Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins

Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins is a video game for the Game Boy released by Nintendo in 1992. It is the sequel to the 1989 game Super Mario Land. The game is notable for being the debut of Wario as a character in the Mario universe.

Story
Mario returns to his castle after rescuing Princess Daisy, only to find it taken over by an old enemy named Wario. Locked out of his own castle, Mario must now search the land for six golden coins in order to unlock the castle door and defeat Wario and his minions.

Gameplay
The game features seven zones and 32 levels, accessible via a world map similar to Super Mario World. The zones are:


 * Tree Zone: Mario must climb a giant tree to face the giant bird called Radonkel
 * Macro Zone: Mario is shrunken in size and must defeat the giant rat Ricky
 * Pumpkin Zone: A Halloween-themed zone where Mario encounters the witch Sabasa
 * Mario Zone: Mario has to traverse a giant statue of himself and face the Three Little Pigheads.
 * Turtle Zone: Mario goes inside a Whale to fight an Octopus
 * Space Zone: Mario dons a space suit and travels to the moon. The boss of this zone is Tatanga, the final boss of the original Super Mario Land.

Once Mario has finished the zones and collected the six golden coins, he must use them to enter his own castle and defeat Wario. If Mario loses all of his lives, he will also lose all the golden coins he has collected, and will have to fight their guardians once again.



Though Super Mario Land 2 is a side-scrolling 2-D platformer like its predecessor, the two games bear little resemblance. The sequel features a playing field much closer to the action, larger, more detailed sprites based off the recently-released Super Mario World, and a new set of power-ups and abilities. Levels could now be chosen at the player's discretion via a world map, and secret exits and levels were present. The sequel also featured more traditional Mario enemies such as the Goomba and the Koopa, as opposed to exotic enemies from the original such as the Chibibo and the Nokobon. Also, the vehicle-based shoot-em-up levels from the original were not present in the sequel.

The game's power-ups include:
 * Super Mushroom: Makes Mario bigger and allows him to take an extra hit.
 * Fire Flower: Allows Mario to shoot fireballs
 * Carrot: Gives Mario bunny ears which allow him to float in the air.
 * Starman: Turns Mario invincible. Note that the item differs from other Mario games in that it stays still on top of the "?" block once released.  Defeating 100 enemies will also cause a Starman to fall from the sky.

Super Mario Land 2 differs from other Mario games in that collecting 100 coins does not give you an extra life. Instead, you can collect up to 999 coins and use them in a roulette game available on the world map.

The game had two difficulty levels which could be chosen via the select button on the menu screen.

Sequels
This was the final game in the series to feature Mario as the protagonist. The sequel, 1994's Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3, featured Wario as the main character, with Mario making only a brief cameo.

Backstory
Although this game marked the first appearance of Wario, dialogue in the instruction booklet suggested that Wario was an old enemy of Mario who was jealous of his fame and fortune. A comic produced in Nintendo Power, entitled Mario Vs. Wario, revealed the pair to be childhood friends, though Wario would suffer many indignities out of jealousy. Wario would eventually swear revenge on Mario, leading to the events depicted in the Super Mario Land games.

Trivia

 * Super Mario Land 2 has sold 11.06 million copies worldwide.
 * In order to avoid losing all your golden coins, simply reset the game before the "Game Over" screen appears. The game will be returned to its state prior to entering the level and losing the final life.
 * On the File Select screen, if the player is deleting a file, Mario will transform into Bomb Mario.
 * The music for this game was done by Kazumi Totaka. If the player waits on the game over screen for 2 minutes and 30 seconds Totaka's Song will play.
 * This is the first Mario game to feature a stage with an outer space setting.
 * This is the second game to feature a completely different Starman theme following the original Super Mario Bros. The first was Super Mario Land