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Following on from the post here, we’ve gone back to take a look at 6 Golden Coins. Hitting UK shelves in November 1992, most kids with a Game Boy would have had this on their Christmas lists.
Gameplay
It’s hard to believe how close to a full size console this game feels when played on the Game Boy. Taking Super Mario Bros. 3 (1989) as a template, 6 Golden Coins moves away from the first game of the series. Growing from 12 levels in Super Mario Land to 32, we also get a navigable over-world. One improvement over it’s bigger brother is the ability to traverse the 6 worlds in an order you choose.
Each of the six worlds contain between 3 and 4 levels before the player gets to a boss fight. Each of the boss fights start with typical level design, followed by a simple 3 hit win fight. The ability to traverse these worlds in any order allows a player to power-up elsewhere before attempting a level again.
Levels are considerably bigger than Super Mario Land and allows for players to move both left and right. Previous enemies as well as some new are found across each world. Power ups such as the fire flower, invulnerability and mushroom are still present however, we now get rabbit ears too. The rabbit ears give Mario similar flying powers to the raccoon tail.
Completion of a world gets you one of the 6 Golden Coins that grant you access to the final castle. Here we get to meet Wario for the first time in the franchise. Wario has to be faced three times, each with a different power up giving him new abilities for you to fight. Stamp on his head 3 times and he runs off as per the other bosses.
Graphics
As previously stated, the graphics to 6 Golden Coins is much more akin to Mario on the NES than Game Boy. Good sized sprites and detail you don’t expect of the Game Boy makes it all the more impressive.
This is beyond an improvement to Super Mario Land, they might be the same franchise but graphically they are worlds apart.
There is one catch to these superior graphics – slow down. When the game gets intense, we get some stuttering and slow down in gameplay. It’s totally worth the slow down for the pleasing graphics in my opinion.
Sound
There is an improvement but it’s not astronomic. Using as much of the cartridge as the team could, we get a good selection of music and a few more sound effects. The Game Boy and it’s limited, little speaker does its best and I’m all for it.
Final thoughts on Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins
Is the second of the series enough of an improvement to warrant playing? Yes, 100% yes. We get nearly triple the levels, harder boss fights and an overall better looking game. The occasional slow down could be counted as a negative point but really, that’s all I could think of. This is a solid game that should absolutely be on your ‘games I need to play’ list.
You can buy this cartridge cheaply over on eBay.
