Nintendo's History: Episode One: Super Mario Land

Good afternoon.

I am a younger gamer who, unfortunately, missed out on all gaming up until this generation. Up until a week ago, I only owned a DS and a Xbox 360. In the last week, however, I have taken it upon myself to educate myself on the history of Nintendo. I bought a Gamecube and a GBA, with a reasonable amount of games for each system. Having only played each game for a short time, I have not actually completed any of them, but I am reasonably close to finishing some of these older games. In this and other forthcoming posts, I will write a quick summary of each game that I have played between writing and give my impressions of said game.

Today's lesson is a classic handheld game, Super Mario Land. This was Mario's first outing on a handheld system, a launch game for the original Game Boy. Mario traveled to Sarasaland to rescue Princess Daisy, who makes her debut in this title. The game is split into twelve levels, with increasing difficulty throughout.

I personally enjoyed playing this game, although at points it is brutally hard. I have made it to the final boss battle with Tatanga's warship with a reasonable supply of extra lives, but have not been able to defeat him. However, since I have seen the entire game in terms of level design, I have decided to take a break from Mario Land for now. I might come back to it from a completionist's standpoint, but for now, I close the book on Super Mario Land.