Mario Monday - Super Mario Land 2

After the success of Mario's debut on the Super Nintendo, the famous plumber made a return to the portable Game Boy system. The sequel to Super Mario Land, Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins picks up the story line from where the original portable adventure left off.

As the commercial suggests, Wario, a bizarro world type Mario has taken control of Mario Land and Mario's palace. Wario has stolen the six golden coins, which provide access to Mario's Castle, and spreading them out to six unique areas Mario would have to reclaim them by battling numerous enemies, both familiar and new. Mario also could use power ups, as usual, including Rabbit Mario, allowing Mario to slowly fall to the ground.

Super Mario Land 2 saw many improvements over the original portable adventure. While Super Mario Land used pixelated graphics reminiscent of a TI-83 game, SML2 used actual game sprites to depict Mario and other characters. Many of the game play aspects were carried over from Super Mario World (actually Super Mario Brothers 3) as well. Mario can advance to various stages in the order of his choosing on the world map. One aspect of the game that may be slightly influenced by previous games is the casino.

In the casino on the world map Mario can gamble coins he has collected for extra lives. This is very similar to the end-of-stage bonus game in the American Super Mario Brothers 2. Games of chance also appeared in Super Mario Brothers 3 as well, with memory card games and a slots inspired game.

Clearly though the legacy of Super Mario Land 2 is in the character of Wario. The evil version of Mario has gone off to star in his own line of games and has become a favorite character in plenty of Mario spin off games like Mario Baseball, Super Smash Brothers, and more. In the original instruction booklet Wario was mentioned as an old enemy of Mario who was jealous of the hero's fame and fortune. Who can blame him? Mario was the star of Donkey Kong and received his own video game changing franchise of games. Wario on the other hand? Well...there is Wario Ware, right?

Like its predecessor, Super Mario Land 2 was not produced by the legendary Shigeru Miyamoto. The music for the game was catchy, of course, but never reached the fame that other Mario themes have received. The game play was smooth though, which made for a great game. The original Super Mario Land may have more fans but Super Mario Land 2 is a worthy game itself. Perhaps it is because this game was molded off of the game engine used in Super Mario Brothers 3, the greatest video game of all time. With a 4 megabit game cartridge, this was one of the largest Game Boy games at the time it was released.