100% 30 Dec 2024

The games in the Super Mario Land series that I played the most as a child were Super Mario Land and Super Mario Land 3: Wario Land. Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins isnā€™t one I recall being able to play in its entirety; I donā€™t think we owned it and the chunks of the game I remember playing were almost certainly on a borrowed copy.

Well, Iā€™m an adult now and that means I donā€™t have to borrow copies any more; I can buy one! Ā£10 from CEX. Bargain.

A ā€œDXā€ hack of the game has been developed by the retro gaming community, meaning not only can I play the game but I can play a better version of the game. This hack makes the game full colour and it removes bugs from the game that caused slowdown and lag in the original.

Unlike Super Mario Land ā€“ which doesnā€™t really feel like other Mario games, either of the era or since ā€“ 6 Golden Coins looks and plays like the Mario games most of us are familiar with across console generations. Clearly leaning heavily on inspiration from Super Mario 3, it introduces ā€˜properā€™ Mario to the Game Boy and a game design and over-world map that are now staples of the series.

Itā€™s not all borrowed ideas from the NES shrunk down to a 160 by 144 pixel screen though. This is the game that introduced Wario; Marioā€™s arch-nemesis. Without this game, there would be no Super Mario Land 3: Wario Land, or any of the other (to my mind inferior) Wario games that succeeded it.

Anyway, I got the 6 golden coins and I bullied Wario in the final castle level (with surprising ease, I might add; maybe Iā€™m better at this gameing thing than I thought).