Immediately when you start Super Mario Land, you'll notice it is a very different Mario Game. A new world, new enemies, even a new princess to rescue. Despite no story in game apart from the traditional princess is in another castle style finish to each world, we are told via the game's manual that the game takes place in Sarasaland. Sarasaland is full of mostly new enemies and worlds which appear to be based on real world locations like China and Egypt. Rescuing Princess Daisy is Mario's quest this time who has been captured by Tatanga who is apparently an evil spaceman.
Released as a launch game for the Game Boy, Super Mario Land brought Mario immediately over to Nintendo's new handheld and was a success commercially. Needing of course some familiar games at launch with the new console, Super Mario Land was developed. The game was originally intended to be bundled with the Game Boy, but Tetris was chosen instead to try and promote the new console to all ages and not just children. Despite being targeted to children however, the game is quite challenging due to it's lack of a save or password system.
The game itself plays quite differently to the Super Mario Brothers games before it. Mario jumps higher and the controls feel a little more sensitive. In fact almost everything feels different, almost un-Mario like at times, but this is not a bad thing. Instead the major criticism I have with the game is that there are only 4 worlds which are 3 levels each. This really means that at most it'll take approximately an hour to complete in one playthrough. But even with only 12 levels, there is some variety. There are two levels where you control a vehicle rather than doing standard platforming and the new worlds have different enemies which all behave differently. Each world also ends with a unique boss to defeat.
In spite of all of it's differences, Super Mario Land is still a good game with fantastic music, great level design and enjoyable gameplay. It is a shame that it is so short, which does make parts of it forgettable unless you have played through it multiple times.