Gunpei Yokoi did amazing things with Super Mario Land on the original Game Boy back in 1989. It's a superb game that kickstarted the portable Mario series and one that we all look to as one of the most influential Mario titles of all time. Still, even I prefer the look and feel of Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins. I'm not taking anything away from the impact SML had, but 6 Golden Coins just felt more put together, more rounded, and that's because Nintendo had a bit more experience of how to push the Game Boy's hardware by that point.
So what would Super Mario Land have looked like if the dev had had a little bit more time to mess around and figure out how best to utilise the Game Boy? A dev called 2bitcrook has taken it upon themselves to find out what it might have looked like if Nintendo had released Super Mario Land 1 a little closer to the second game. This isn't a demake, more of a remake or 'upgrade', and it's called Super Mario Land 1 + ½.
2bitcrook has worked on the first level so far, giving fans a chance to check out what it could have looked like with upgraded sprites and level design. They have designed this with the original Game Boy limitations in mind but using Game Boy Color mode to make use of the double CPU. That's cheating slightly then, but hey, I can push that to one side in favour of having fun playing some Mario.
It's only short, so it's not going to take you more than 5 minutes to play through. Still, it's a cool little thing to mess around with in your browser while at work, and hopefully 2bitcrook will carry on and complete the whole gamre in this style. You can play this in your browser or play it on your chosen emulator or GBC via a flash cart.
Head to Itch.io for more info!
