Everything a sequel should be and more, this was a vast and complete improvement over Super Mario Land. Everything ran smoother, was bigger and more detailed, and it just plain had a lot more depth and character to it. The game play was wonderful to control, and there's a lot of levels to explore and you could choose which order to explore them in. It was one of the largest Game Boy games ever released, and the branching stages or "zones" were fantastically varied, one was a giant clockwork robot version of Mario, wherein one of the levels looks a lot like a legoland, there's a macro zone where Mario is miniaturised, there's a lunar zone which has a fun gravity boost gimmick as well as some awesome music, there's a pumpkin zone that has a cool creepy Halloween vibe and has enemies that are cute little Jason Vorhees hockey mask heads with knives stuck in them running around, and a turtle zone where Mario gets swallowed whole by a giant turtle and one of the levels inside is a giant living whale - inside the giant living turtle!!! And you've just gotta give the game major kudos for being the debut of Mario's evil moustache-twirling(probably) doppelganger Wario, who you face after traversing the hardest part of the game that requires you to use everything you've learned while making your way through the zones as you beat the six bosses with three stomps to the head each to obtain the six gold coins that you need to gain access to Mario's castle which the dastardly antihero has usurped and taken over as his own! Upon defeat Wario bursts into tears before throwing a shoe at you and running off! I can never think of this game without automatically thinking of the carrot power-up, which despite only ever appearing in this adventure, is to me really one of the best Mario power-ups ever. Getting one of them will give Mario a pair of rabbit ears which are oddly adorable, and they grant you the ability to jump higher and float across wide distances. It's just a fun relaxing platforming adventure, and like any good Mario game it really puts you in a happy mood while playing it and makes you feel like a kid again, in the best way possible. A must for Game Boy or Mario fans and a real classic.
8 Reviews
Should be counted among the top 10 Mario games of all time!
Foreverisacastironmess12330 December 2016
Warning: Spoilers
Good
Op_Prime15 January 2000
This was a good game. The story was original and so were many of the levels and bad guys. The game is not very hard at all though, so the lack of challenge kind of takes away the fun. The hardest part is beating Wario and that is the most fun. Not as fun as the original Super Mario Land, but it still gives some enjoyment.
Way better than the first.
transfan8329 August 2006
I'm not saying I don't the first Super Mario Land, but out of the two SML games which actually star Mario (SML3 has you controlling Wario instead of Mario), I prefer SML2. In graphics, game play, and presentation, this game has its predecessor beat. No more having to strain your eyes to see Mario. This game is perhaps the least linear of all the Mario games I've played (I've never played the 3-D games). Mario travels from level to level via an over-world map, just like in SMB3 and SMW (although the style of this game's over-world more closely resembles the latter). The first Super Mario Land plays similarly to the first Super Mario Bros, while SML2 plays more like Mario World. Some stages even have multiple exits. You can also save your progress, which makes perfect sense considering that the old Game Boys were serious battery-guzzlers IMO. No more having to start from square one when your Game Boy's batteries wear out. The sound effects in this game seem more "Mario-ish" than those of the first Mario Land. Jumping, squishing Goombas, kicking shells, and throwing fireballs generate sounds that anyone will recognize if they've played the three NES Mario games. Long story short, this game rocks. Rest in peace, Gunpei Yokoi.
"Super Mario Land 2"- Now this is more like it! A fantastic addition to the 'Super Mario Brothers' franchise!
TedStixonAKAMaximumMadness12 October 2017
A few years back, I had a bit of nostalgic fun and played through some of the earlier entries in Nintendo's iconic and beloved 'Super Mario' franchise, intent on reliving childhood thrills. And I had a bit of an odd revelation regarding the first entry in the spin-off hand-held franchise "Super Mario Land"... That being that the original game basically just didn't hold up all that well. Don't get me wrong. It was solid enough and provided about twenty minutes of reasonably entertaining gameplay. But it didn't have all that much variety and suffered clunky hit detection, in addition to lacking some of the classic iconography that defined the series up until that point. It wasn't a bad game... but rather a troubled one.
But where that game fell short, it's sequel "Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins" more than made up. And I'm happy to report that despite coming out well over twenty years ago, this is one Mario game that's well worth revisiting over and over again! It's well structured and well paced with improved graphics and gameplay, and also significantly truer to the franchise than its immediate predecessor. And in my humble opinion, it's the definitive Gameboy-era Mario.
While Mario is away, a new nemesis called Wario, a sort-of evil version of the heroic plumber, takes over the castle at the heart of the magical Mushroom Kingdom and seals it shut, making entry impossible. Taking a cue from the 16-bit 1990 release "Super Mario World", the game follows Mario as he travels around an over-world map to six different "levels", each comprised of several stages to conquer. And only be conquering the six areas and attaining six magical golden coins, one of which is concealed within each level, will Mario be able to enter the castle and face off against this new threat.
As I mentioned above, the game is very much an attempt at emulating the style and structure of the home-console release "Super Mario World." And I do think for the most part, it succeeds. While it was never going to be quite as big or quite as pretty a game, "Super Mario Land 2" does an admirable job at closely approximating the concepts first introduced in "World", and even expanding on them slightly. It has a great variety of locales to explore, including levels based around Space, the Halloween holiday, Water and even a giant mechanical clockwork version of Mario himself. And this helps the game retain a freshness that I found lacking in the previous title. It also has some nice fan- service and call-backs to previous games, helping it feel more in- line with the franchise at large. And I definitely appreciated the fact that the game has a save feature, because on top of all that- it's also quite a bit longer than the last game!
In terms of gameplay, this is classic Mario in every way, and it thankfully even fixes some of the issues with control and hit detection that plagued the first entry in the "Mario Land" series as well! Everything is tight and concise and well-programmed, and the game flows beautifully in virtually every stage. I also found that on the whole, the level design, while linear, is very well-accomplished and there are plenty of secrets to look for through the six levels that add a lot of replay-value. In addition, the game gets a major aesthetic face-lift in terms of graphics and sound. Despite being limited by the Gameboy's black-and-white screen, character and enemy sprites are larger and more detailed, and the backgrounds are a lot more lush this time, which is a big plus. I also really loved the music and sound effects, which hearken back a lot more to the original trilogy of games seen on the NES.
All-in-all, "Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins" is just fantastic. It takes the classic formula and reworks it perfectly for an on-the- go experience, and improves over the first entry in virtually every capacity. While it might not be the best Mario game in terms of the franchise, this is easily the definitive Gameboy-era Mario, and it's up there with the best of the best. And so, I give it a perfect 10 out of 10! If you haven't played it, it's definitely one to check out!
But where that game fell short, it's sequel "Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins" more than made up. And I'm happy to report that despite coming out well over twenty years ago, this is one Mario game that's well worth revisiting over and over again! It's well structured and well paced with improved graphics and gameplay, and also significantly truer to the franchise than its immediate predecessor. And in my humble opinion, it's the definitive Gameboy-era Mario.
While Mario is away, a new nemesis called Wario, a sort-of evil version of the heroic plumber, takes over the castle at the heart of the magical Mushroom Kingdom and seals it shut, making entry impossible. Taking a cue from the 16-bit 1990 release "Super Mario World", the game follows Mario as he travels around an over-world map to six different "levels", each comprised of several stages to conquer. And only be conquering the six areas and attaining six magical golden coins, one of which is concealed within each level, will Mario be able to enter the castle and face off against this new threat.
As I mentioned above, the game is very much an attempt at emulating the style and structure of the home-console release "Super Mario World." And I do think for the most part, it succeeds. While it was never going to be quite as big or quite as pretty a game, "Super Mario Land 2" does an admirable job at closely approximating the concepts first introduced in "World", and even expanding on them slightly. It has a great variety of locales to explore, including levels based around Space, the Halloween holiday, Water and even a giant mechanical clockwork version of Mario himself. And this helps the game retain a freshness that I found lacking in the previous title. It also has some nice fan- service and call-backs to previous games, helping it feel more in- line with the franchise at large. And I definitely appreciated the fact that the game has a save feature, because on top of all that- it's also quite a bit longer than the last game!
In terms of gameplay, this is classic Mario in every way, and it thankfully even fixes some of the issues with control and hit detection that plagued the first entry in the "Mario Land" series as well! Everything is tight and concise and well-programmed, and the game flows beautifully in virtually every stage. I also found that on the whole, the level design, while linear, is very well-accomplished and there are plenty of secrets to look for through the six levels that add a lot of replay-value. In addition, the game gets a major aesthetic face-lift in terms of graphics and sound. Despite being limited by the Gameboy's black-and-white screen, character and enemy sprites are larger and more detailed, and the backgrounds are a lot more lush this time, which is a big plus. I also really loved the music and sound effects, which hearken back a lot more to the original trilogy of games seen on the NES.
All-in-all, "Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins" is just fantastic. It takes the classic formula and reworks it perfectly for an on-the- go experience, and improves over the first entry in virtually every capacity. While it might not be the best Mario game in terms of the franchise, this is easily the definitive Gameboy-era Mario, and it's up there with the best of the best. And so, I give it a perfect 10 out of 10! If you haven't played it, it's definitely one to check out!
Unique Mario game
CaptureCode6421 February 2023
Warning: Spoilers
I absolutely love the music in this game. It makes you feel happy and that you're on a truly unique Mario adventure. It's time to do away with Peach and Bowser. This time, the enemy is a bit more personal! Wario has taken over the Mario castle and only Mario can stop him! This game introduced one of the most iconic rivals in game history, Wario! In terms of the difficulty, it's fair. With the exception of the final level because I found that annoyingly challenging. If you die you have to start all the way over. Also, thank God you only have to re fight the bosses if you got a game over. If you had to re do all the levels that would be really lame.
Super Mario Land 2: 6/10 Golden Coins
Jerg3n19 June 2023
Mario Land 2 is decent at it's worst and pretty okay at it's best. I have really no strong feelings about this game at all. I played it... That's about it.
Choosing to up the graphical quality from the first game while impressive, isn't that great. Having more detailed sprites causes the game to be very zoomed in and claustrophobic but at the very least it's designed with those limitations in mind.
I never really died due to an off screen enemy or obstacle and you can scroll the screen up or down manually. Mario's movement does feels sluggish and imprecise compared to every home-console game in the series though.
The one thing I will give to this game is the fun setting and unique worlds. There's a world themed around being tiny, one themed around Halloween and one themed around space etc. The variety in enemies and level design due to this is pretty great.
So yeah the game doesn't leave much of an impression and after beating it I just wanted to go play Mario 3 or World. It's definitely decent enough but very low compared to other Mario's.
Choosing to up the graphical quality from the first game while impressive, isn't that great. Having more detailed sprites causes the game to be very zoomed in and claustrophobic but at the very least it's designed with those limitations in mind.
I never really died due to an off screen enemy or obstacle and you can scroll the screen up or down manually. Mario's movement does feels sluggish and imprecise compared to every home-console game in the series though.
The one thing I will give to this game is the fun setting and unique worlds. There's a world themed around being tiny, one themed around Halloween and one themed around space etc. The variety in enemies and level design due to this is pretty great.
So yeah the game doesn't leave much of an impression and after beating it I just wanted to go play Mario 3 or World. It's definitely decent enough but very low compared to other Mario's.
Not worth rediscovering for most people, one of the worst Marios
cicalinarrot20 February 2023
Warning: Spoilers
Most people seem to believe this is better than the first Super Mario Land. I strongly disagree. I frankly think it's just people who find it cute when they were kids. Don't hate me, nothing wrong with that and I'm sure it's a great game for those people but I'm trying to give a different perspective to new players who are looking for a nice retro Mario game, now that it's available on the Switch. And I suggest to skip this one, unless you're on a quest to play ALL Mario games.
It looks much better than its predecessor but the bigger sprites come at a great cost: most of the platform dynamics that made the first game similar to the rigorous first Super Mario Bros are gone but aren't replaced by anything meaningful. Not by some advanced platform dynamics like Mario Bros 2 and 3, not by the exploration and transformations of the gameboy/color Wario saga.
Most levels feel too easy for a skilled Mario player. Easy, short, often generic, even if there are some memorable and unique moments.
Some difficulty is artificially added with pretty annoying physics that can change. Platformers lovers will find most parts too easy and a few just irritating. It rarely feels like you're playing a difficult game, at best it feels like playing an easy game while your little brother is trying to steal your gameboy. For each level, the number of moments that feel like they've been studied to represent a platforming challenge goes from 0 to 3. The rest of the difficulty comes from random elements to deal with on annoying counterintuitive physics. Maybe that's your thing but it doesn't change how lazy the level design feels compared to other Mario games.
The final level is probably the best part, even if some of the difficulty is just imposed by the no-save relatively long structure. The actually challenging parts that were clearly given more attention than the rest of the game, show that this had a potential to be a much better games, despite some of the limitations I've mentioned.
Bosses are averagely cool early-Mario bosses.
Again, graphics are as nice as it gets on a little B&W gameboy screen and some enemies are objectively cute.
Historically, I give this game the merit of opening the awesome Wario saga and pushing GB graphics but not much more.
It's a skippable Mario title for most people: unless you just really enjoy it from the beginning (or, of course, have fond memories of it) I'd recommend looking elsewhere.
It looks much better than its predecessor but the bigger sprites come at a great cost: most of the platform dynamics that made the first game similar to the rigorous first Super Mario Bros are gone but aren't replaced by anything meaningful. Not by some advanced platform dynamics like Mario Bros 2 and 3, not by the exploration and transformations of the gameboy/color Wario saga.
Most levels feel too easy for a skilled Mario player. Easy, short, often generic, even if there are some memorable and unique moments.
Some difficulty is artificially added with pretty annoying physics that can change. Platformers lovers will find most parts too easy and a few just irritating. It rarely feels like you're playing a difficult game, at best it feels like playing an easy game while your little brother is trying to steal your gameboy. For each level, the number of moments that feel like they've been studied to represent a platforming challenge goes from 0 to 3. The rest of the difficulty comes from random elements to deal with on annoying counterintuitive physics. Maybe that's your thing but it doesn't change how lazy the level design feels compared to other Mario games.
The final level is probably the best part, even if some of the difficulty is just imposed by the no-save relatively long structure. The actually challenging parts that were clearly given more attention than the rest of the game, show that this had a potential to be a much better games, despite some of the limitations I've mentioned.
Bosses are averagely cool early-Mario bosses.
Again, graphics are as nice as it gets on a little B&W gameboy screen and some enemies are objectively cute.
Historically, I give this game the merit of opening the awesome Wario saga and pushing GB graphics but not much more.
It's a skippable Mario title for most people: unless you just really enjoy it from the beginning (or, of course, have fond memories of it) I'd recommend looking elsewhere.
Meh... it's OK.
MikeHunt107519 March 2023
When it comes to the Gameboy, It's far less powerful and less memory than the Nes or Snes, so instantly I saw a speed issue here where it feels twice as slow as a regular Mario game. However once you get used to that, it's not that bad of a new version of Super Mario World.
This time around Mario is not taking on King Kooper to rescue the princess, he's collecting 6 coins to enter Warios castle to defeat him. No Yoshi tho.
You take on a map of various zones and complete about 4 stages in each zone to face a boss and collect one of the 6 coins.
It's very short, I managed to complete the game in about an hour or so. It's not all that challenging, but it's not that bad.
This time around Mario can get the usual power ups, plus a bunny ears thing to fly that's a little different to the Cape or feather of Mario 3 and 4.
I found the music to be a bit annoying, I'll be surprised if it was Koji Kondo who scored this game. If not, it needed him.
Overall, had I owned this back in the day, it mightve been repayable having a limited choice of games owned, but by today's standards there's nothing really to urge me to play again. Tho a remastered version in 3D would be cool. Who knows, we might see an enhanced version of this one day? Perhaps a Gameboy version of the Mario Collection made into an All-Stars type of thing with modern graphics?
This time around Mario is not taking on King Kooper to rescue the princess, he's collecting 6 coins to enter Warios castle to defeat him. No Yoshi tho.
You take on a map of various zones and complete about 4 stages in each zone to face a boss and collect one of the 6 coins.
It's very short, I managed to complete the game in about an hour or so. It's not all that challenging, but it's not that bad.
This time around Mario can get the usual power ups, plus a bunny ears thing to fly that's a little different to the Cape or feather of Mario 3 and 4.
I found the music to be a bit annoying, I'll be surprised if it was Koji Kondo who scored this game. If not, it needed him.
Overall, had I owned this back in the day, it mightve been repayable having a limited choice of games owned, but by today's standards there's nothing really to urge me to play again. Tho a remastered version in 3D would be cool. Who knows, we might see an enhanced version of this one day? Perhaps a Gameboy version of the Mario Collection made into an All-Stars type of thing with modern graphics?
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