The Super Mario Land series was Nintendo's attempt at bringing the Super Mario franchise to the Game Boy. But it was also the first time Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto would not be involved. Learn all about the history of this series and the impact it has left on the Mario franchise!
Super Mario Land is a 1989 side-scrolling platform video game, and it was developed and published by Nintendo as a launch game for its Game Boy handheld game console. It is the first Mario platform game to have been released for a handheld console.
In gameplay similar to that of the 1985 Super Mario Bros., but resized for the smaller device's screen, the player advances Mario to the end of 12 levels by moving to the right and jumping across platforms to avoid enemies and pitfalls. Unlike the other Mario games, Super Mario Land is set in Sarasaland, a new environment depicted in line art, and Mario pursues the debuting Princess Daisy. The game has two Gradius-style shooter levels.
At Nintendo CEO Hiroshi Yamauchi's request, Game Boy creator Gunpei Yokoi's Nintendo R&D1 developed a Mario game to sell the new console. It is the first handheld console Mario game and the first to be made without Mario creator and Yokoi protégé Shigeru Miyamoto. Accordingly, the development team shrunk gameplay elements for the device and used some elements inconsistently from the series.
Super Mario Land was expected to showcase the console until Nintendo of America bundled Tetris. The game launched alongside the Game Boy first in Japan in April 1989, and later worldwide. Super Mario Land was rereleased for the Nintendo 3DS via Virtual Console in 2011, which features some presentation tweaks.
The game was lauded by critics, who were satisfied with the franchise's transition to the Game Boy, but they also noted its short length. This was in reference to both contemporaneous and retrospective reviewers, who particularly praised its soundtrack.
The handheld console became an immediate success and more than 18 million copies of Super Mario Land were sold, more than Super Mario Bros. 3. The game received two sequels, including Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins (1992) and Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3 (1994), the latter of which would later be spun-off into its own sub-series, Wario Land. Super Mario Land has been included in several top Game Boy game lists and debuted Princess Daisy as a recurring Mario series character.