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.