This sounds strange, but I feel that I’ve been unfair to Super Mario Land over the years. Despite being Mario’s first portable outing and delivering quite a solid adventure for the fledgling Game Boy back in 1989, I haven’t always given the game enough respect. I guess I kind of dismissed Mario Land for feeling odd and antiquated, its physics never quite feeling as polished as other Mario titles, and its enemies often feeling like offbrand versions of Mushroom Kingdom staples. In many ways, I felt like a good first attempt, but merely a rough draft for its more highly-regarded sequel.

Of course it wasn’t just me ignoring the game. Out of all Mario platformer games, I feel that the least revered is likely Super Mario Land. Heck, Nintendo themselves have rarely given SML much respect, or even acknowledgement. When Game Boy games were first added to Nintendo Switch Online in February 2023, Nintendo included the game’s sequel (Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins) in their rollout, but completely omitted the original. It wasn’t until May 2024—over a year later—that the OG Mario Land was finally added to NSO.

It’s almost as if Nintendo is embarrassed by Super Mario Land, like they’d prefer if everyone just forgot the game exists. Which is odd, because despite its age and obvious technical limitations, SML is still a damn good time. Ignoring SML only makes sense to me in terms of Super Mario brand management, as it’s a little more quirky and unusual than Mario games today are allowed to be. Back when this game was developed, Nintendo was still experimenting with the formula and Mario had a lot more freedom to deviate from expectations. Playing SML today, it is a refreshingly weird and distinctly unusual Mario adventure.

See, Nintendo really sanitized Mario over the years, sanding off any rough edges until he was distilled into the Mickey Mouse-equse mascot we all know today. In that process though, the squeaky clean version of Mario has been rendered more-or-less devoid of a personality. Any time Nintendo felt tempted to have Mario do something strange or transgressive, they’d use a stand-in. Wario, Mario’s bizarro doppelganger, is the go-to protagonist for Nintendo’s more gonzo scenarios. Luigi too—though to a lesser extent—has also become a vehicle for original game design while the Mario magic is kept frozen in stasis. Heck, even Toad has gotten his own moment in the spotlight.

Beyond characterization and brand management, the gameplay we expect from a Super Mario title truly solidified with the introduction of Super Mario World. It’s easy to forget, but Mario Land was only the fourth title Nintendo’s developers created as a Super Mario game up to this point: Super Mario Bros. (1985), Super Mario Bros. 2 [The Lost Levels] (1986), and Super Mario Bros. 3 (1988). You might notice two of those three are basically the same game—SMB2 [The Lost Levels] was just like SMB1, but way harder—so the formula for what makes a Mario game hadn’t been fully codified yet. Also, Mario Land was created by Gunpei Yokoi's team, Nintendo R&D1, so the usual suspects of Shigeru Miyamoto and Takashi Tezuka didn’t work on this one.

Honestly, I feel that Mario’s character sanitization and the ossification of core game mechanics is what led to the New Super Mario Bros series feeling—at least my opinion—incredibly samey and disappointingly boring. But way back in ‘89, with R&D1 helming an original Mario title, our little hero was still allowed to embark on wacky adventures and experiment with new and different gameplay types. And thus Super Mario Land was truly its own thing.

Mario piloting his plane, the Sky Pop, engaging with…uh, chickens?…in airborne combat.

Instead of the Mushroom Kingdom, this portable adventure would take Mario to the Sarasaland, a realm that featured landmarks eerily similar to real-world locations. Instead of Bowser, the main antagonist is Tatanga, an alien invader from another planet. The final boss encounter was even an aerial fight, with Mario piloting an airplane (the “Sky Pop”) and Tatanga flying his spaceship. Now that’s a novel idea!

Instead of Princess Peach—or “Princess Toadstool”, as many of us referred to the character back in the day—SML tasked Mario with rescuing a new damsel, Princess Daisy. And while Daisy might be a fan-favorite character today, she was largely forgotten for a decade after SML. Sure, Daisy had been the name used for the female lead of the 1993 live-action Super Mario Bros. movie, but that was about it. (Interestingly, the movie Daisy was the love interest of Luigi, not Mario, and those two characters continue to be romantically paired to this day.) It actually wasn’t until Peach needed a doubles partner for Mario Tennis (N64) that Daisy was first made playable in a video game, and that was in 2000.

Players will immediately recognize familiar faces like Koopa Troopas and Goombas in SML’s Sarasaland, although officially these aren’t exactly the same creatures from previous Mario outings. Granted, the “Goombos” in SML are functionally identical to Goombas in SMB. But instead of Koopa Troopas (Noko Noko in Japanese), the turtle enemies in Sarasaland are Bombshell Koopas (Nokobon). Unlike a normal Koopa—who will retreat into its shell when stomped, allowing the shell to be kicked along the floor—stomping on a Bombshell Koopa will cause it to explode a few seconds later.

The use of Bombshell Koopas was likely inspired by technical limitations of the Game Boy, persisting shells that could be kicked around the stage were presumably too much for the game to handle in 1989. Still, if you aren’t expecting it, the first time you encounter an exploding Koopa can be quite a shock, a rather funny subversion of expectations.

The power-ups in SML are similarly familiar, yet just a bit off. The Mushroom and Star power-ups return and are essentially the same as they’ve always been. Well, except for the fact that the Star now plays the “Galop Infernal" from Jacques Offenbach’s Orpheus in the Underworld, literally can-can music; not sure why they made that choice. At first glance, the flower power-up from SMB appears to be back, however this turns out not to be the Fire Flower at all. It is a “Superball Flower”: new a power-up that allows Mario to throw a Superball at his enemies.

Now if the term “Superball” conjures images of a rubber bouncy ball toy in your mind, that’s correct; this appears to be exactly what the SML developers were going for. This kind of makes sense to me, given that Gunpei Yokoi was always a toy maker at heart. SMB had allowed Mario to throw two fireballs at a time, and these fireballs would bounce forward allow the ground. SML’s Superball, on the other hand, can only be thrown one at a time. The projectile will ricochet off of any surface—the ground, walls, ceiling, pipes, etc.—at right angles, bouncing all around the screen for up to four seconds. If the ball collides with any coins, it will actually collect them for you. As a result, the Superball really feels very much like a bouncy ball toy inserted into a Mario game.

Mario using the Superball in the Super Mario Land manga by Kazuki Motoyama.

If Superball hits an enemy or goes flying off the screen, Mario will then be able to throw another one. It’s worth noting though that a few of the regular enemies in SML actually require multiple Superball hits to kill. In SMB, a single fireball will dispatch any enemy that isn’t a boss (i.e.; not Bowser). But in SML, a single Superball will fail to kill a handful non-boss enemies, which is another fun curveball to surprise players. Also, 1-Ups here use a heart sprite instead of a mushroom, since they couldn’t make mushrooms of different colors.

In terms of platformer gameplay and movement, SML feels a bit primitive and less refined than the previous Super Mario titles on the NES. Mario’s momentum feels unusually rigid and his falling speed is just incredibly fast. That said, SML still manages to feel good to play. It’s easy to adjust to the simpler physics and the game’s shorter levels are fun to play through. Plus, occasional shooting stages help to shake up the action.

The game’s difficulty is just about right too; challenging in a few places, but pretty easy overall. The placement of some hidden 1-Ups feels generous, and the frequent opportunity to rack up extra lives through bonus games means players should rarely have to face a Gave Over. Although, I don’t remember this game being quite so easy-breezy when I first played it as a seven-year-old, so you know, your mileage may vary.

Is this the real Daisy or a shape-shifting imposter? (Usually it’s the latter.)

Super Mario Land has four game worlds, with three levels per world. That makes 12 levels in total, so it’s a considerably shorter game than the 32 levels in the original Super Mario Bros. Being more brief than the home console games might be an asset for SML however, as portable games require a bit more pick-up and put-down flexibility, in my opinion. As to be expected from its vintage, this game features no way to save your progress; you just play it straight through in one sitting. Also, this is the only Mario game, to my knowledge, to include scrolling shooter levels. Level 2-3 is an underwater shooter where Mario pilots a submarine, and the final stage, Level 4-3, is an airborne shooting stage in the sky.

As previously mentioned, Sarasaland features landmarks similar to real-world locations, and I think it’s reasonable to assume that Mario Land was doing the same globetrotting theme decades before Mario Odyssey tried it. However, I find it kind of interesting how directly Mario Land references real-world locales, using less artistic license than you might expect today. There are only four kingdoms anyway, so let’s touch on each one quickly.

World 1: Birabuto Kingdom

The first kingdom is basically just Egypt, featuring pyramids and sphinx-like enemies. The English name here is actually a mistranslation of the Japanese name Piraputo (ピラプト) Kingdom. Funnily enough, that Japanese name is literally just the words “pyramid” and “Egypt” smashed together.

World 2: Muda Kingdom

The second kingdom is water-themed and this is meant to be the Bermuda Triangle. In fact, the Japanese name Myūda (ミューダ) is a shortened version of the word “Bermuda”.

World 3: Easton Kingdom

The third kingdom is basically Easter Island, with moai stone statues seen in the background and a couple of moai-esque enemies. The Japanese name Īsuton (イーストン) is translated pretty faithfully, though one could claim that the second syllable needs to be pronounced with a long ‘o’ vowel, because it’s supposed to sound like “stone” and not “ton”. To mention Odyssey again, that game also featured moai creatures, and it seemed like may have been an oblique callback to Mario Land.

World 4: Chai Kingdom

The last kingdom is definitely China, though perhaps a mythical version of ancient China, with Jiangshi vampires hopping around. The Japanese name is exactly the same, with Chai (チャイ) seemingly being shorten from “China”. Personally I think it’s also a tea reference, as tea was introduced to Japan by China, likely during the Tang Dynasty.

Now we couldn’t discuss Super Mario Land without mentioning its single greatest element, the music! As mentioned in our Top 10 Underrated Video Game Soundtracks post many years ago, SML’s soundtrack is one of the very best on the original Game Boy, and personally one of my all-time favorites. Nintendo’s legendary Hirokazu "Hip" Tanaka knew how to get the very best out of the Game Boy and here he delivers a standout performance from top to bottom.

First you have the main theme/overworld music (Stages 1-1, 1-2, 3-1), sporting a bouncy, cheery melody that I honestly feel is superior to the classic SMB theme. Then there’s the secondary overworld music (Stages 2-1 & 2-2), which is such a bop, it sounds like a lost Beatles song rendered in chiptune. There’s the temple/fortress music (Stages 1-3, 3-2, 3-3) which perfectly captures the vibes of mystery and danger you feel facing off against sphinxes and living moai statues. Plus, let’s not forget the vaguely Chinese-sounding tune that you hear in the Chai Kingdom (Stages 4-1 & 4-2), which is undeniably a real banger.

The Staff Roll track is simply beautiful.

And finally, Hip Tanaka saved the best for last, because the Staff Roll track that plays over the credits is a true masterpiece. An ascending buildup gives way to a simple melody, and somehow manages to evoke real emotion through the Game Boy’s four-channel soundchip. It honestly reminds me of the Moon Theme from Duck Tales, a powerfully emotional tune that just hits you from out of nowhere. It’s simply beautiful.

Super Mario Land’s soundtrack is so strong, in fact, that when Super Mario Compact Disco was released in 1993, the songs remixing SML music were clearly its best tracks. While the featured single from the album was even titled Supermarioland, I would argue that Go, Mario, Go! (which also uses multiple SML themes) was by far their best track. So I’ll leave you with that.