title - whereas for a 2D platforming fix we are left with the similar, but not the same, New Super Mario Bros.


Available on 3DS and Wii U Virtual Console if you don't have access to the original hardware. Screenshots for this review were taken using Openemu on OSX, but for the purposes of review the game was played on the original hardware.

Review: Tetris (Gameboy)

Often celebrated for being amongst the biggest-selling games of all time, it should be noted that Tetris was a pack-in game for the Gameboy in Europe and the U.S. from launch, which naturally helped it towards that goal. Its influence is still felt today; the mobile (iOS, Android etc.) version has sold over 400 million copies, far eclipsing even this Gameboy version's impressive sales figures. Incidentally, a Gameboy with Tetris was the first ever console I owned back when I was a mere nine years old, so it holds a special place for me. It would be a couple of years before I got a second game for the system, so this one had plenty of hours sunk into it.

Perfectly capturing Nintendo's late-1980s ethos of pick up and play, Tetris can be played for minutes or hours at a time. Like the best puzzle games it is simple to learn, and has game modes to cater to short or long gaming sessions.

On beginning a game of Tetris you first select for 1- or 2-players, the latter made possible using the Gameboy Link Cable that connects two consoles - each player must have a copy of the game, so it's handy that so many people got it with their console! I used to play against my sister a lot back in the day, and she taught me a trick to speed up the credits screen before the game loads by hammering the A and B buttons!

The only thing greater than A-Type is... R-Type.

Assuming you have selected 1-player, you can choose from A-Type or B-Type game modes. A-Type is your standard, never-ending game of Tetris, where you continue until you fail. B-Type offers a variation on the idea, requiring you to remove 25 lines from play to complete the stage. 

You begin by selecting an initial game speed from 0 to 9 then the game starts with an empty playing field of 10x18 spaces and your playing pieces (known as Tetrominos and made of four blocks in various configurations) start to drop from the top of the screen. You manoeuvre the Tetrominos into place by moving them left and right with the D-pad , and rotating them clockwise or anti-clockwise with the A and B buttons. Holding the D-pad down will cause your current piece to drop faster.

Throughout you must attempt to build a wall, whilst avoiding gaps in it. As you create a full horizontal line of pieces, you score points, the line disappears, and the wall drops down a respective number of spaces. With each 10th line you go up one level and the game speed increases. Your starting level can be selected between levels 0 to 9, though if you select any level other than 0 the speed will not increase until you reach a number of lines equivalent to the next level.

Beating B-Type at level 9 rewards you with a Russian
Dance. On High 5 you get to meet the full troupe.

B-Type varies slightly, in that you can additionally select a "high" level from 0 to 5. This places random blocks to the playing field, increasing the difficulty of completing lines. Your selected speed remains constant throughout this game mode.

Setting the game to 5 High adds random blocks to make
your game harder.

Though the game starts off sedately, the pace soon picks up. By the time you reach level 20 (if you do!), the pieces drop almost instantly. My record, incidentally, is 211 lines.

In all game types, game over is achieved by building your wall above the top of the playing field. The release of tension achieved when you successfully reduce the game to a manageable state from a near-death situation is second only to the joy of achieving a "Tetris" - four lines cleared at once. This is only possible in one way - you must build a perfect wall of 4-blocks height and drop in a "long" piece (4x1 blocks). The wait for this piece to come into play can be stressful as you continue to try and place the other pieces in the meantime.

About to score a Tetris with the second block from
the right!

Besides the playing field, the screen shows your score, current level, line count, and a window showing the next piece to come into play. You can turn this off with a press of SELECT if you want an extra challenge, but in faster levels this extra strategic advantage can be all that keeps you playing.

There are three options for background music in Tetris (besides OFF), and it's a good bet that even non-gamers will be aware of at least the main "A-Type" musical theme, based on a Russian folk song called Korobeiniki. The amazing chiptune version of  Korobeiniki was adapted to the Gameboy by Hirokazu Tanaka - who also created the soundtrack for Super Mario Land amongst other Nintendo games. Original composition B-Type and C-Type, a rendition of a piece by Bach, are also great soundtracks to your wall-building sessions.

Like the Super Mario Land theme, A-Type Tetris was remixed in 1992, this time by Doctor Spin - a pseudonym used for this sole purpose by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Nigel Wright, famous for their musical stage productions. It peaked at number 6 in the UK Music Chart at the time. These were dark days in the UK music mainstream...

Beat B-Type on level 9 at 5 high, and you blast off!

Tetris is another game that included a custom colour palette when played on the Gameboy Color, as seen in these screenshots. On the classic console it would, of course, play in the standard 4 shades of green.

We should all be grateful that Nintendo chose this as a pack-in game. The classic Gameboy version has itself been outclassed on a number of occasions in the past 27 years - most notably by its Gameboy Color "DX" counterpart, and the near-perfect Nintendo DS sequel - but this remains a bona fide classic that played no small part in proving that video games were not just for children. Besides, no other version has come close to the wonderful music found here.

"Congratulations!", in a retro game, spelled correctly.
Who'da thunk it?

Screenshots for this review were taken using Openemu on OSX, but for the purposes of review the game was played on the original hardware.

Review: Gameboy/Gameboy Color on 3DS Virtual Console

There are a couple of neat features in the 3DS Virtual Console editions of classic Gameboy and Gameboy Color games that add some value to the service.

The tricks described here work for all Gameboy and Gameboy Color games on the 3DS.

• When loading the game, while the "Nintendo 3DS" flash screen is still visible, hold the select button down to boot the game into a 1:1 pixel ratio matching the original console. It will be surrounded by a Gameboy (or Gameboy Color) border, and increasing the 3D slider will add a little depth to the display as if the screen sits behind the plastic lens of a real Gameboy.

• Letting the game load without holding a button will display it in full screen (with black borders to the side to maintain the correct aspect ratio). This is a matter of taste - the 1:1 pixel version is a lot sharper, whereas the full screen version suffers from a little blur, but has some very nice smoothing so it still looks good, and makes the most of the screen real estate of the 3DS.

• In classic Gameboy games only (the monochrome ones - this is irrelevant to Gameboy Color games) holding L and R and tapping the Y button will change from the default greys to a green that is supposed to hark back to the original console's four shades of green. However the shades look wrong to me, a little dark perhaps, though this may reflect my preference for a lower contrast setting. An added bonus (a touch of Nintendo genius) is that in green mode the graphics suffer a little motion blur as they did on the classic Gameboy

• Back in the day Gameboy games benefited from a stereo soundtrack, though until the DS range Nintendo's handheld consoles only had one speaker, so to enjoy the full benefit you would need to use headphones. Now on Virtual Console you are playing on a machine with two speakers!

• A final benefit of playing the Virtual Console version of these games comes with the suspend feature of the 3DS console. Hitting the home button and exiting the game will create a "save state" that means you can continue where you left off. No more relying on your last saved location. Games without saves can now be continued whenever you like. Games such as Tetris, which would lose your high scores when the power went off, can now effectively save all your scores (though sadly the original Gameboy Tetris is no longer available on the eShop - the main downside to digital game stores).

These are great alterations to the classic games that, coupled with the low pricepoint of most games on the service, make it essential that you check out the 3DS Virtual Console.

Are there any other benefits to the Virtual Console versions of games that I've missed? Mention them in the comments below!

Review: Super Mario Land (Gameboy)

A launch title for the Nintendo Gameboy in Japan, US and Europe, this game started the trend for handheld Super Mario games ending in "Land" (a trend borrowed later for the handheld ports of the Donkey Kong Country series). Super Mario Land is essentially the same beast as we'd known from the NES, however it was not a direct facsimile of those games.

Designed by Gunpei Yokoi (who had been instrumental in the creation of the Gameboy itself, and is credited with inventing the now-ubiquitous D-Pad for the earlier Game & Watch LCD games) rather than series creator Shigeru Miyamoto, the game borrowed elements from the home versions of the games whilst maintaining a strong sense of itself.

This is where your adventure begins!

New gameplay elements included two shoot-'em-up (shmup if you prefer) inspired levels. One has you take a submarine to the seas, and the final level (4-3 - this isn't a long game by any stretch) has you take to the skies in an aeroplane as you shoot your way to the final boss, ultimately saving damsel-in-distress, Daisy.

Otherwise the levels follow the platform-by-numbers model familiar to everyone by now. Mario jumps over bottomless pits, across moving platforms, collecting coins and bopping Goombas and Koopas on the head to dispatch them. A slew of new enemy types stand between you and your goal, matching the level themes which include Egypt- Aztec- and China-based worlds (replete with Chinese Vampires no less) and even stages where it appears Mario has been beamed to the world from a UFO... Koopas in other Mario games pop into their shells when stomped; their shells can then be kicked along the ground, killing any enemy they run into (or Mario if he stands in the way as it rebounds off a block). In Super Mario Land however, Koopas turn into bombs and explode a second later.

World 1's boss is a nice twist on Super Mario Bros'
Bowser encounters.

Secret areas are, as is standard in the series, found at the bottom of drain pipes. These contain a single screen with a number of coins to collect, with a simple puzzle to solve in order to collect them all.

Small Mario can't get all the coins at the top.
Super Mario can't get all the coins at the bottom. Or can he?

Power-ups follow much the same path as in the NES classic. Mario starts off a few pixels high, before collecting a Super Mushroom which transforms him into Super Mario, granting him the ability to smash blocks with his head and serves as an extra hit point - if hit as Super Mario, our hero will shrink back to his vulnerable, smaller self. A second power-up comes in the form of the Fire Flower, which allows Mario to shoot fireballs. These operate in a manner unlike in the NES games: Only one fireball can be on screen at any time, and rather than bouncing along the ground until it hits an enemy or disappears off-screen, the fireballs bounce off any surface they hit at a 45-degree angle. They can also be used to collect out-of-reach coins, a tactic that comes in useful for your compulsive collection of shiny things during some sections of the game. A final power-up is the invincibility star - collect this and Mario becomes invulnerable, killing enemies on touch whilst the Can-Can plays. This alone is a great example of the humour at play here.

The Fire Flower imbues our hero with the ability
to throw fireballs at his enemies.

At the end of each stage you will see two doors, one up high and one down low. Walk (or run) to the bottom door and the stage ends and you move on to the next. Perform a series of tricky jumps up to the top door however, and you are rewarded with a bonus stage and a chance for 1, 2, or 3 extra lives or a Fire Flower.

The ladder moves one way, Mario moves the other.
Time it right to get three extra lives!

The game is quite easy, and short.  It can be completed in half an hour or so, but this fits with the early ethos of handheld games designed for short play sessions. I tend to finish the game with 20 or so lives in the bank, which sounds like a lot but compared to more recent games in the series is quite low! Upon completion you get to enjoy one of the best pieces of end-game music ever conceived before restarting with a more difficult adventure. More enemies appear on-screen at any one time, making each level a little trickier than before.

Daisy eludes rescue, at least until the end of 4-3.

These harder levels do show the one technical flaw in the game; It can suffer from a little slow-down during busier moments, seemingly when too many sprites are on the screen. During the first play through this only becomes apparent when you reach the final boss who throws a large number of missiles your way, but if you play a second time you will notice it more often. It never breaks the game, but can't be entirely ignored.

Mario shrugs off a probing.

The music is especially worthy of note. Catchy, happy tunes that surpass even the joy of the NES games' soundtracks, the main theme of World 1 stuck in the head of fans for years to come, and even found itself remixed by Ambassadors of Funk & MC Mario, hitting number 8 in the UK music chart in 1992. The other tunes in the game may not have had the same impact but every one is great and fits the game well. As mentioned above, the end-game music is great - one of my favourite pieces of videogame music in fact.

When playing on a compatible system with colour capabilities (Gameboy Color, Gameboy Advance, Gameboy Player), Super Mario Land is one of a few games that benefit from a custom colour palette, built into the system software itself. Mario is red, the backgrounds are blue. It adds a nice element to the game, certainly a lot better looking than the original, blurry shades of green. It's a little known fact that you can adjust the colour palettes on the colour Gameboy editions when using a monochrome classic game - holding B + Left as the game boots switches to a grey palette used for these screenshots, and is reminiscent of playing on the Gameboy Pocket.

All in all this is an essential game for all Gameboy and/or Mario fans. It is such a joy to behold that you will come back to it time and again for "just one more" play through.

Screenshots for this review were taken using Openemu on OSX, but for the purposes of review the game was played on the original hardware.

Bit-Land: Day 1

Welcome to Bit-Land, a brand new blog focussed on the wonderfully fun Gameboy line of handheld gaming consoles from Nintendo.

Game reviews, hardware information and other articles, and some unique art will follow once I'm all set up....

Watch this space!