Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins

The Mario Land series has always been a strange and underrated branch of the classic Mario formula, while the first game (sans the excellent soundtrack) is largely forgettable, its sequel is in my opinion one of the very best Mario titles and its an absolute shame it is not as well regarded (hell the game introduced Wario for crying out loud.). If Nintendo can re-release The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening [ゼルダの伝説 夢をみる島] on the switch to celebratory fanfare, why not this? Riding on the heels of the release of Super Mario World, this game series thankfully got a graphical re-haul so now instead of a limited "texas instruments" low res pixel version of SMB1 mario, we get a more or less faithful rendition of SMW mario on gb.

The Mario land series is honestly a great platform to take risks with the franchise, because of the nature of the Game Boy just being a more bargain system that gets overlooked by the mainline consoles, you can go ham on it to your hearts content, and 6 Golden Coins certainly is as far from a mario title as you can get. The gameplay and formula are certainly there, but this certainly doesn't feel like a Mario title. The worlds and characters just feel off kilter enough to make it a completely alien platformer, but they sure as hell die the same. The main standout to this game, and the one I applaud is the varying locations and level design. The main hubworld, Mario Land, is strange showcase for the various other worlds you can enter. From a sunken submarine, to a haunted graveyard/manor, to a giant mechanical statue of our titular hero (complete with a completely gross bowl section where you platform on Mario's own SHIT!) The game certainly has a fun and whacky feel and aesthetic that, looking back on, definitely verges on gimmick. Still a classic that deserves to see a remaster, would honestly love to see the first two Mario Land's get their own "advanced" style remasters, similar to the mainline series getting a complete graphical dressing up on the GBA.

Yeah this being on the Game Boy is the biggest problem with this game. The screen is pretty small and the Game Boy isn't really known for being a "powerhouse" so we end up with movement mechanics that feel unnatural and slippery and a lot of subpar level design where you could accidentally leap into death you didn't see coming. Although I can still perform precise platforming, jumping with Mario does always make me feel as though I am going to mess up somehow at some point out of my control. Other than all that, I also am not particularly impressed with the boss selection, some of the boss coding seems far too simple to figure out and only Wario felt like a solidly coded boss to take down.

That all being said though, I did still have quite a bit of fun even with some poor level design in the way. I like how Super Mario Land 2 handles level themes making every level feel distinct and interesting. Particular highlights include the Space Zone levels, the one Japanese mythology inspired level, the treasure ship level, the uh... I think it's the "tree sap" level with all the moofish, and of course the final level of the game. Speaking of the final level, it's probably the most fun level there by far. Yeah it could use a checkpoint before the Wario bossfight but it really puts your knowledge of the game to the test with a lot of tricky sections to figure out. Although it takes some time to get past the beginning since it's the hardest part by far, I do feel the overall difficulty is fair. Another thing I like are the minigames, all three variants are pretty fun to play and you can get rewarded with some power-ups and even 1ups. It's also pretty obvious that this game is a precursor to the Wario Land [ワリオランド] franchise due to how it handles money. Instead of doing the typical Super Mario [スーパーマリオ] thing of giving you an extra life every 100 coins, you instead can collect up to 999 and spend them to get a chance for extra lives or powerups via one of the aforementioned minigames.

Although marred with some poor level design choices and nonideal movement mechanics, I think the game's careful attention to creating great level themes as well as how money is handled and how fun the final level is do carry this game into the positives for me. This might be a hot take but I prefer playing this over Super Mario Bros. [スーパーマリオブラザーズ] even though the latter has better movement.

6 Golden Coins is an appropriately short and sweet platformer that doesn't warrant much more than the one or two sittings required to beat it. It has fun motifs and a solid final level, but there are other 2D Mario games less constrained by their hardware with much more tactile mechanics.

The Gameboy Super Mario titles continue to prove themselves to be some of the weirdest, most creative and scattered games in the series with this 2nd entry, but just like with its predecessor, I feel as if it's somewhat held back by the hardware it's on. With this said, for better and for worse, 6 Golden Coins is a more ambitious undertaking, not only bringing leagues more detail to the artwork and aesthetic, but also with how distinct each area of the game truly feels, even if the imagery is more in line with your cartoonish fantasy as opposed to throwing the player into equivalents of actual world locations. With that said, the attempts at crafting a more visually distinctive, detailed experience that took full advantage of its system ended up hurting this game in certain other respects, the biggest of which being the way that the developers had to strike a balance between being able to show these sprites off on a tiny, non-backlit screen while also having to make a game around it, the result being that everything ends up having the common issue of feeling way too zoomed in to actually lead to level design that matches the visual creativity on display.

The game on the whole is serviceable for sure, but with the exception of the final level, it all feels very simplistic in how it approaches its obstacle design, largely being rather generic with the occasional interesting setpiece and idea, such as the space level where gravity is turned off and the player is made to fly through a a series of increasingly precise series of stationary enemies. Despite these moments existing for sure, it's rather difficult for a lot of more complex ideas to shine through when the screen feels as zoomed in as it does, though it's probably a good thing since putting the player up against anything more tricky than what it throws at you would make for a pretty miserable time. Due to what this game wants to achieve, it essentially has put itself in a catch-22 situation where it isn't able to do anything amazing with its stages and as a result has to stick almost exclusively to a fairly safe approach. This is made all the worse with the absolutely awful way Mario controls in this game, with even the most simple of jumps feeling like a struggle with how slow and slippery he is. While Super Mario Land 1 also had this issue to an extent, the level design felt as if it was designed around this limitation, making for stages that largely still felt playable despite how clunky it could feel, while in this case, everything feels as if it's going for a more typical Mario gameplay experience, so you feel the bad mobility far more egregiously, often feeling as if you're fighting against the game rather than comfortably playing through the experience.

Despite these complaints, the experience was still rather positive in a lot of respects. The game's easy enough that there are quite a few levels that feel more akin to a leisurely stroll through a wonderous land as opposed to a proper challenge, and it ends up being a chill time as a result. I also like the way that the game really commits to being a weird and wonderful little world, with worlds ranging from the inside of a turtle, to space, to a gigantic Mario robot, the game throws a whole lot at you and manages to do so within the hour and a half it'll take you to beat the entire game. Overall this is a pretty chill, albeit clunky experience that is worth playing despite the many flaws it has and the way it gets kneecapped by its hardware (a very common occurrence it seems). Definitely would recommend for the Mario fans who haven't played this yet, but otherwise, I'm kinda confused about why people would be going to a gameboy game and looking for a tightly constructed, standard 2D platformer, the concept is a bit of an oxymoron it seems.

Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins is basically what I wanted the first Super Mario Land to be. It's fun, unique, replayable, and consistent.

My biggest gripe with Super Mario Land was the fact that the game felt like it should've had more. It was a very bland, generic, and unforgettable experience. I appreciated the story but that was really it. The only thing I can definitely remember down the line was that Daisy made her first appearance in it. Super Mario Land 2 isn't that kind of game.

The story is very cool. Mario's private island (Yes he has that) and his castle is taken over by an evil spell. The residents of the private island are possessed into believing that Mario is evil. The perpetrator is Mario's greedy cousin, Wario. Mario must collect the 6 Golden Coins to unlock his castle and put a stop to Wario. This is obviously the debut of Wario and I'm happy how his debut goes. Great introduction.

The gameplay is the same in the sense that you must get to the end of the level by avoiding obstacles and tricky platforming. But this game has a unique system. There are 6 Worlds that you can pick freely. This game is actually quite nonlinear. YOU pick the worlds you wanna do in whatever order you please. I appreciate the less linear structure of this game because it's something I haven't seen yet in this retrospective. That said, the levels are pretty good. You got the mushroom and the Fire Flower as usual. But now you got the Carrot power-up which turns you into the insanely overpowered Bunny Mario. Which essentially lets you hover for as long as you want. It also increases your jump height. It's my favorite power-up in this game and I loved using it. There is also the Bubble and Space Suit which allows you to basically float.

The Bosses are a lot better this time around and though they kind of end too quickly at certain times, I never hated them and had fun with it.

The music isn't anything remarkable but I don't dislike it. It just feels repetitive sometimes.

Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins is a great game that surpasses the first game in every way. This is by far one of my favorite experiences with a Mario game. Loved It

There's some really creative stuff in this game, such as an entire world where you explore the insides of a mechanical Mario, or another where you turn tiny and explore a giant house. It's just such a shame that the physics suck, Mario isn't fun to control.

To be fair, this seems to be a symptom of the gameboy, as there are very few games on it that ultimately feel good to control. Perhaps it's way harder to fine-tune Mario's movement on such a low-resolution screen, or maybe it's some kind of technical limitation.

What is here that doesn't have to do with movement though, is very very good. In fact, some of the craziness in this game reminds me of what Nintendo would eventually try in Super Mario Odyssey, much much later.

Worth playing just to explore these weird locations. Also, the music is really good, but that's a given.