Played on 3DS Virtual Console

Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins is the second handheld Mario game to be released, following its 1989 predecessor, Super Mario Land. If I’m being honest, I rarely ever even think of Super Mario Land. It’s not a bad game by any means, but it’s such a “Mario Lite” game to me that I barely ever even remember playing its short, 1-2 hour experience. When comparing it to other Mario games, Super Mario Land 2 does also feel like this, but when comparing it to the first Super Mario Land game, it’s a drastic improvement.

Let’s start with the premise. The first Super Mario Land was much more reminiscent of the first Super Mario Bros. game, being a linear game of 12 levels through 4 different worlds. Super Mario Land 2 is more like the Super Mario Bros. 3/Super Mario World approach, where you’re on an open-world map. However, unlike those other games, Super Mario Land 2 is actually unique in that you can tackle the worlds on the map in any order you choose. The whole idea here is that Mario is trying to stop Wario, and to do so he must gain access to Wario’s castle. The only way to do this is to get the 6 golden coins of the land. You get one of these coins by finishing one of the six worlds on the map, which is why it really doesn’t affect anything by what order you tackle things in. The end goal is still the same: get all of the 6 coins so that you can take down Wario.

The gameplay is pretty much like any other 2D Mario game. You enter a level, and must travel from one end of it to the other, traversing obstacles and defeating enemies along the way. This simple adherence to basic formula is what makes recommending a game like this easy. If you’re into 2D platformers like this, or into Mario games in particular, Super Mario Land 2 is going to offer the same things that you like from these games. If not, this definitely doesn’t break the mold. The only thing that stood out to me with the gameplay was the addition of one power-up. I’m not sure if it has an actual name like the other game’s power-up, the classic Fire Flower, but this one looks like a carrot, and it gives Mario wings. It doesn’t allow him to fly, per se, or even to glide, but it more makes him able to spend more time in the air before falling. This power-up is a double-edged sword, because it is really fun to use, but it also makes the game a lot easier. Sometimes you can easily just glide across the stage without having to deal with many of the enemies or pitfalls. Super Mario Land 2 is already a pretty easy game, but this kind of makes it a joke at times.

To me, the big improvement on the first Super Mario Land is in the overall aesthetic here. The first game just felt really primitive, and it just doesn’t really look very good anymore. I can forgive it since it was one of the earliest Gameboy games, but the point still stands. Super Mario Land 2 looks so much better, and while it’s still “primitive” with its black-and-white graphics, everything is much easier to make out, and it makes things look and feel like a Mario game much more.

I also just really liked overall design of the game. I think a lot of the Mario games, especially in the New Super Mario Bros. series, have kind of fallen into a formula with their world designs. You’ll have a grass world, desert world, ice world, etc. Part of the reason the Mario series has been so successful is because of how creative it is, so I’ve always found this to be a big downfall of a lot of the 2D games. Super Mario Land 2 is one of those special exceptions, with the worlds feeling really unique. You have worlds like Space Zone, Mario Zone (where you’re inside the inner workings of a giant Mario), or Pumpkin Zone, as opposed to the usual standard ones. I thought this was really cool, and made the game so much more enjoyable than it otherwise would have been. This is where the technical departments like graphics and music really help the game have its own distinct feel, and why I consider Super Mario Land 2 to be such an improvement over the first game.

With all of that being said, though, I do think that this still doesn’t stand out nearly as much as a lot of the other Mario games out there. It’s a definite improvement over the first game, but I still ended up beating it in about 2 hours, and so it wasn’t really a game that I got to spend a lot of time with. I definitely did enjoy the time I did spend with it, but I probably won’t think about it with such fond memories like I do with Super Mario World or Super Mario 64. If you’re interested in the game and can find a cheap way to play it, then I think it’s worth playing, but I also don’t consider it to be a must-play in the Mario series.

3.5/5