I really expected to like this game more than I did. On paper Super Mario Land 2 seems like it should do everything better than the first game, but I still feel like I enjoyed it less.
Movement feels clunky here, and I don't think there's much of an excuse for that given that this came out after Mario 3 and Mario World which both control pretty much perfectly. It's really annoyingly easy to die from a missed jump because the momentum feels so weird. The real biggest issue though is screen crunch. All the sprites are so huge compared to the environment and it makes it hard to even tell where you are or what obstacles are around you. Compare a screenshot of this game to one from nearly any other 2D Mario and you'll see what I mean. It's definitely a limitation of the GameBoy, but it just makes the experience worse.
I didn't really care for the levels / worlds much, they weren't very memorable to me. My favorite probably would've been Space Zone, but uh, it only had two levels. Was able to run through most of them pretty quickly without much hassle so there wasn't a lot that stood out. Except for Wario's Castle, which was trash.
The only new powerup here is the bunny hat (also known as dollar store tanooki suit/cape). It really doesn't do much for me. There's also a counter for how many enemies you've killed, and you get a star when you hit 100. It's nice I guess, but it's not likely to be very impactful.
I did find it interesting that this game uses coins as an actual currency rather than just giving a 1-up when you reach 100, but since there's no way to store powerups that you get from the slot machine, I only ever used them for 1-ups anyway. Makes me wonder what the point was.
Music is really hit or miss. Some of it is great, some of it is nails on a chalkboard. I feel bad that I don't have much good to say outside of it looking really nice for a GB game, but I dunno, it really didn't hit like I thought it would.
Movement feels clunky here, and I don't think there's much of an excuse for that given that this came out after Mario 3 and Mario World which both control pretty much perfectly. It's really annoyingly easy to die from a missed jump because the momentum feels so weird. The real biggest issue though is screen crunch. All the sprites are so huge compared to the environment and it makes it hard to even tell where you are or what obstacles are around you. Compare a screenshot of this game to one from nearly any other 2D Mario and you'll see what I mean. It's definitely a limitation of the GameBoy, but it just makes the experience worse.
I didn't really care for the levels / worlds much, they weren't very memorable to me. My favorite probably would've been Space Zone, but uh, it only had two levels. Was able to run through most of them pretty quickly without much hassle so there wasn't a lot that stood out. Except for Wario's Castle, which was trash.
The only new powerup here is the bunny hat (also known as dollar store tanooki suit/cape). It really doesn't do much for me. There's also a counter for how many enemies you've killed, and you get a star when you hit 100. It's nice I guess, but it's not likely to be very impactful.
I did find it interesting that this game uses coins as an actual currency rather than just giving a 1-up when you reach 100, but since there's no way to store powerups that you get from the slot machine, I only ever used them for 1-ups anyway. Makes me wonder what the point was.
Music is really hit or miss. Some of it is great, some of it is nails on a chalkboard. I feel bad that I don't have much good to say outside of it looking really nice for a GB game, but I dunno, it really didn't hit like I thought it would.