Super Mario Land 2: Six Golden CoinsDeveloper: NintendoSystem: Nintendo Game Boy Publisher: Nintendo Released: 1992 |
A Review by Dave Edwards
09/30/2002
A year after the phenomenal success of Super Mario World for the Super Nintendo, the guys at Nintendo decided it was time to have another look at the Game Boy, their most popular and best-selling game system, and see if they couldn't come up with another adventure for Mario. Borrowing design and game play elements from Super Mario World and boasting some of the best graphics ever developed for Game Boy, Super Mario Land 2 surpassed its precedessor in nearly every respect, selling over eleven million copies.
Apparently, while Mario was out saving Sarasaland in Super Mario Land, a jealous childhood playmate named Wario took over Mario's unguarded castle. (Yes, he has a castle. Actually, he has an entire plot of land, aptly named Mario Land. It seems the rulers of the Mushroom Kingdom have rewarded him generously.) To make matters worse, Wario swiped the six golden coins that framed the entrance to the castle, handing them out to his lesser followers who are scattered about the land and guard the coins jealously. There's no way to get into the castle without 'em, though, so Mario has to get the coins back and affix them to the castle entrance before bravings its depths and defeating Wario.
As with Super Mario World, you guide Mario along the map of the realm to each location, selecting from one of the six zones to explore. You can tackle the zones in any order, but you have to complete several levels before reaching the boss who rules that zone and getting back one of the six golden coins. This also means that each zone is roughly the same in terms of difficulty; it's only once you hit Wario's castle that the game becomes really challenging. (There is an option to play an version of the game in Easy Mode in which almost no enemies appear, but why they included this feature is beyond me.) There are also two standalone levels not directly associated with the six zones, making a total of thirty-two levels to play in the game. The built-in battery backup saves your progress as you finish each level, enabling to you keep three separate game files at a time.
In addition to the regular levels, there are also secret levels that are only accessible by finding the hidden entrance that leads to them. It isn't necessary to find them to finish the game, but the challenge of hunting for them is one of the things that makes the game fun. The game design places a much stronger emphasis this time on exploring each level and finding hidden items than the previous Game Boy installment, boosting its replay value enormously.
Most of the standard power-ups are available to Mario in this game. As always, mushrooms increase his size, turning him into Super Mario and enabling him to take an extra hit from the baddies; fire flowers enable him to shoot fireballs; and grabbing a starman grants him about fifteen seconds' worth of invulnerability. (Enemies move so slowly in the game that they're rarely a problem to begin with, but tackle enough of them in a row and you start racking up extra lives.) 1-Ups once again come in the form of hearts (easier than distinguishing two types of mushrooms on the Game Boy LCD screen), which are plentiful throughout the game.
A new item Mario finds in the game is the carrot (it's the one that looks like a turnip), which turns him into Bunny Mario. He sprouts rabbit's ears, which afford him such a slow descent that it's easy to get impatient waiting for him to land. Some of the power-up physics are different than usual in this game; for example, carrots appear from item blocks regardless of whether Mario has already powered up with a mushroom or not, which is nice. Also, taking a hit while fully powered-up will only bump Mario back down to Super Mario, rather than knocking him back down all the way. Unlike other games where a fully-charged Mario simply absorbs super mushrooms, however, grabbing one in this game will actually demote Mario, taking away his fireballs or bunny ears.
Mario also collects coins along the way (both the single variety and entire money bags), but unlike most games, coins won't net him any extra lives every time he accumulates 100 of them. In fact, it's possible to rack up as many as 999 of them before his wallet gets full. In this game, Mario spends his coins at a slot machine, accessible at any time on the world map, providing you have enough coins to play. You have the option of spending thirty coins, fifty, two hundred, or all 999; the potential to win is governed by how much you're willing to risk. It's possible to win a 99-Up in the high stakes game, so it's advisable to save your coins for that one.
The object of each level, of course, is to reach the end goal. Almost every level contains a midway point, enabling you to start from that point if you don't make it to the end, but the catch is that you have to find the halfway mark and ring the bell that hangs from it. There is also a bell to ring above the goal at the end of each level, usually placed well out of reach if you approach the goal from the ground. Ringing the bell will give you a chance at one of two different bonus games that will win you either extra lives or a chance at a power-up boost before you enter the next level. (This is the most plentiful source of extra lives in the game.)
There are also secret levels hidden in each zone, accessible only by finding the alternate goals in selected levels. This is perhaps one of the most challenging and enjoyable aspects of the game, since a few of them are quite well hidden. (Fortunately, the game permits you to replay levels as many times as you need in order to find them.) The real kicker, though, is that if you don't finish the secret level on the first try, you get bumped back and have to find the hidden goal again before you can access it once more. For every zone in which you clear all the secret levels, the world map will change to a new and different animated sequence by way of a reward. These animations are very cute, and it's worth the time to hunt down the secret levels in order to watch them. (For example, ghosts pop out of the tombstones that surround the Pumpkin Zone and start dancing along to the music!)
Each zone has its own distinctive theme and unique design philosophy. The Pumpkin Zone, for example, is littered with tombstones and bubbling cauldrons, populated almost exclusively with spooky ghosts, bats, and undead creations. The Macro Zone is a giant dollhouse in which Mario must climb overturned books and Lego blocks while fending off toy soldiers and jack-in-the-boxes. The Mario Zone takes the form of a huge clockwork statue of our favorite plumber, requiring Mario to hop on rotating gears while dodging cutting blades and flying screws. Some of them also introduce new types of terrain for Mario: the Turtle Zone requires you to enter the mouth of a giant whale and swim right through what can only be pockets of whale spit; the Space Zone puts Mario on the Moon, granting him the ability to make super-high jumps, before going to freefall in outer space.
The enemies in the game are a combination of standard fare with a bunch of new baddies mixed in. Most of the old standbys are here: Koopa Troopas are predominantly found in the Turtle Zone, but they don't behave quite as they did before; stomping one sends him on a permanent hiatus inside his shell, and the shells won't collide into one another and cancel each other out if you launch two at a time. Bullet Bills (mostly found underwater), Boo Buddies (found only in the Pumpkin Zone) and Goombas are all here as well. The game includes a hit counter for enemies you've beaten, and distributes a starman for every hundred enemies Mario defeats.
There are some interesting new enemies to deal with as well, but almost none of them seem to have official names. They're not listed in the instruction booklet, and Nintendo never bothered to come out with a strategy guide for the game, so there's no way to know their proper designations. This actually kind of bothers me; it's one thing for the bad guys to have incomprehensible Japanese names, like they did in Super Mario Land, but to neglect naming them altogether is another matter entirely. Some of the more notable new foes include an aquatic beastie with a cow's head and a fish's tail that floats like a ghost (suggested name: Moo Buddies); sharks that infest the waters of the Turtle Zone, behaving like Cheep Cheeps only occasionally speeding up to catch their prey (suggested name: Chomp Chomp); and one that looks like a Shy Guy, except he's wearing a hockey mask with a knife sticking out of his head (suggested name: Die Guy).
The bosses are disappointingly easy to dispatch in the game, each of them requiring only three bops on the head to defeat. There are a few variations on a theme—the bird from the Tree Zone swoops down on you and flies into the air, while the witch from the Pumpkin Zone summons the lids from her cauldrons to spring up at you—but there's still almost no challenge involved. The issue with the lack of proper names also applies here; the bosses of the Mario Zone are obviously meant to be the Three Little Pigs
of fairy-tale fame, and the Space Zone boss looks suspiciously like Tatanga from Super Mario Land, but other than that, they're nameless, faceless, and entirely forgettable.
Wario's castle deserves special mention here, as it's easily the greatest challenge in the game. I'm not sure whether it's just a matter of the earlier, simpler levels lulling you into a false sense of security, or whether it's a genuine challenge in its own right, but the fact remains that the dozens of lives you're busy squirreling away in the earlier levels are almost certainly going to be spent here. You'll face Wario himself three separate times before defeating him, but not before he uses some power-up items of his own. In a way, it's a shame that the only level likely to test your mettle is the last level in the game.
Overall, though, Mario Land 2 is a solid game, and what it lacks in challenge it more than makes up for in the fun exploring the game and discovering its secrets. Not only is it leaps and bounds better than the first Mario Land, it even manages to give the Mario titles for the NES a run for their money. I give it a very high recommendation.
© Copyright ToxicUniverse.com 09/30/2002
