Super Mario Land (Video Game 1989) Poster

(1989 Video Game)

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8/10
Admittedly basic by today's standards but still a good Game Boy and Mario game.
Foreverisacastironmess12329 December 2016
Warning: Spoilers
When the mean old UFO-flying purple alien jerk Tatanga invades the exotic kingdom of Sarasaland and abducts the fare Princess Daisy to be his bride, it's up to a certain super plumber to save the day in this early Game Boy staple! I remember this very well, I had lots of fun with it back in the day, it was dead easy to pick up and get into and it was a lot of nice simple and addictive fun, and it's still a very enjoyable mini-adventure to skip through today. It was different from what people may have thought a Mario game to be, yet familiar at the same time. You're still running and leaping around squashing enemies and bumping blocks with your head, but this time it wasn't set in the Mushroom Kingdom, there is no Luigi, no Bowser, Mario isn't actually trying to rescue Peach, instead of fireballs you shoot silly bouncy balls, a truly bizarre and awesome touch is that it plays the can-can theme when you get a star, and Koopas explode after you jump on them rather than sliding across the ground. Mario meets enemies never seen before or since, like a level full of killer Easter Island heads and a mini boss that's a killer cloud that shoots birds at you, it gets pretty weird, and the biggest variation is the vehicle levels that were thrown in for good measure that see Mario controlling a submarine and a plane! It's a very straightforward little adventure that is over in no time, and the look of everything was all very squashed down so it could fit the newly-launched hand-held system's capacities, but that by no means prevented it from being fun to play. The sprites are adorable and it has a lot of quaint 8-bit charm and the music is a delight and had some fun and personality put into it. This game was one of the reasons why the original Game Boy quickly became so popular, and while not as beloved or in the same league as say..Super Mario Bros 3, it still has a special place in the hearts of many gamers who played and loved it as kids and it still holds up as a sweet lil' gem of its gaming era. #When he gets a star it plays a little of the can-can, Mario's the man-man, he always gets the girl, da-da-da-da-da-da!!! # Good game good times! X
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8/10
A short bust of fun
OliverJoya199828 January 2022
Warning: Spoilers
Super Mario Land has a great sense of atmosphere, level design and themes. I adore the music, and the shooting levels are add a nice sense of variety to the gameplay.

They are only two problems with this game: It is too short and the gameplay could use a lot of polish, despite that, this game is a lot of fun on the go.
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Super Mario Land!
Movie Nuttball17 September 2004
Super Mario Bros. is one of the most famous video games of all time! The characters, the jumping, the power-ups, and the sure thrill of adventure makes this entire series a fun non-stop playing time! Below is a brief look how I think the game is!

Game Play: The game play is very good. There is really basic controls here and is easy to perform. Novice gamers should have a good time here!

Graphics: The graphics are wonderful especially for a Gameboy game back then. The backgrounds are really beautiful!

Difficulty: The game is easy but as it goes on you''s find out that it will become more difficult!

Music: The music is great! Just fantastic catchy tunes through out the game! In My opinion its some of the best music ever in a video game!

Sound: The sound is great. Nuff said!

Overall: I have always loved Super Mario Brothers! If you like excellent adventure games then I strongly recommend you play this game!

To purchase this video game check out Amazon.com!
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10/10
A very great game
Op_Prime19 July 1999
Super Mario Land is a good Gameboy counterpart to the classic NES games. It embodies all the elements used in the original. What I most love about this game is the fact it was original. Instead of taking place in the Mushroom Kingdom, Mario journeys to the Kingdoms of Sarasaland to save Princess Daisy and instead of fighting King Bowser Koopa, Mario fights Tatanga. Also, in a couple levels Mario gets to use a vehicle. Either a plane or a submarine. Very fun. Super Mario Land was fun to play while the sequels were kind of stupid and pointless.
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6/10
"Super Mario Land", a 1989 Gameboy release, is a fun, but very uneven and flawed "Mario" game
"Super Mario Land", the original entry in the "Mario Land" saga (which paved way for the more popular, and arguably much more fun "Wario Land" series) was one of Mario's first major adventures on Nintendo's hand-held "Gameboy" system. The game is very true to the nature of earlier titles, and at times, it almost feels like a slightly modified port of the original "Super Mario Bros." for the NES. You play as Mario (of course) who must save Princess Daisy (a different princess than "Peach" Toadstool, Daisy was later sort-of ret-conned into being Luigi's love interest after she was used in the live-action film) from various dastardly enemies.

The presentation is halfway decent. Characters are a bit too blocky, especially considering that only a few short years later, "Super Mario Land 2" presented a vastly improved style almost on par with "Super Mario World" for the Super Nintendo. Backgrounds are nice and fairly detailed though, and enemies are halfway decent looking. The music is nice and catchy, but there are no familiar Mario tunes! It was really irritating that none of the iconic themes were used, and in fact, some of the music is actually a digital cover of classical "Can-can" kind of music.

There isn't much story (Mario must save the princess, that's the whole story), but Mario has never been about the story, so I can forgive this.

I suppose there are two main reasons for the lower score, though, and they are very irritating during gameplay. The first reason is that the controls feel quite loose, and it's hard to get the platforming down good- I constantly find myself overshooting or undershooting jumps, or missing my targets by mere millimeters. It is especially frustrating when there are enemies around, as you will often try to jump on top of them (which kills them), only to accidentally jump in front of them and get killed by them instantly. It also doesn't help that the hit- detection is very glitch-y. You will often get killed by an enemy before they even touch you, or will die if you don't hit them perfectly, 100% dead-on- the other games in the series are nowhere near this nit- picky about it, here you will die a lot of times for almost no reason. More than once, I've landed on top of an enemy perfectly, and it kills me. I've also accidentally run into an enemy head-on, which should have killed me, yet it killed the enemy. Awful hit detection.

The other problem with the game is the bizarre difficulty. Level-to- level, the difficulty will ramp up or completely go away. It's a very uneven game. Also, the game does a lot of unfair things, like re- spawning you right in front of a pit when you die (which I guarantee will cause a lot of gamers to scream- they immediately come back to life only to fall down a pit because they weren't expecting it to be right there), or throwing a TON of fast-moving enemies at you when you don't have anywhere to go to avoid them. Be prepared for a lot of frustration!

This is a very average Mario game. Which, to be honest, means it's a very weak Mario game. (As they are generally near-perfect platform games) I gotta give this a disappointing but playable 6 out of 10. Don't expect much from this one.
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4/10
Nothing really "Super" about it.
MikeHunt107519 March 2023
Had I owned this back in the day, it mightve seemed more fun, but playing it today out of curiosity, it's not really much of a great entry in the Mario series.

The problem probably lies within it being created by the guy who designed the gameboy and the Metroid series. It just doesn't play or really look the way a Mario game should be. It has worse sprites than the NES here and you can really see and feel the difference between this and its Nintendo made sequel.

I've already mentioned the sprites don't look right. Even in larger mushroom form, the Mario brothers just look weird. Like small bodies and large heads. It is interesting tho that it's added a plane and submarine in certain levels, giving a new type of experience in a Mario game, however there are far better versions of that type of game out there.

Something also interesting is it introduces Daisy to rescue, instead of Princess Peach. The character then went on to appear in the Movie flop of 1993, leaving the impression for many fans that Daisy is Luigis girlfriend, tho I don't think that's ever been officially confirmed in the games series.

I found too many things rather annoying about this game, not just the sprites, but the mechanics of the game. Quite often it's annoying to position Mario/Luigi right to enter pipes, but worse is when trying to land on a platform and either slipping through the edge and dying or sliding off completely. Really annoying that.

It's a pretty short game too, I think it was only 4 worlds? 4 stages each? I'm not sure, but very short for a Mario game, even a Gameboy one.

Being 2023, I played a coloured version of the game, which did improve it a bit from the original black and white/green. However it still has all the cons and in my opinion one of the least favourable Mario games of them all.

I'd recommend Mario Land 2, but not this one. Not to any casual gamers anyway, if you're a Mario buff or just curious to play it, yeah, go for it. But if you've never played it, you're not missing out on a must-try experience here. There are much better Mario games out there actually created by the original Mario makers.
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Cool
ilovestarwars10 December 2004
Warning: Spoilers
Super Mario Land was the first Game Boy game(Together with Tetris).And is actually one of the best games of the old GB. The graphics are good, very better than Super Mario Bros. The sound was good.There were many musics, more than eight(It was good for a Game Boy Classic game and for a game with 12 levels). The gameplay was simple.Jumping, running and blasting fireballs.Only.

The game was cool, with a good Fun Factor.The best part was the difficulty. My scores:

GRAPHICS-8/10 SOUND-8/10 GAMEPLAY-10/10 FUN FACTOR-8/10

My overalls: 8.5/10. Top 20 Game Boy Classic games: Number 2.
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2/10
garbage
Nic098132322 February 2021
This game SUCKS. The controls are bad, the physics do not work, the Fire Flower is replaced with the Superball Flower, it sucks. If you find this game for free, don't play it. The only redeeming quality is the music, but otherwise, it's bad and you should never play it.
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