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The Story Behind Super Mario Land

It was developed by Nintendo R&D1 and published by Nintendo as a launch game for its Game Boy handheld console. The Game Boy was released in Japan in April 1989, North America in July, and Europe in September 1990, and Super Mario Land became a launch game. Absent Miyamoto's direction, the development team used elements new and inconsistent with the series as Super Mario Land shrunk elements of the series to fit the portable device's small screen.

Its official first release was on April 21, 1989, in Japan, and its North American release followed on August 1. The task came to Nintendo R&D1, a development team led by Game Boy inventor Gunpei Yokoi. The game was re-released on the Nintendo Classics service for Nintendo Switch on May 15, 2024.

How Super Mario Land Plays

Mario travels to Sarasaland to save Princess Daisy from Tatanga, an evil spaceman. Unlike other games in the series, Super Mario Land features several differences that sets it apart from the traditional Super Mario premises. As Mario, the player advances to the end of the level by moving to the right and jumping across platforms to avoid enemies and pitfalls, the screen only scrolls to the right, as the player advances, but will not scroll back to the left, and sections of a level that have passed off screen cannot be revisited.

When jumped on, Koopa Troopa shells explode after a short delay, Mario throws black bouncing balls rather than fireballs (referred to as "Superballs" in the manual), 1-Up power-ups are depicted as hearts, and the level-end flagpoles are replaced with a platforming challenge. The first three bosses may be destroyed with projectiles, or the player may move past them to the exit without destroying them first; the last level has no regular exit, and the two bosses at the end of that level must be destroyed with projectiles to complete the level and the game. A few elements recur from the previous Mario games, such as blocks suspended in midair, moving platforms that must be used to traverse pitfalls, pipes that lead to other areas, collectible coins that grant an extra life when 100 are collected, and Goomba enemies.

Why Players Still Load It Up

Schilling of Eurogamer instead blamed the Game Boy's technical limitations. Player One further pronounced Super Mario Land a "masterpiece", "the pinnacle of portable video gaming". Super Mario Land is remembered for its miniaturized Super Mario elements and "twist on just about every Mario mainstay imaginable".

The Superball Flower appears in Super Mario Maker 2 as an unlockable power-up item, usable only in the Super Mario Bros. style. IGNs Lucas Thomas wrote that the protagonist, enemies, and overall game were shorter, and noted that Mario himself was just 12 pixels in height on the Game Boy's small screen. But he too was perplexed by the new sphinx, seahorse, and Moai head enemies, and considered the exploding Koopa shells a "cruel trick" disdainful of the series' core gameplay.

Super Mario Land — Frequently Asked Questions