Introduction
As a kid, I was a somewhat late adopter of the Game Boy, despite being an avid gamer from age 2, when my older cousin taught me how to play games on the Sega Genesis and SNES. My only previous experience with the Game Boy was playing Baseball and Tetris on my uncle’s system during car trips with my cousin.
I even had a Game Gear before Nintendo’s much more affordable and kid-friendly handheld. That all changed one fateful Christmas in 1998, when due to some sort of miscommunication, I recieve BOTH a Game Boy Pocket, from my aunt, and the brand new Game Boy Color, from my parents.
With the systems, I received Pokemon Red, The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening DX, Pocket Bomberman, and Wario Land II. With these games and the battery life of TWO Game Boys, I finally had experienced true, untethered, handheld gaming.
As I slowly, but surely worked my way through the games in my fledgling collection, I noticed there was a glaring hole in my Game Boy library: I did not have a Mario game! To temporarily fill this void, I borrowed a game from my friend, that game was Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins
Review
Visuals: 7/10
6 Golden Coins borrows its visual style from its contemporary console counterpart, Super Mario World, thus greatly improving upon the graphics of its prequel, Super Mario Land.
Sprites look like Super Mario World
The sprite work in the game is large and highly detailed, with much more impressive animation than the previous entry in the series. Despite the increased sprite size, Super Mario Land 2’s gameplay remains unaffected, even when taking into account the small size of the Game Boy’s screen.
The sprite work is enhanced by varied environments that make the adventure both visually pleasing and thematically unique compared to other Mario games. A desolate space zone, a Halloween themed zone, and the innards of a mechanical facsimile of the mustachioed protagonist, construct a world that stands head and shoulders above many environs from the Super Mario Series in concept.
Sea of Gray
In execution however, the visuals are not without their flaws; the level of background detail is lackluster at times, preventing the game from reaching its full visual potential.
These dull backgrounds subtract from the impressive sprite work and excellent zone themes, but rarely interfere with actual gameplay.
Overall, the graphics in Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins, display the astounding leap forward that was occurring in Game Boy programming in the early 90s, but are still somewhat flawed with regards to background detail.
Sound: 5/10
The sound effects in this game are the excellent, and absolutely legendary Mario sound effects the world has come to know and love. These lovely noises are so recognizable that even casual players and non-gamers could likely identify them.
That is where the sound quality ends, however, because the music is utterly lifeless and unimaginative. I honestly cannot remember any tune from the game off the top of my head, with the exception of the bonus level music. This is an obvious low point of the game.
Controls: 6/10
The controls in this game are vast improvement over the previous Super Mario Land game. While the previous game’s controls feel almost unnatural to Super Mario fans, this game makes a valiant attempt to correct the previous game’s weird physics.
This reparation sadly produced better, but still mediocre results. The
Gameplay: 7/10
Conceptually, this game is incredible. Following a single intro stage, the player has complete freedom in traversing the over world map, allowing them to tackle the zones in any order. This gives a level of freedom that was rarely seen in platformers outside of a Mega Man game, let alone on a handheld.
Each level within the zones are variations on the usual run right formula, with overly simplistic platforming that makes this game incredibly easy. I am not saying this in the usual internet “I am the best at video games, ergo this game is easy” way, but rather I am saying an orangutan could likely finish a few of these levels without without breaking a sweat.
Luckily, these generally simple levels are abbreviated with the much maligned water levels, which I have always been a fan of, and new zero gravity levels that really add a little spice to the generally linear play areas. This provides a welcome change of pace, requiring a bit more focused attention than most of the game.
The simple difficulty is a bit of a disappointment, but it is hard to say that the game isn’t fun.
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