It is Sarasa Land where the story takes place. A mysterious alien by the name of Tatanga has kidnapped Princess Daisy, the ruler of the land. It is now up to Mario to stop Tatanga and rescue the Princess.
Super Mario Land was rather different in it's time compared to other Mario games. For one thing it didn't even take place in the Mushroom Kingdom but actually Sarasa Land, which is comprised of different mini-Kingdoms. It also had different baddies from other Mario games (though did have some returning enemies, including ones from the original Mario Bros. and Super Mario Bros.), a different main boss and even a different princess. Perhaps the biggest difference is that it wasn't even worked on by Shigeru Miyamoto, but by his mentor Gunpei Yokoi. Sure, there were spinoffs that Miyamoto also had nothing to do with but rarely ever an actual platformer. That being said, is this game any good? Hell yes.
Super Mario Land essentially plays like the original Super Mario Bros. The controls are a bit more tricky than later Mario games and there is no backtracking. Additional to the SMB gameplay however are the shooting levels. In two levels, Mario uses a submarine and an airplane that shoot missiles at his foes and destroy blocks. These levels add some new innovation and variety to the Mario series and make this game only more entertaining than it would've been had it not had these levels.
The graphics are fairly simple. Nothing here will blow you away, but that's not to say that the graphics are horrible. Mario and the enemies look the way they should for the most part. A common criticism of SML is that it's graphics are ridiculously simple, but overall I don't mind them.
Of coarse, theres the music. With memorable songs like the Birabuto and Chai Kingdom overworld themes, the score is hard not to get stuck in your head. The underground theme is the only truly disappointing these as it doesn't really have much qualities, but the rest of the music in the game pretty much makes up for this.
This is the kind of Mario game I can play any time, any where and it'd never get old. It's that damn good and was an inspiration for the site's design to began with. tl;dr, I'd have to give this game a perfect A+
PS Nokobons
