Game:

Super Mario Land (1989)

Duration: 2:38:38

42 views

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Originally Recorded/Aired on November 6th, 2021

I've come to realize that #SuperOldGameSaturday hasn't covered enough portable games, but thanks to this request from ElecVerse, we're fixing that with the channel's first Game Boy game, as well as the first portable title played using the original cartridge (along with the Super Game Boy accessory for the Super Nintendo). 1989's Super Mario Land was a launch title for Nintendo's green and black-screened portable system and was from Nintendo R&D 1, the team behind Metroid and Kid Icarus that was headed by the late great Gunpei Yokoi. In concert with director Satoru Okada, musician Hirokazu Tanaka and the rest of this talented team, they made this indelible Mario game that is debatably not represented today as much as you'd expect for a game that sold so well, but we're here to give the game and its talented creators their due, as we went through our memories of this game, portable gaming, as a whole, and Gunpei Yokoi's other products (and if you're wondering why the thumbnail looks like something from the Virtual Boy, that was completely intentional). Given the short length of this one, we buttressed it with a play of the expert mode of the game, playing around with the Super Game Boy's features and the great discussions from the chat, including history of portable gaming, Game Boy and Gunpei Yokoi (some citing G4's Icons episode, which you can watch here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOlLGL1l4uY), the stories of just how durable the Game Boy is (as Gulf War nurse Stephan Scoggins emphasized with it surviving a bomb blast), all of the crazy accessories that worked with this (including a device that uses Game Boy to sedate children before surgery, as indicated in this Angry Video Game Nerd episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEzJH90h3aA) and celebrating the great atmosphere, cultural impact and music of this game (the latter of which being even further indicated by this referenced video, as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvsSGhhE5ik). I had a great time on this show and thank ElecVerse and the chat once again for making it a great show and hope you enjoy it here (and if you like what you see here, stop by https://www.twitch.tv/captainditrag each Saturday at 7 PM EST to see these streams live and join/help drive the conversations on what we play each week, except for the next episode, which will be on Friday, November 12th)!

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