The story behind Super Mario Land is that the world Sarasaland has been captured by an unknown space monster named Tatanga. He took over this world because he wanted to marry Princess Daisy and make her his queen of Sarasaland and its 4 kingdoms. To take over Sarasaland, Tatanga hypnotized everyone in the kingdoms and controlled them to do whatever he wanted. Mario somehow heard about these events and decided he needed to rescue the people of Sarasaland and Princess Daisy from Tatanga. Tatanga isn't operating alone on Sarasaland. He has 4 lieutenants named King Totomesu, Dragonzamasu, Hiyoihoi, and Biokinton. He sends each of them to the 4 kingdoms to stop Mario's efforts of rescuing everyone from Tatanga. I really wish Nintendo decided to make the names in the game more American friendly. I know this doesn't affect the gameplay of Super Mario Land, but you can't tell me you didn't lose interest in this story half way through the paragraph. Who cares about a land and enemies that you can't pronounce?
Although the names and worlds are foreign to Mario, the gameplay is back to the original Super Mario Brothers style. This game has mushrooms, fire power, collecting 100 coins for an extra life, 1 ups hidden throughout the levels, and you can kill your enemies by jumping on top of them. Super Mario Land did make some unique tweaks to the game that we haven't seen before. For example, the fire power works a bit different than it did in the first Mario game. When you throw a fire ball, it will hit off the ground once, and then bounce to the sky. It also has the ability to collect coins for you, which is nice. The music and sound in the game is different from the traditional Mario games, and there are new enemies for Mario to defeat throughout the game. The most interesting thing about the enemies this time around is that some take more than one hit to kill, and others won't die no matter how many times you jump on top of them. This adds a new element to your strategy when you are getting through the levels.
This game offers an opportunity to play a bonus game at the end of each level. For the non-boss levels there is a path at the end of the level that you need to take to get to the bonus game. It is usually a sequence of jumps you need to make to get to the top of the screen. If you are able to get to the top of the screen you can play the game, if not, you just move on to the next level. Every time you beat a boss you automatically get the play the bonus game. The bonus game consists of 4 levels with each level having a power up. The power ups are fire power, 1 up, 2up and 3up. In the bonus game Mario is moving through each level and you have to hit a button to make him stop at a level. The level you land on is the power up your receive. To make it a bit more challenging, there is also a ladder rotating at a different speed along with Mario through each level between Mario and the power up. If you happen to land on a level with a ladder, you will move up to the next level and get that power up, or if you land on a level with the ladder below you, you will get the power up below you. It sucks when you time it to get a 3up and a ladder makes you go to a different level, but you are still getting a power up.
The kingdoms in this game offer unique levels to play. The two most notable levels are the last level in the second kingdom and the last level in the game. The second kingdom's boss level is completely underwater and Mario is driving a submarine, called the Marine Pop, that can shoot missiles at his enemies. This is the first level where Mario is in a vehicle for the entire level. It's pretty cool and different than any other Mario level that I have played so far in the Mario project. The last level in the game has Mario flying a plane for the entire level called the Sky Pop. The Sky Pop shoots missiles at Mario's enemies, and has a bit of an Asteroids feel to it. Once you get to the end of this level, you need to defeat the last of Tatanga's lieutenants. After you defeat him, you are now taking on Tatanga. When you are facing Tatanga, both you and Tatanga are in vehicles, which is also a first in the Mario series. Tatanga is not an easy boss. He moves up and down and throws different size fireballs at Mario. There really is no pattern to the thrown fireballs, so you are forced to continuously focus on dodging them. What also makes this hard is that the fireballs protect Tatanga from the missiles being fired from Mario on the Sky Pop. The one thing I like about this battle is that you are forced to defeat Tatanga and not just run past him to defeat him. After a few attempts against Tatanga, I was able to get enough shots in on him and save Sarasaland. Here are some pics I took after I beat Tatanga.
Overall, the difficulty in this game is not that hard. I was able to beat the game the first time through, which is a first in the Mario Brothers Project. It also took less than 30 minutes to defeat, which makes this game really short compared to the other Mario games. This game does offer some firsts for the Mario series, but nothing really groundbreaking. I would say that you are missing absolutely nothing by not playing this game. In fact, since there is a Mario game out for the Nintendo DS, we should just pretend that this game never existed. Let's just move on to the next game on the list.
I can't believe it took me this long in the Mario Brothers Project to make it to Super Mario Brothers 3, but I couldn't be happier to finally get the chance to play it again. This was my favorite game as a kid. I still remember how crazy it was when Super Mario Brothers 3 came out and how hard it was to find this game. I probably had to wait 2 months after the release date until my parents were finally able to find it. This game was such a jump from the previous Mario games too. There are many different power ups scattered throughout the game, different worlds to navigate through, and new enemies trying to stop you. Plus, King Koopa makes his return! I have played this game countless times, but it has been a long time since I have played it. Still, I can't wait to get back into this game, and I'm predicting that I will still know every level and be able to beat it on the first try!
I do think it's strange that Bowser wasn't in every game early on, but maybe as Nintendo was producing these games, they didn't want a Mario/Bowser dyad and instead just wanted to focus on Mario going on adventures or something. I think it's interesting to note that this is Daisy's first appearance (right?), and even though I never considered her to be a central player, she shows up in nearly every "Mario team" (Mario Kart, Super Strikers, Smash Bros) game.
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