Super Mario Land
Nintendo 1989
Genre: Action
Language: English
Licence: Commercial
System: Game Boy
Rating:
Tapuak:
4/6
Johann67: 4/6
Overall: 4/6
Besides Tetris, Super Mario Land likely belonged to the basic repertoire of most Game Boy players. The main character is the trade mark of the Nintendo corporation, distinctively the "plumber" Mario, who is on a quest for the kidnapped princess Daisy in order to free her. Obviously, the designers rather concentrated on tradition than on innovation when they constructed this background story.
The game's concept is not, like many people wrongly presumed, something new. Even though the genre of "jump'n'run" had already been perfected by Giana Sisters for the C 64, Nintendo managed to make this department its figurehead, while permanently struggling with Sega. Hence, after Super Mario Bros. (NES), an exclusive Game Boy series with the same protagonist began.
This one is equipped with all necessary skills to persist in the world of platforms: running, jumping, and gravity resistance. Beyond that, his physical condition is upgradable by the consume of plants. While toads cause an excursive growth, thus making him able to cope with one touch by an enemy, flowers equip Super Mario with shooting powers. The latter, however, is of limited use as almost any enemy can be defeated by a classic jump on the head. You will not discover much resistance by them anyway, for their "artifical intelligence" straitens to either running forward, a certain way back and forth, or straight to the player's direction. Therefore, the worst dangers are abysses mostly, which cause an immediate death when falling down. Epsecially during popular passages with moving platforms, the danger of the fall into hell is always present.
Super Mario Land is structured into four worlds, each divided into three levels, so it only consists of twelve levels on the whole, that can be left through two exits each. One of them directly leads to the next level, whereas the other one, putative harder to reach, provides a small bonus game, where extra lives can be gathered. Only after the defeat of one the four "final bosses", you attain the bonus game automatically.
As these are situated at the end of each world, the sorroundings slighty change afterwards. Besides a few changes mainly concerning graphical aspects, some new kinds of enemies appear, who are seldomly more dangerous than their predecessors. In order to raise the game's attractiveness, you sometimes discover "secrets" like hidden rooms, filled with coins in most cases, which give you another extra life per hundred. Those minimal divergences from the left-to-the-right path cannot hide the total linearity of the game nevertheless. Twice, there is an additional motivating element, when levels have to be traversed by submarine and plane.
Thus, Super Mario Land is pretty much a piece of cake, which makes sense taking the rather childish target group into account. The game hardly contains any challenging locations, and even the difficulty hardly increases, the more so as you are almost overwhelmed with extra lives. Verbalized positively, that means: Fairness all the way. Once you finished the game, you may replay it with more enemies, if your eyes and the battery survive - a quite useless option, because who wants to start a second round immediately?
The reasons for being still a classic may be found in the everlasting advantage of the Game Boy. Super Mario Land is not the most complex or the most innovative game of the world, but a throughout fair and professionally made occupation that you can practise just everywhere.
The game's concept is not, like many people wrongly presumed, something new. Even though the genre of "jump'n'run" had already been perfected by Giana Sisters for the C 64, Nintendo managed to make this department its figurehead, while permanently struggling with Sega. Hence, after Super Mario Bros. (NES), an exclusive Game Boy series with the same protagonist began.
This one is equipped with all necessary skills to persist in the world of platforms: running, jumping, and gravity resistance. Beyond that, his physical condition is upgradable by the consume of plants. While toads cause an excursive growth, thus making him able to cope with one touch by an enemy, flowers equip Super Mario with shooting powers. The latter, however, is of limited use as almost any enemy can be defeated by a classic jump on the head. You will not discover much resistance by them anyway, for their "artifical intelligence" straitens to either running forward, a certain way back and forth, or straight to the player's direction. Therefore, the worst dangers are abysses mostly, which cause an immediate death when falling down. Epsecially during popular passages with moving platforms, the danger of the fall into hell is always present.
Super Mario Land is structured into four worlds, each divided into three levels, so it only consists of twelve levels on the whole, that can be left through two exits each. One of them directly leads to the next level, whereas the other one, putative harder to reach, provides a small bonus game, where extra lives can be gathered. Only after the defeat of one the four "final bosses", you attain the bonus game automatically.
As these are situated at the end of each world, the sorroundings slighty change afterwards. Besides a few changes mainly concerning graphical aspects, some new kinds of enemies appear, who are seldomly more dangerous than their predecessors. In order to raise the game's attractiveness, you sometimes discover "secrets" like hidden rooms, filled with coins in most cases, which give you another extra life per hundred. Those minimal divergences from the left-to-the-right path cannot hide the total linearity of the game nevertheless. Twice, there is an additional motivating element, when levels have to be traversed by submarine and plane.
Thus, Super Mario Land is pretty much a piece of cake, which makes sense taking the rather childish target group into account. The game hardly contains any challenging locations, and even the difficulty hardly increases, the more so as you are almost overwhelmed with extra lives. Verbalized positively, that means: Fairness all the way. Once you finished the game, you may replay it with more enemies, if your eyes and the battery survive - a quite useless option, because who wants to start a second round immediately?
The reasons for being still a classic may be found in the everlasting advantage of the Game Boy. Super Mario Land is not the most complex or the most innovative game of the world, but a throughout fair and professionally made occupation that you can practise just everywhere.
This page has been viewed 17502 times.
««« Back to Listing