Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins

Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins is a platforming game for the Game Boy released in 1992 and later for the Nintendo 3DS' Virtual Console in 2011. It is the direct sequel to Super Mario Land and also marks the debut of Mario's self-proclaimed arch rival Wario, who would later become a recurring character in the Mario series as well as a protagonist in his own series. Like its predecessor, it received a Player's Choice and was produced by the late Gunpei Yokoi rather than the Mario series creator Shigeru Miyamoto, who was not involved in the development of this game. It is notable for having been the last original side-scrolling Mario game until 2006's New Super Mario Bros., 13½ years later (discounting re-releases & remakes). Like Super Mario Land, this game was originally excluded from the main Super Mario series by Nintendo, but was included alongside the more traditional games for the 30th anniversary of Super Mario Bros., and the history page from the Mario Portal and "The official home for Mario" websites.

Story
Story from the instruction booklet '''DANGER! DANGER!''' While I was away crusading against the mystery alien Tatanga in Sarasa Land, an evil creep took over my castle and put the people of Mario Land under his control with a magic spell. The intruder goes by the name of Wario. He has been jealous of my popularity ever since we were boys, and has tried to steal my castle many times. It seems he has succeeded this time. Wario has scattered the 6 Golden Coins from my castle all over Mario Land. These Golden Coins are guarded by those under Wario's spell. Without these coins, we can't get into the castle to deal with Wario. We must collect the 6 coins, attack Wario in the castle, and save everybody! IT'S TIME TO SET OUT ON OUR MISSION!! ★The 6 Golden Coins are the coins needed to open the gate of Mario's castle. The plot, which immediately follows that of the first game, consists of Mario returning to his castle after rescuing Princess Daisy, only to find that it has been taken over by an old enemy, Wario, while Mario was in Sarasaland. The 6 Golden Coins (Mario's keys to the castle) were spread throughout Mario Land, and Mario must retrieve these coins in order to defeat Wario, reclaim his castle, and restore order to Mario Land.

The game begins with a simple "tutorial" level, Start, to help the player learn the controls of the game. This level can not be replayed. After this is completed, the player must travel through six different "zones" containing a series of levels to collect the coins:
 * The Tree Zone: A large tree infested with giant insects, this zone is guarded by the Big Bird.
 * The Space Zone: Encompassing the moon and stars, this zone is guarded by the alien Tatanga, the final boss of the original Super Mario Land.
 * The Macro Zone: A house-like zone that shrinks those who enter it, this zone is guarded by the Sewer Rat.
 * The Pumpkin Zone: Located inside a giant containing graveyards and haunted houses, this zone is guarded by the Witch.
 * The Mario Zone: A mechanical version of Mario, this zone is guarded by the Three Little Pigs.
 * The Turtle Zone: Inside of a giant tortoise, this zone is an aquatic environment and is guarded by Pako, an octopus located inside of a whale.
 * Mario's castle: After gathering the six golden coins, Mario can venture into a dangerous, transformed version of his old castle, with Wario waiting at the end.

After the final battle, wherein Wario uses power-ups identical to Mario's, Wario shrinks, cries at his defeat, punts a shoe at Mario, then makes a vengeful face with a stuck-out tongue as he flees. Mario exits the castle, which is restored to normal.

In addition to the tutorial level, there is also another level that is not part of any specific "zone" or area, and lies off the path between the Tree Zone and the Macro Zone. Playing this level does not unlock anything, though does count as one of the exits in the game. Unlike the tutorial level, this level can be replayed.

With Wario as the antagonist, this is the third Super Mario title to feature a major villain that is not Bowser, the first being Super Mario Bros. 2s Wart, and the second being Super Mario Lands Tatanga.

Overview
Unlike the gameplay of its predecessor, Super Mario Land 2 ' s gameplay more closely resembles that of past Mario franchise titles. Most notably, this game replaces the Superball Mario with a more traditional Fire Mario and does away with Super Mario Land ' s vehicle levels. The screen can now scroll to the left, allowing Mario to backtrack through levels, and character sprites have significantly increased in size, enabling more focused and fast-paced action as well as a better overall visual quality to the game. The game is one of the first Mario games to have two different difficulty levels: Normal and Easy mode. The level can be chosen by picking Mario's size with the button before picking which file to save to.

Like in Super Mario World, the game's locations can be traversed via an overworld map. This gives rise to a few secrets, including "shortcuts," which allow Mario to traverse the map more quickly, and a casino where Mario can gamble his coins to earn more lives. Unlike those of Super Mario World and the earlier Super Mario Bros. games, Super Mario Land 2's worlds do not have to be played linearly without requiring a hidden item or exit, although all worlds must still be cleared. The player can return to the world map from a completed level by pressing to pause and then.

Controls
In levels, the allows Mario to jump, while holding the  will make Mario run faster. Holding up on the will make Mario jump a little higher. The controls where Mario walks or runs. The player can pause in a level with the button. Jumping on most enemies will defeat them, as will attacking them with fireballs, a Star, or hitting them with a Koopa Shell. A Koopa Shell can be picked up by running into it while holding and thrown by letting go, or it can be kicked by walking into it or jumping on top of it.

Super Mario Land 2 continues a tradition established by past games and includes a plethora of level designs. For example, there are water levels through which Mario swims by tapping (Mario can also swim through sap, and movements such as walking and falling are slowed down) and space levels with altered gravity (jump height is increased, as is fall time).

Mario can use Warp Pipes in the same manner as in other games: by holding down on the while standing on top of one, up while jumping up into one above, or left or right for pipes that are horizontal.

Game Boy

 * Jump; swim
 * Run; throw fireball (as Fire Mario)
 * Move
 * Pause

Nintendo 3DS

 * Jump; swim
 * Run; throw fireball (as Fire Mario)
 * Move
 * Pause

Rewards and setbacks
Getting hit by an enemy or hazard while Mario is in his Small state, falling to the bottom of the screen or in lava, getting crushed behind the screen in an auto-scrolling level, or running out of time, makes Mario lose a life and get booted out of the level and back to the map. If Mario loses all of his lives, he will also lose all of the six coins he has collected and will have to fight their guardians once again, but he does not have to replay the other levels in their worlds to get there. Extra lives are represented as hearts as opposed to green mushrooms in this game, due to the grayscale graphics.

Each level has a checkpoint, which is a bell hanging from a block. If Mario rings the bell, he starts the level from this location should he lose a life.

The exits of regular levels are marked "GOAL" and consist of a door in the wall and a bell hanging from a post above it. If Mario enters the door, the level immediately ends, and he returns to the map and progresses to the next stage marker, but if he hits the bell first, he gets to play a bonus game which can reward him with power-ups or more lives.

Collecting 100 coins does not immediately reward Mario with an extra life like it does in other titles, but it does allow the player to enter the casino in the hill between Mario's castle and the tutorial level for a chance to earn lives. Mario can hold up to 999 coins.

There is no "score" in the traditional sense that Mario gets in this game for defeating enemies or completing the level with extra time, but he does have an enemy counter for each enemy he defeats, and defeating 100 enemies will cause a Star to fall down to Mario.

Worlds
As the game's title suggests, the game is split into six different worlds, and then a final level where Mario fights Wario, the final boss.

Educational film


An educational Japanese-only video, called Mario Kirby Meisaku Video, was produced in 1995 based on the game. It featured a segment based off Super Mario Land 2, and another one featuring Kirby and other characters from his series. The video follows an alternative version of the game's plot, where Wario steals treasures from a school, and after being informed by Princess Peach, Mario embarks on a mission to defeat Wario. The intent of the videos was to teach Japanese children.

Sequels and prequels
After the introduction of Wario (who quickly became popular) the Super Mario Land series shifted its attention to him. The next game, Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3, featured Wario as the protagonist, with Mario only making a minor cameo at the very end of the game. The next game in the series was simply titled Wario Land II, thus making Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3 the final entry in the Super Mario Land series.

Although this game marks the first appearance of Wario, dialogue in the instruction booklet suggests that Wario is an old enemy of Mario who has been jealous of his fame and fortune. In the comic book inspired by this game, Mario vs. Wario, Wario is portrayed slightly more sympathetically and is shown to have been one of Mario's friends when they were both children. However, because of the numerous indignities Mario (unknowingly) forced Wario to suffer, Wario has now sworn revenge on him (which causes the events of both Super Mario Land and Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins).

References to other games

 * Super Mario Bros. – After Mario defeats Wario, the ending cutscene reads "Thank you, Mario. Your quest is over." Princess Peach says this after Mario defeats Bowser in Super Mario Bros.
 * Super Mario Bros. 3 – The music for Water Land can be heard in the background of the music for the Mario Zone and stage 3 of Tree Zone.
 * Super Mario Land – The direct predecessor of Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins. It is revealed that Wario stole Mario's castle during Mario's rescue of Princess Daisy. Tatanga is seen working for him in the Space Zone, implying a connection between the two. Part of the Ghost House music is an arrangement of the coin room music from this game.
 * Super Mario World – Super Mario's sprite in this game is the basis of his Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins sprite. Blurps return from this game, alongside enemies inspired by Monty Moles and Fishbones, while Cheep Cheeps use a design inspired from their appearance in this game. Also, the spin jump returns. While not directly observed in-game, the overall design of Mario Land's map strongly resembles the design for the map of Dinosaur Land from this game, as can be seen from official maps. The Fire Flower also uses the same design as in this game.

References in later games

 * Mario's Tennis: Mario's sprite in the character selection looks almost exactly like his sprite from this game, only in a tennis outfit. Luigi's sprite in the character selection also looks noticeably similar.
 * Super Smash Bros.: One of Mario's alternate costumes is based on Wario's outfit.
 * Mario Golf: One of Wario's costumes is based on his in-game sprite.
 * Wario World – The castle shown on the title graphic bears a striking resemblance to Mario's castle.
 * Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga – The battle start sound is the same as the power up emerging from a ? Block sound in this game.
 * Super Smash Bros. Brawl: One of Wario's alternate costumes is based on his in-game sprite.
 * Paper Mario: Sticker Star – The Space Zone level theme is remixed when the Boom Box Thing is used.
 * Fortune Street – Wario has a quote where he says that if he flips the "M" upside down it will be his.
 * Super Mario 3D World – Bowser uses a Super Bell and Double Cherries in the same way Wario used a Carrot and a Fire Flower in his battle with Mario.

Development
Development for Super Mario Land 2: Six Golden Coins began in November 1991, and took ten months to complete. In a 1992 interview, the game's director and designer Hiroji Kiyotake discussed that the team originally wanted to divert from the conventional ideas established by the past Mario games. Pursuing this concept, the initial work on the game lead to the first draft being turned down, due to disagreements on whether the product properly represented Mario's character and the in-game world he is reknowned for. Realizing that they were on the wrong path, the team reworked it to "something a little closer to the existing Mario world". However, the team still desired to provide Mario with a new objective, rather than fighting to rescue the princess as seen in most Mario games leading up to that time. The game's staff wanted a "change of pace", and decided that Mario should fight to win back something that belongs to him, rather than fighting for "someone else's benefit".

It was Kiyotake's idea to introduce Wario as a new character, with whom he discussed it with the assistant character designer Takehiko Hosokawa, before presenting the idea to the rest of the game's staff. Before Wario's actual character development, his name was the first thing that was decided on. It was derived from the Japanese word "warui", meaning "bad". The idea to have an upside-down "M" on his cap (representing a "W") received immediate, enthusiastic support by the rest of the development staff. Wario's character was based on the idea that a protagonist should have an arch-rival and nemesis. Kiyotake compared Mario and Wario to comic book characters and 's relationship, where Bluto is larger, stronger, and more cunning than his counterpart, and normally motivated by self-interests. After the idea of Wario was agreed on by the rest of the staff, Kiyotake discussed the details of in-game sprite animation and movement with programmer Takahiro Harada. As well as Wario, there were many other characters which was proposed by Kiyotake. Many of these were either direct rejects, or characters that did not gain approval from the wider staff team.

Kiyotake was very fond of the untouchable Bē enemies used in Tree and Macro Zones, even causing him to "burst out laughing" after he first interacted with them after they were programmed. He was eager to see the Bē remain in the final game, as he was amused by how it would likely annoy players. While developing the controls for the game, Harada considered that players may find it difficult to hold down two buttons on the Game Boy's D-pad to move in a diagonal direction. This was kept in mind while programming how Mario's Bunny and Spacesuit performed high jumps.

Kazumi Totaka, who composed the music for Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins, acknowledged that the sound effect played when transforming into Super Mario was originally identical to the one used for Super Mario World until about midway through development. However, he was afraid that the player would be given an impression that they are playing a game that overlaps with Super Mario World, and become "negatively conscious" that they were playing on a small Game Boy screen compared to the television screen used by the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. Therefore, Totaka chose to use many different sound effects across other past Mario games. Asides from composing, Totaka also had a partial role in some of the discussions between Kiyotake, Harada, and Hosokawa. Totaka was able to provide comments and feedback while proposed ideas were being evaluated. He was also able to come up with suggestions of his own, although these were mostly rejected.

According to Takahiro Harada, the most challenging stage of development was adjusting and fine-tuning the test version after it was presented to beta testers. As he and the team had been playing and testing the gameplay since the beginning, they initially believed that the beta version was too easy. However, Harada stated that the testers generally found the game very difficult. About 2-3 months was spent on making small changes to the test stages, according to the feedback which they received from the beta testers.

Pre-release and unused content
A pre-release screenshot, as well as a video, showed a different, less detailed title screen in at least one build, featuring a sign more similar to the one from Super Mario Land.

Early variations of certain graphics exist and may be found within the data of the game. Mario’s front poses in his different forms appear slightly different and thinner, with darker fireballs. Shadows were added to the fonts, while a time font used to indicate time remaining was removed. Pipes were made thicker, likely so that Mario could pass through completely. The goal had no bell and the goal sign was raised all the way up, likely indicating that the goal sign would lower down once Mario completed the level. On the other hand, platforms became thinner, with a cracked variety of platform remaining unused.

Some sprites were completely unused, such as swimming animations and forward-facing poses for Mario as Small Mario and Super Mario in the Space Zone. A trampoline highly reminiscent of one from Super Mario World may also be found.

Additionally, there were multiple changes to the overworld map that did not make the final cut. There is a cloud is positioned above the Pumpkin Zone. Despite being fully functional, its code was disabled in the final game. Tiles for the top of Mario's castle are present as well, though are obscured by the darkened cloud in front of the castle. For reasons unknown, some water tiles next to Macro Zone's right chimney were switched around. A piece of the fence surrounding Tenbōdai Course is missing.

Out-of-bounds glitch
In area 4 of Tree Zone, the player can lure a Skeleton Bee to the far left part of the stage, then lure it to a greater height, then hold up and jump to do a high jump and bounce off of the Skeleton Bee to reach a normally inaccessible area. The player should then wait for the Skeleton Bee to follow Mario, then go as high as they can to bounce off of the Skeleton Bee again. Mario will go into the wall and slide to the right until he falls out of it, then he will enter an out-of-bounds area that contains glitched tiles (which can crash the game, reset it, or even unlock a stage).

Pipe glitch
This glitch only works for ROM versions v1.0 and v1.1. In any level with a pipe in it, if the player presses and  at the same time they leave a stage or enter a pipe and return to that level, they can then move through the floor. If there is nothing underneath the stage, the player can see a number of glitchy tiles. These tiles are actually the entire game's code and Game Boy's code being displayed as graphics.

Staff
The music for this game was composed by Kazumi Totaka. If the player waits on the Game Over screen for two minutes and thirty seconds, Totaka's Song will play.

Trivia

 * If the player loses a life in a level they have already completed, it is possible to exit the level by pressing +  (even when the death animation is playing, if done fast enough) without losing any lives.
 * On the File Select screen, if the player is deleting a file, Mario will transform into Bomb Mario.