{"id":1396,"date":"2017-03-18T23:39:38","date_gmt":"2017-03-19T06:39:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bradleycbuchanan.com\/b\/?p=1396"},"modified":"2017-03-18T23:39:38","modified_gmt":"2017-03-19T06:39:38","slug":"super-mario-land","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bradleycbuchanan.com\/b\/super-mario-land\/","title":{"rendered":"Super Mario Land"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s Mario’s Game Boy debut, and one of my earliest videogame memories.
\n<\/p>\n

I have a vague memory of receiving one of the\u00a0Mario Land<\/em>\u00a0titles along with my first Game Boy (and Tetris<\/em>!) at a very early birthday party. If I recall, we were at a now-closed pizza parlor on Stark street in Portland, and I was turning six. \u00a0I probably received Super Mario Land 2: Six Golden Coins<\/em>\u00a0at that birthday – it\u00a0was new and popular at the time – and got this one later. I remember posting its box art on the fridge in a duplex we rented while moving between houses that year.<\/p>\n

I\u00a0do know that by the\u00a0time I got to this game, I’d already played Vs.\u00a0Super Mario Bros.<\/em><\/a>\u00a0(but that’s \u00a0another story) and I knew the brand well enough to understand that koopa shells should\u00a0fly away when you stomp on them. \u00a0I was initially disappointed\u00a0to learn that\u00a0Super Mario Land<\/em> didn’t feature this mechanic.<\/p>\n

You see,\u00a0Super Mario Land<\/em> was a Game Boy launch title in 1989. \u00a0I suspect\u00a0that koopa-shell physics were a technical challenge that didn’t make the cut. \u00a0So instead of regular koopas, you got these guys<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

They’d curl into a ball when stomped and explode a moment later. \u00a0While not as satisfying\u00a0as a kicked koopa shell, these guys fill a similar role by presenting\u00a0a possible\u00a0threat after<\/em> you’ve stomped them. This encourages some jump-rope behavior when you’re trying to stay in one place – and I’m sure they were easier to code up.<\/p>\n

But while the nokobon are the first jarring divergence from the\u00a0Super Mario Bros.<\/em> I knew,\u00a0<\/em>they lead a parade of weirdness that’s largely been dropped from Mario canon. \u00a0Skeleton fish<\/a>, jogging Moai heads<\/a> and the superball\u00a0power-up<\/a> are all explained away in the manual by setting the game in “Sarasaland” instead of the Mushroom Kingdom. \u00a0Nintendo used this trick just a year earlier when re-purposing\u00a0Doki Doki Panic<\/em> into\u00a0Super Mario Bros. 2<\/em>, and they’d revisit it again in games like\u00a0Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga<\/em> and\u00a0Super Mario Sunshine<\/em>, making Mario an avid globetrotter.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

There’s also a sense that everything\u00a0is\u00a0tiny<\/em> in this game. \u00a0Super Mario Bros.\u00a0<\/em>runs at the NES’ 256×240 resolution, and regular (small) Mario stands 16 pixels tall – the same height as a block. \u00a0Super Mario Land<\/em>\u00a0squeezes into\u00a0the tiny Game Boy resolution – 160×144 – with a Mario just 12 pixels tall and even smaller 8-pixel tiles.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

While it’s easy\u00a0to see this as a step backward from the visually arresting\u00a0Super Mario Bros. 3<\/em>\u00a0(<\/em>which was already out in Japan),\u00a0Land<\/em> gets sixteen tiles of usable vertical space to\u00a0SMB<\/em>‘s fourteen – or thirteen, really, when taking overscan into account. \u00a0This creates a bit more freedom and variety within levels, and lets the player see far enough ahead for the sort of fast, fluid action\u00a0SMB<\/em> became known for. \u00a0Super Mario Land 2<\/em>, while much prettier, would swing the other way\u00a0with a zoomed-in camera and levels that encouraged a more\u00a0careful approach. \u00a0In that sense,\u00a0Super Mario Land<\/em> is perhaps a truer\u00a0successor to\u00a0SMB<\/em>‘s gameplay than\u00a0Super Mario Bros. 2<\/em>.<\/p>\n

As a\u00a0six-year-old this game seemed insurmountable, although it has a reputation as one of the shorter, easier titles in the series. \u00a0I did well enough to learn the first few stages inside and out, but eventually got frustrated and set the game aside. \u00a0The more\u00a0complex\u00a0SMB2: Six Golden Coins<\/em> took me much longer to master.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Super Mario Land
\n<\/strong>Directed by Satoru Okada<\/em>
\nReleased for Nintendo Game Boy in 1989<\/em>
\nPlayed in 1993 at age 6
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

For a more complete look at this title’s history, check out Jeremy Parish’s article over at Game Boy World<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s Mario’s Game Boy debut, and one of my earliest videogame memories.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1397,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[443,222,444,13],"class_list":["post-1396","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-games","tag-game-boy","tag-mario","tag-played-in-1993","tag-videogame"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bradleycbuchanan.com\/b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1396","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bradleycbuchanan.com\/b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bradleycbuchanan.com\/b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bradleycbuchanan.com\/b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bradleycbuchanan.com\/b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1396"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.bradleycbuchanan.com\/b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1396\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1411,"href":"https:\/\/www.bradleycbuchanan.com\/b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1396\/revisions\/1411"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bradleycbuchanan.com\/b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1397"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bradleycbuchanan.com\/b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bradleycbuchanan.com\/b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bradleycbuchanan.com\/b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}