Let’s Have Good Memories: Super Mario Land

Over at my other house, I dropped a, like, world-ending bombshell: Come November 1st, I won’t be with PSMonger or Handheld Age anymore. I am sad. See, here’s my frowny face and everything.

:(

So, while I slowly breathe in the carbon monoxide, I thought I’d talk a little bit about good times with video games. Today, specifically, I’ll talk about my time with Super Mario Land for the original Game Boy.

The first Game Boy, she was a brick. I am confident I could build an effective bomb shelter out of Game Boys. My mom bought my brothers and I our Game Boy for Christmas, though I think she got it more for herself and Tetris.

I was not a fan of Tetris, and I still am not, so we’ll move on to Super Mario Land.

When I was a tadpole, Super Mario Land seemed so enormous. Granted, we did not own a Nintendo, so I didn’t realise how piddly the game actually was with its four worlds. Back then, it seemed to sprawl out for miles and miles.

As we see from this speed run, however, the game is quite short.

It’s also…well, as much as I loved Super Mario Land, I have to admit that it feels a little, um, counterfeit. Like, there are turtle enemies…but they aren’t koopas. There are man-eating plants…but they aren’t piranha plants. There are pipes, but they’re shaped more like flower pots.

Super Mario Land also has a much more Japanese feel to it than the original Super Mario Bros. The latter lacks head-throwing death robots, Chinese ghosts and Japanese enemy names. I remember my mother looking at Super Mario Land’s instruction book and exclaiming, “How the hell am I supposed to remember these names?”

Ah, well, we managed. Sort of. I remember “Tatanga” and that’s it. He was kind of adorable, though.