‘The Retro Play Show’ #29: “Super Mario Land 2” + Retrospective!

Super Mario Land 2: Six Golden Coins was one of my absolute favorite Game Boy games for many years back in the day. It was leaps and bounds beyond what the original Mario Land had to offer back in 1989, and I felt that the game was almost like a portable version of Super Mario 3, which was my favorite of the three major NES entries in the series. For a monochrome portable game, the graphics were very nice, the sound and musical tracks were well done, and the story was pretty clever, if not a bit silly.

This game was also the first game to star Wario, who would go on to star in his own games as well as serve as a new villain for the franchise. Here, Wario shows up in Mario Land (presumably a region given to him as thanks for his heroics in past games) and takes over Mario’s castle, stealing the six coins that seal the gate and letting the landscape become overrun with baddies. Mario, of course, must explore the land and get the coins needed to stop Wario and get his castle back. Familiar power-ups can be found, as well as a carrot item that gives Mario bunny ears (yes, bunny ears!) that he can use to hover like he could with the raccoon tail or cape in previous games (and holding the jump button down allows him to repeatedly jump, for what that’s worth).

The game isn’t incredibly long (you can beat it in under 90 minutes at a pretty relaxed pace), but there are little secrets to uncover that make it fun to explore.

In short, this is a neat game that some may never have played, and thus I highly recommend you give it a go sometime!

Jessica Brown

Retro Games and Technology Editor. She'll beat pretty much every Mega Man game without breaking a sweat.