DAY 119 / GAME 119
Super Mario Land
Although I had an original gray brick Nintendo Gameboy, I never owned a copy of Super Mario Land. I borrowed it once and played it on a friend's Gameboy once, but never bought a copy up until recently. (Actually, I just remembered Denise still has her copy and her original Gameboy.) It was such an odd take on the Mario games, perhaps because it was the first one that didn't involve Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto.
Those whole thing feels a lot closer to the first Super Mario Brothers game for the NES, but is as wacky and bizarre as Super Mario Brothers 2. Now, Mario 2 had an excuse; it wasn't originally a Mario game at all and was simply rebranded for North America. So, all the non-Mario themes and overall gameplay (Picking up plants, keys, nighttime alternate levels.) is explainable, but Super Mario Land is weird for seemingly no good reason.
This isn't to say Super Mario Land isn't a great game. I had a ton of fun with it. And although most of it didn't really feel like a Mario game at the time, some elements have carried over into newer releases, similar to Super Mario 2. Though, the only real example I can think of is that Daisy character that Mario is trying to save. Similarly Birdo from SMB2 seems to be the only thing they carried forward with that game.
Instead of the Mushroom Kingdom and Bowser's castles, the whole thing seems to take place in a weird mish-mash of ancient civilizations. You start out in what feels like Ancient Egypt, pyramids and all. You run into Easter Island statues everywhere, Sphinx, strange bugs, columns, boulders, torches and dragons.
The resolution of the gameboy was only 160x144. Which wasn't bad for the time and the size of the display, but still meant that visually it didn't quite match up to the 8-bit NES titles. Enemies like the Goombas and Piranha Plants aren't very recognizable and even Mario and Daisy look pretty rough. They really cleaned a lot of this up in Mario Land 2, but they did this by scaling everything up so sprites contained more pixels. The result is that you didn't see as much screen, so each game kinda had it's own benefit. Regardless of it's few downsides, Super Mario Land was still a pretty awesome game. It was bizarre, but played well; featured a neat soundtrack and made good use of what was one of the first true portable gaming consoles.
Eventually I ended up getting a copy of this for the Nintendo 3DS Virtual Console system. It was somewhat easier than I remember and I actually tore through it in about one train ride home. It was just as bizarre as I remembered. It even features a submarine level which is basically just a side-scrolling shooter and a final level that is similar only you're flying a plane instead. It's also the only Mario game I know that doesn't use the typical theme when picking up an invincibility star. You also fight an alien in a UFO as the final boss and fly away in a rocketship. As weird as it was though, apparently it's sales helped launch the Gameboy ahead of the NES home console as it's best selling unit and also just barely beat Mario Brothers 3 in sales.
The original Nintendo Gameboy may seem like some kind of typewriter or Sony Walkman compared to nowadays' handhelds. 160 by 144 resolution is practically that of an Ironman LCD watch, but Nintendo sure managed to bring forward some inventive games within those limits. Super Mario Land may have been an oddball game, but at the time it was fantastic and even now, it's a great little game to pick up and get a feel for where it all began.
Super Mario Land
Although I had an original gray brick Nintendo Gameboy, I never owned a copy of Super Mario Land. I borrowed it once and played it on a friend's Gameboy once, but never bought a copy up until recently. (Actually, I just remembered Denise still has her copy and her original Gameboy.) It was such an odd take on the Mario games, perhaps because it was the first one that didn't involve Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto. Those whole thing feels a lot closer to the first Super Mario Brothers game for the NES, but is as wacky and bizarre as Super Mario Brothers 2. Now, Mario 2 had an excuse; it wasn't originally a Mario game at all and was simply rebranded for North America. So, all the non-Mario themes and overall gameplay (Picking up plants, keys, nighttime alternate levels.) is explainable, but Super Mario Land is weird for seemingly no good reason.
This isn't to say Super Mario Land isn't a great game. I had a ton of fun with it. And although most of it didn't really feel like a Mario game at the time, some elements have carried over into newer releases, similar to Super Mario 2. Though, the only real example I can think of is that Daisy character that Mario is trying to save. Similarly Birdo from SMB2 seems to be the only thing they carried forward with that game. Instead of the Mushroom Kingdom and Bowser's castles, the whole thing seems to take place in a weird mish-mash of ancient civilizations. You start out in what feels like Ancient Egypt, pyramids and all. You run into Easter Island statues everywhere, Sphinx, strange bugs, columns, boulders, torches and dragons.
The resolution of the gameboy was only 160x144. Which wasn't bad for the time and the size of the display, but still meant that visually it didn't quite match up to the 8-bit NES titles. Enemies like the Goombas and Piranha Plants aren't very recognizable and even Mario and Daisy look pretty rough. They really cleaned a lot of this up in Mario Land 2, but they did this by scaling everything up so sprites contained more pixels. The result is that you didn't see as much screen, so each game kinda had it's own benefit. Regardless of it's few downsides, Super Mario Land was still a pretty awesome game. It was bizarre, but played well; featured a neat soundtrack and made good use of what was one of the first true portable gaming consoles.Eventually I ended up getting a copy of this for the Nintendo 3DS Virtual Console system. It was somewhat easier than I remember and I actually tore through it in about one train ride home. It was just as bizarre as I remembered. It even features a submarine level which is basically just a side-scrolling shooter and a final level that is similar only you're flying a plane instead. It's also the only Mario game I know that doesn't use the typical theme when picking up an invincibility star. You also fight an alien in a UFO as the final boss and fly away in a rocketship. As weird as it was though, apparently it's sales helped launch the Gameboy ahead of the NES home console as it's best selling unit and also just barely beat Mario Brothers 3 in sales.
The original Nintendo Gameboy may seem like some kind of typewriter or Sony Walkman compared to nowadays' handhelds. 160 by 144 resolution is practically that of an Ironman LCD watch, but Nintendo sure managed to bring forward some inventive games within those limits. Super Mario Land may have been an oddball game, but at the time it was fantastic and even now, it's a great little game to pick up and get a feel for where it all began.
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