Super Mario Land

Super Mario Land is the first Super Mario Brothers game created for the Gameboy system.  Even though this game is a first of its kind, it is one of the least popular Mario titles.  If you ever played this game you would understand why no one remembers it.  Nintendo created another Mario game that doesn't take place in the Mushroom Kingdom and features a lot of weird new elements.  Just like in Super Mario Brothers 2, Nintendo decided to not include King Bowser in the game.  Why was Nintendo keeping him out of these games?  Also, you aren't rescuing Princess Peach in this game, but a new Princess named Daisy.  Still, you can't criticize this game too much because it was made for the Gameboy system which is less superior to the Nintendo Entertainment System.  Plus, this game was able to offer you some entertainment when you were stuck on long car rides, and it gave us a new Mario adventure to play when all we had was Super Mario Brothers 1 and 2.

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!

Super Mario Bros. 2

If you read my post about the Lost Levels, then you already know the story behind the original Super Mario Brothers sequel. Nintendo thought the original sequel was too hard for America, and they decided to release the game only in Japan. This decision put Nintendo in a tough situation. They wanted to release a sequel to most popular video game of all time as soon as possible, but they didn't have much time to develop a brand new Mario game. So Nintendo decided to take a game that was already released in Japan named Doki Doki Panic and replace that games characters with Super Mario Brothers characters. They also included some other minor changes to the game to make it seem like a Mario game, but for the most part it was just a copy of another game.

So what is the story behind this Doki Doki Panic remake? This story is a different from the typical Mario story that consists of Bowser capturing Princess and Mario fighting through 8 different worlds to save her. In this game we have Mario, Luigi, Princess and Toad all fighting their way through a world of dreams called Subcon to defeat its evil leader named Wart. Wart is an evil toad that has an army named the 8-bits and generals named Birdo, Mouser, Clawgrip, Fry Guy and Tryclide. So how did Mario and company even get involved in saving the Subcon world from its evil ruler Wart? The answer is that they were called by the Subcons to save them from Wart and get back their dream machine. I think it's safe to say that this is the craziest adventure Mario will ever go on.

Playing this game today brings back old memories of when I was a kid. This game is pretty difficult, and when I was younger I had a real tough time getting through this game. I still remember going nuts when I beat the game for the only time in my life. Playing the game now is a bit disappointing since I know the background of how the game came about and seeing how bad the gameplay is in it. Also, the controls are really tough to handle in this game, and it gets annoying that you have to pick up an enemy and either throws him into another enemy or off a cliff to kill him. This is a lot different from other Mario games where you are supposed to stomp them into the ground.

Even though it wasn't the most fun game to play, there were some things I liked about Super Mario Brothers 2. I liked how big the worlds were in this game. It's more fun to have the ability to progress vertically throughout some levels and not always more forward horizontally like in the previous games. I also liked the health meter in the game. The health meter will appear in future Mario games, and I didn't realize that this was the first game to feature it. I also liked how some levels had secret paths that allowed you to get to the end of a level quicker. These secret paths aren't obvious and they reward you for exploring certain areas of a level that you don't have to go through to get to the end. I also enjoyed how each level had a mini boss at the end of the level. It's more fun to defeat a boss to progress to the next level then just climb down from the top of a flag pole.

There were some things about this game that really bugged me. First off, I found it really annoying that the main way you get extra lives in this game is through the slot machine mini-game at the end of levels. I feel this adds an element of luck and not skill to obtaining extra lives. I know that it takes skill to get the coins so that you have more chances to earn extra lives, but it is incredibly annoying when you get 12 chances for an extra life and come up empty. I also find it annoying that after each level your health meter goes back to 2 full diamonds when you had 4 in the previous level. Why should I lose the extra health diamonds? I should be rewarded for making my way through an entire level with a full health meter. It's not like the next level doesn't have plenty of opportunities for me to lower my health meter. Trust me; once you get to world 5, there are a ton of opportunities to lose diamonds from your health meter.

Overall, I felt that the difficulty of this game is very challenging, but not to the degree of the lost levels. This isn't really a bad thing since the Lost Level's difficulty in my opinion is a bit too hard. As I mentioned earlier, the game starts to get hard in World 5. I had to play this world a few times to get used to each level and figure out how to get past certain obstacles. Also, besides the last level of the game, I would say the next hardest level is 5-3. This is the first true hard level to get through, and the boss, Clawgrip, at the end of the level is not easy to defeat. I would even say that he is harder to beat than Wart. So after taking some time to get past World 5, I made it to World 6, which isn't any easier. Each level in this world was very challenging, and took multiple tries to get through. The good part about this world is that the boss at the end is Tryclide. Since you already faced him at the end of World 2, it's not too hard to defeat him again the second time around. World 7 is the hardest world in the game, but there is one less level! Both levels are tough and challenging, but level 7-2 is definitely the hardest level in the game. It is a maze level, but not like the maze levels in the previous Mario games where you have to follow a particular pattern to make it through. In this game there are multiple doors you must go through to find your way to Wart. There are many different paths you can take, some will get you to Wart right away, others will make you defeat a ton of enemies and get past many obstacles to get to Wart. After you figure out the maze and get to Wart, you now must catch and throw 7 vegetables at his mouth to defeat him. You catch the vegetables from the dream machine that Wart has taken control over. You also have to avoid the bubbles that he is throwing at you. I am not making this up, this is how you beat the final boss in Super Mario Brothers 2. After you defeat Wart, you have saved all the Subcons from captivity. Below are some pics that I took after I defeated Wart.

After playing this game, it has left me with mixed feelings about it. I did enjoy playing it as a kid and also now, but it just doesn't feel like a true Super Mario Brothers game. I'm not saying that every Mario game needs to follow a certain formula and I also don't think that Mario games shouldn't take chances, but when you play this game it just feels different. Looking back you can guess that Nintendo felt the same way by looking at how Super Mario Brothers 3 gameplay matches the original Super Mario Brothers. Still, this game does have some good qualities to it, and I don't think it should be ignored when you talk about Super Mario Brothers games. Also, I think peoples view on this game depends on how old they were when this game came out. If you weren't born or old enough to play video games before Super Mario Brothers 3, you probably don't like this game. It's just too different of a Mario game, and you have more options of Mario games to play. On the other hand, if you played this game when the only other Mario game was the original Super Mario Brothers game, you probably have spent a lot of time playing it. I looked at a ton of user reviews of this game, and it seems that most people agree with my review of the game. Super Mario Brothers 2 just doesn't feel like it should be considered one of the great Super Mario Brothers games, and it is just a bridge between the first game and Super Mario Brothers 3.

The next game on the list is Super Mario Land. This game was released for the Gameboy hand held device making it the first portable Super Mario Brothers game. This game will continue the trend of having the end boss be someone different than King Bowser. The boss may be new, but the worlds and enemies follow more of a Mario tradition. This game will be a bit shorter since Gameboy games can't contain as much data as Nintendo games. Unfortunately, the game will also be less colorful due to Gameboy games colors only being different shades of puke green. Either way, I'm excited to move forward in this project, and get to a game that I played and beat a million times on car rides as a kid.

Super Mario Bros. - The Lost Levels

Super Mario Bros. - The Lost Levels is the sequel to the original Super Mario Brothers game, but it was not originally released in America. Nintendo made the decision to not release the sequel to the most popular video game in America because they said that the American’s couldn’t handle the difficulty of the game. When I found this out I was insulted. How dare Nintendo say American's aren't as good as Japanese at video games. Don’t they know that we have the same amount of time as they do to waste on video games? I decided that I need to go out and get this game to prove to Japan that America is just as good as are at playing Mario Brothers! What I found out right away is that maybe Nintendo was right. This game is ridiculously hard. From the start of the game you can tell that this isn’t the same game as the original Super Mario Brothers. It may look the same because it uses the same game engine, the enemies are the same, and visually it looks just like the first game. But then you start playing the game and realize that there are new obstacles, the enemies are more aggressive, and this game even has mushrooms that hurt you! Also, you get to decide if you want to play the game as Mario or Luigi. Mario has better traction, but Luigi is more agile and can jump higher and further. I decided to play this game as Mario. I figured that since this blog is named after him I should use him instead of Luigi. During this project, I plan on using Mario whenever I have the option of picking a character.

You may be reading this and think that this game can't be as hard as I’m making it out to be. This game was made in 1986 for the original 8-bit Nintendo system, and I have developed my video game skills since it was released and I am ready to complete this game in my first sitting! Wrong. Each level in this game is carefully designed to get you to run into an enemy, fall to your death, or make a stupid mistake that will leave you cursing and throwing your controller. Some levels require you to be perfect because they don’t offer you any mushrooms. In World 5, I was unable to find 1 mushroom until I was in the castle. Other levels require you to be 100% accurate with your jumps; otherwise you are falling to your death. When you get to world 7 or 8, most levels require you to be both perfect with the enemies and 100% accurate with your jumps.

So, how was I able to complete this game? The best answer I can give you is that I played this game like crazy. I had to make this a top priority when I had free time. I even had to quit playing Modern Warfare 2! The amount of time I put into this game basically gave me the ability and confidence to beat each level. Playing a certain level over and over allowed you to get used to when enemies would show up and how to overtake them. It also allowed you to figure out the best route to take for completing the level. Also, this game gives you unlimited continues. This is very important because trust me on this, you are going to die a lot. When you use the continue you are forced to go back to level one of the world you were playing, but at least you don’t have to keep starting the game from the beginning once you run out of lives.

I want to show you why some of these levels are so hard. To do this I posted videos of how to beat certain levels that stood out to me as being the most difficult to defeat. Before you view the videos, I want point out that these videos may make the level look easy because the person playing it completes the level without any problems, but let me tell you it is a different story when you are playing the levels. So keep in mind when you are watching these videos that this game is harder than the videos look. If you don’t believe me just play the game. My guess is that it will take you a few weeks just to get to the levels that I am about to show you.

Level 4-3

This level was the first level for me that really gave me some problems. The first part that I had difficulty with was the long jump where you had to the hit the flying turtle to get to the landing zone. Next, when you see Mario avoid Bullet Bill and land on the top section, he easily jumps his way over the gap onto the other side. This part is easy if you are able to make it to the top section. If you happen to miss it, you have a very difficult jump to make because jumping from the bottom requires you to press the jump button at the very last second when you are running to make the jump. If you hit the jump button too early you will not jump far enough to land on the other side. Finally, when you do actually make it to the end of the level, your nerves are almost fried when you have to jump on the two single bricks to make it to the flag pole.

I would rate this level a 4 out of 5 on the difficulty scale.

Level 4-4

So you made it past World 4-3, now you get to play the second hardest castle level of the game! This level is hard for many reasons. First there are many tricky jumps that require you to be 100% accurate to make it across. Also, the level puts you in tough situations with enemies that are hard to get past because of the low ceiling. At the end it gets really tough because of the wall hanging from the ceiling when you face Bowser. It takes a few times to get used to it and figuring out a way to get around Bowser, because at this point you are probably small and have to avoid him to complete this level.

I would rate this level a 4.5 out of 5 on the difficulty scale.

Level 5-1

So you finally made it past World 4, now it’s time to relax and start enjoying the game! Wrong, level 5-1 is tough level that requires you to be perfect to beat it. It also introduces you a new wind feature that wasn’t in the first Mario game. The wind will pick up in certain parts of the level to make it more difficult to control Mario. The wind has the ability to push Mario in both directions. This makes it very difficult to get past the section where you have long jumps to make. There also is a double jump that requires you to run, jump onto a single block and then immediately jump again to get over a decent size pit. Also, this level is pretty long, if you take your time you most likely will run out of it!

I would rate this level a 4.5 out of 5 on the difficulty scale.

Level 5-3

This level is somewhat similar to level 4-3 where there isn’t much ground for Mario. I would say the level starts out pretty easy, but once the Bullet Bill’s come out the level of difficulty picks up. You have to be smart with the conveyor belts as well; otherwise you will be too short to make it to your next landing zone.

I would rate this level a 3.5 out of 5 on the difficulty scale.

Level 7-3

There is nothing like this level in the previous Mario game or the Lost Levels game. First, you have wind for the entire level. That means controlling Mario will be a very tough task. To top that off, about 75% of this level you are jumping on super trampolines and trying to land on a small section of land. The combination of the super trampoline jumps and the wind blowing in both directions makes this level extremely hard to complete. Most of the time you have no idea where Mario is because he is off the screen! It takes a lot of tries before you get the hang of jumping on the super trampolines with some type of accuracy. Finally, once you make it to the end of the level, you have some hard jumps to make with the wind Mario around. The only good news about this level is that 7-4 isn’t as difficult.

I would rate this level a 4.5 out of 5 on the difficulty scale.

Level 8-3

So now you are one level away from King Bowser, but don’t start to think this will be a cake walk to the end. You have to face 4 hammer brothers and they are very aggressive at this point of the game. Also, there are 2 gap jumps that are very difficult. The first makes you jump off a trampoline and hit a flying turtle to make it to the other side. The other is at the end of the level where you have to get the conveyor belt to raise up so you can make the jump onto two blocks and then onto the flagpole. The reward for making it through this level is the chance to take on King Bowser.

I would rate this level a 4 out of 5 on the difficulty scale.

Level 8-4

Congratulations, you finally made it to the last level of the game. Now you just have to play the hardest level in the game to get to Bowser. This level has it all, insanely hard jumps, difficult enemies in the way, and a maze that you need to figure out. The jumps in this level are very hard to get used to. At two different points of the level you have to jump in the air and then direct Mario backwards below the ground you just jumped on. The hardest jump is when you have to have the timing down with the jumping Podoboo and the moving fire arm to make it across the fire pit. That took me about 15 times before I was able to figure out the timing on that jump. If you can make it past all the crazy jump, and you figure out the maze, you get to face 2 Bowsers! There is a “fake” Bowser that you have to get past, but can’t get him to fall into lava. If you are able to get past him, you then have to get past 2 jumps and you are put up against King Bowser. If you are able to get past him, you have just beat the Lost Levels.

With a maze, a ton of enemies, crazy hard jumps and 2 Bowsers I would rate this level a 5 out of 5 on the difficulty scale.

So this concludes my walkthrough of the game. You can check out my thoughts on this game as I played it by looking at my old tweets, and you can view my progress throughout other Super Mario Brothers games as I’m playing them by following me on Twitter (http://twitter.com/MarioBroProject). After I beat this game I took a few pictures to prove that Americans can beat the same video games that the Japanese can beat.

If you get the chance to play this game, you can really appreciate the effort that the developers put into making this game hard to beat. The long jumps are out of this world. Also, another neat thing about this game is that there are some warp zones that cause you to go back a few worlds. This didn’t affect me since I decided not use warp zones for this blog. If you do decide to use warp zones there is a catch to using them. This game has a secret world 9 in it. The only way to unlock this world is to avoid using any warp zone in the game. I can’t give too much information about this world because I didn’t get too far in it, but I do know that you start out with 1 life. I played it once and died about 15 seconds into level 9-1. This game didn’t stop with the surprises with world 9 though. This game also has 4 more secret worlds, A – D, that can be unlocked by beating the game 8 times! For the purpose of the blog I will not try to defeat world 9 or A-D because they aren’t part of the original game. I do plan on going back to this game once I complete all the other Mario games and try to unlock these worlds to see what crazy obstacles these bonus worlds offer.

Now that I have beat one of, if not, the hardest Super Mario Brothers game, it's time to move on to a Mario game that I have only beaten once in my life, Super Mario Brothers 2. This game is pretty different from most of the other Super Mario Brothers games. There will be a whole new group of enemies, storyline, and worlds to beat, and I won’t be facing Bowser at the end of the game either. Even though this game is pretty different from the other games and it’s been 22 years since I beat it originally, I am very excited to take this game on again and beat it again for a second time.

Super Mario Bros.

The original Super Mario Brother game is the video game that started it all. I love this game. Everyone loves this game. It doesn't matter if you are huge into video games or not, you have spent some time playing this game. It was interesting to play this game again. I can still remember where all the 1ups, stars, fire flowers and mushrooms are located. There was not one level that I didn't remember. I don't know if this is a good thing or bad thing, but for the sake of this blog let’s just say it's a good thing.

I'm not going to go into great detail about what the game is like. I'm pretty sure if you are reading this blog you know exactly what goes on in this game. I will say that it was a lot harder than I thought it would be. I honestly believed I would beat this game the first time I played it, but that's not how things played out. I made a ton of stupid mistakes where I just fell off a ledge, misjudged a jump, ran into an enemy. It basically was due to me not concentrating on the level and messing up. I think after getting frustrated by not beating the game the first few times it forced me to keep my concentration from level 1-1 to 8-4.

It wasn't just the lack of concentration that caused me to not complete the game the first few times, but also the controls were hard to get used to. There were times that I thought I would land the jump on a certain block, but fall to my death because of the controls. I know it sounds like I am making excuses for not beating the game, but it was a challenge to get used to old Nintendo controls when you are used to playing Playstation 3. Anyways, I made the necessary adjustments and was able to take down King Bowser. Below are some pics I took once I was able to defeat him.





It's kinda funny playing an old video game. There were a few crazy things about the game that kinda bugged me. First, the time on the levels went so fast, it was almost comical at how fast the time went. Also, the water levels are really hard if you don't have fireballs. The squids, fish and controls make it really hard to get through the level without swimming into an enemy. Another thing that is kinda weird is that there really is no introduction to the game. You just start the game without an introduction, and play these crazy levels where at the end of each world you find out that a princess isn't in it. I understand that this is 1985, and there probably was a story in the instruction manual, but it would be nice to see some explanation on screen. Finally, the boss levels that are "mazes" drive me crazy. How are you supposed to know that you have to follow a certain path to get past that point in the level? You can keep running in circles basically and have no idea on how to get out of it. Who came up with this crazy concept? How did people in 1985 figure this out? There was no internet or walkthrough guides to show you how to do it. Did this drive young gamers in the 80's crazy?

I realize that it isn't fair to criticize a game that is now 25 years old. Wow, that makes me feel real old typing that last sentence, but there still are some great qualities that this game posses. I love the songs and sounds from this game. It makes me feel like I am 8 years old again playing on my old 13 inch tv. I know I'm not the only one who fondly remembers this game. You can find a ton of people talking about this game or imitating it. Below are some of my favorite Super Mario Brothers links.

10 things you don't know about Super Mario Brothers



Now that I have beat the first game on the Mario Project list, I now get to move on to the Super Mario Bros. - The Lost Levels. This game is the sequel to the original Super Mario Bros. The only difference is that the levels are 10 times harder. This game will be the hardest game I play in the project. You might be asking how come you have never heard of this game before. Well, this game was never released in America because Nintendo thought it was too tough for Americans to play. That's right everyone, Japan is calling us out! Now, I have never even come close to beating this game, but it doesn't matter though. I am going to represent America and show everyone at Nintendo that Americans have the video game skills to beat whatever games they through at us! I'll keep you guys posted on my progress.