Super Mario Land
In the prelude to my video game adventure, I named the Gamecube as the first video game system I was able to use. This is not exactly true - when I was somewhat younger I was given a Game Boy by my grandpa with Tetris on it. I don't have a lot of memories of it (with the exception of Theme A and Theme B forever being burned into my mind) but I know it was fun. That is why it was a bit of a surprise to read about Super Mario Land, the first portable Mario offering. Even while owning a Game Boy, I was completely unaware of the existence of this game.
So, having spent the last few days playing through to the final boss, I figured it warranted a post. This is basically what you would expect from a Mario game. 12 levels spread over 4 worlds with koopa troopas, goombas, wasps with spears (?), and other strange enemies with gameplay consisting of a lot of running and jumping. It was enjoyable to play through, although I feel I am unlikely to come back to it in the future. Visuals, while not usually a major concern of mine (I'm playing through games from the 80s and 90s and blogging about it), the original Game Boy does give me some trouble. Undoubtedly it was amazing in 1989, but after playing side scrolling Mario games on the DS and Wii, this feels a little bit too primitive. It is certainly worth a play for the history, but if you are one to get hung up on graphics, do not pick this up. That being said, the sound is very impressive for such an early title, and I found the music from the first boss level familiar (and barely changed) from the soundtrack of the much more recent Super Smash Bros. Brawl.
Also interesting is the use of Daisy as the damsel to save. I didn't know the origin of Daisy as a character, but I guess this must be it. It is probably an attempt to set this apart from other Mario games, as this is supposed to be set in a place called Sarasaland, instead of the usual Mushroom Kingdom. There is also a twist on the "Your princess is in another castle" gag from the NES game, where after each boss, Daisy appears but then is revealed to actually be an enemy. All in all, Super Mario Land was a fun look at the beginnings of the Nintendo portables and I am looking forward to playing the sequel.