I recently switched to a multi-system emulator that captures exactly what appears on screen, mainly because I wanted larger screenshots. After testing it with the Famicom and Mega Drive, I needed a Game Boy title to get comfortable with it, and this was the game that came to mind.

For a Game Boy release, Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins has a very strong reputation, and deservedly so. It is usually listed among the top black-and-white Game Boy games. I had seen the name before back in the days of multi-game cartridges, but something else on those carts always looked more tempting, so I kept passing it by.

Which is a little embarrassing in hindsight. I owned two original brick Game Boys and one Game Boy Color, yet I never actually played a single authentic Game Boy cartridge.

Once I started playing, one thing immediately stood out: as the predecessor to Wario Land, this game already shares a lot with it in terms of systems, controls, and general feel. At the same time, it feels like a rougher, weaker version across the board. Another way to put it is that Wario Land seems to have identified nearly every flaw here and fixed it.

The timing of this game matters. It arrived right after two hugely important turning points in mainline Mario history, Super Mario Bros. 3 and the first Super Mario Land. That was the period when the series was still expanding and stabilizing new ideas, so concepts tied to the “land” style—world map stage selection, the interplay between overworld and individual stages, and hidden levels—are all carried forward here and pushed further.

Compared with the first Game Boy Mario, this sequel makes Mario much larger on screen, and the enemies are not exactly small either. That gives the game a satisfying visual punch. But it also creates a problem. The level design still includes the usual terrain-based deaths that older Mario games relied on, yet the designers seem not to have fully accounted for the Game Boy’s nearly square 8:7 screen. Compared with a 4:3 television display, the handheld screen offers less horizontal visibility, and with larger character sprites the field of view becomes even tighter. The result is that many hazards simply cannot be seen on a first attempt, leading to cheap deaths.

The clearest example is a sub-stage in the moon world, one built around forced scrolling and dodging stars, almost like the endless mode in Balloon Fight. In theory it is not especially hard if you can set yourself up properly. In practice, the limited visibility means that if you are standing in the wrong place when an obstacle appears, you may not have any room to react. That makes the experience less enjoyable than it should be.

Oddly enough, the moon world is also what gives the game some of its strongest personality. Mario’s jumping ability is enhanced there, and the way he drifts through the air has a deliberate, floating quality that really does evoke a kind of Armstrong-on-the-moon movement.

From a systems standpoint, this is also the point where the Mario series moves away from score and replaces it with coins. The problem is that coins do not really do much here, and the counter only goes up to 999. You hit that cap very easily just by playing normally. Money has no real value, extra lives do matter more in theory, but before long you have more than enough of those too. Hidden rewards tend to give either lives or coins, so exploration loses its appeal pretty quickly. Before long I found myself ignoring secrets entirely and just taking the easiest route through each stage. It is easy to see why Wario Land later turned money into something meaningful by tying it to the house-building ending.

There are hidden stages in this game, but almost nothing encourages the player to seek them out. Even a small acknowledgement would have helped—something as simple as a glowing save file after finding them all, like in Super Mario Bros. 3, would have gone a long way.

Beyond Super Mario and Fire Mario, the game also gives Mario a rabbit-eared form that can glide. Compared with the raccoon-style power from Mario 3, this one differs in two major ways. First, outside of jumping on enemies or hitting them from below, it has no additional attack options. Second, if you can press the button fast enough, the glide can effectively turn into true flight, which makes it extremely powerful. I have not played every mainline Mario game, but this particular design still feels unusual.

The six regular bosses are all too easy. None of them leaves much of an impression.

In the end, the game’s greatest achievement may be that it gave Nintendo another enduring character IP.

Wario makes his debut here as the final boss. He transforms three times, matching Mario’s own three forms in the game, which makes him feel like a twisted counterpart to Mario.

His first design is honestly pretty ugly. Amusingly, on the world map, Mario and Wario actually look exactly the same.

Cleared at last—Mario takes his castle back from Wario, or perhaps just seizes it outright.