Super Mario Land is the smallest, slightest, simplest, and easiest of all the first-party Mario platform games. But that’s kind of the point? Nintendo needed a Mario launch game for Game Boy’s debut, and the console’s own creators put one together quite ably.
Super Mario Land doesn’t hold up especially well when compared side-by-side to every other Mario game, but compare it to literally any action game you could play on the bus or in the backseat of a car in 1989 and it absolutely freakin’ rules.
Super Mario Land works smartly within the limitations of the system and maxes out the available ROM size—it’s literally the biggest and best handheld action game that anyone had made or could have made in 1989, and it deserves respect for that.
Also, there’s Baseball.
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