Super Mario Land 2:

6 Golden Coins

by Gregory Moffett

 So far, this walk down memory lane sounds like it could easily have been called ‘The 12 Games of Christmas (that my brother received)’

Super Mario Land: 6 Golden Coins is yet another that falls into that bracket but that will soon change, I promise!

I don’t remember much about Christmas in 1994 other than the fact that I wrote my letter to Santa for the following year that very day. I can’t recall what I received that year but I visited my friend, who lived just up the road from me, and he had received a V-Tech Master Video Painter. I was so taken with it that I simply had to have one too, even if I had to wait another year for it.

When Santa dropped down our chimney in 1995, he had the very thing I had been craving all year, along with its 4-second musical loop that would surely have driven my parents crazy! My brother, however, was branching out into the portable market with a delicious new yellow Game Boy complete with Super Mario Land, Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins and carry case.

As was usually the case, we played with each other’s gifts almost as much as our own but the memories of ’95 are particularly strong due to my dad recording most of the day with his camcorder, the footage of which is still around somewhere on an old VHS tape.

I have a vivid memory of drawing a picture of a huge duck sitting in the middle of a pond, surrounded by snow and trees, with music from ‘Pumpkin Zone’ playing menacingly in the background as my brother played with his new toy!

I got my turn squinting into the Game Boy’s screen later that evening with 6 Golden Coins providing plenty of amusement throughout the course of the night and over the remainder of the festive period.

The levels were fun with plenty of secrets to find and enjoyable boss battles, particularly Mario’s nemesis in the game, Wario. It was the first time we witnessed this antagonist but what a great introduction.



Playing through the game again recently on the 3DS Virtual Console shows that it perhaps isn’t as strenuous and challenging as I perhaps remember from all those years ago but the charm and magic is strong as it ever was.