Super Mario Land 4 is a game that most people have probably never heard of. When I first signed onto Vizzed about 5 years ago, I seen this game in the Retro Game Room and decided to give it a try. I grew up with Super Mario Land 1, 2, and 3, and at the time, I was very unfamiliar with the later games in the Mario trilogy (and I'm still unfamiliar with them). At the start of 2013, I was catching up on the video games I never played during my childhood, and I came across Super Mario Land 4. Was this a game that Nintendo released that was part of the original Mario Gameboy franchise? The answer was "No". Apparently, SML4 was a crappy pirated game that is unknown to most people and here's why:

Graphics 8/10: The graphics are probably the strongest part of Super Mario Land 4. This game looks almost as good as a game like Super Mario Land 2. I considered that game about the best looking game on the system. The backgrounds and sprites of this game are very well detailed and look great for an 8-bit black and white Gameboy. However, Mario's sprite looks stupid!! What were they thinking?! He takes up most of the screen. Yeah, the rest of the game looks nice, but the main character looks like crap! This doesn't ruin things too much, but it keeps the game from being as good as some of the good Mario Land games.

Music 2/10: The soundtrack for Super Mario Land sucks! It reminds me of the music in some of these crappy puzzle games like Dr. Mario. There is no variety to this game at all! You get the title track and the main level theme that is the same for every level! This song sounds decent, but it becomes so tiresome after hearing it over and over again for every stage in the game! What a boring game! I guess this is one of the reasons most people have never heard of this game. It has no soundtrack to it at all, and that's only just the beginning. Wait until I get into the gameplay of Super Mario Land 4.  

Gameplay 0/10: To start with, there is no time limit in Super Mario Land 4. Mario can also collect power-ups like: the Mushroom, Bunny Ears, and Starman. These power-ups work nothing like they did in the other Mario games. The Mushroom makes Mario huge making it difficult for him to fit into tight places, but he can shoot fireballs at his enemies. With the Bunny Ears, Mario can glide through the air by repeatedly pressing the A button like in Super Mario Land 2 and also shoot two fireballs that branch off into the up and down directions. However, the control isn't as responsive in this game, and Mario often times will not stay in the air the way he is supposed to causing the player to fall into bottomless pits a lot more than is necessary. The Starman gives the player an extra hit and acts like a health meter.

The Starman becomes a mandatory item in certain levels, and if you don't have one, you won't be able to pass the stage because it is impossible not to take damage from enemies due to their poor placement! It doesn't matter how many lives you have because you'll always continue to get hit by the same enemies that keep showing up in the same areas of the levels. Getting through the stages depends upon how many hits you can take, and if you lose a life, you lose all your items and have to replay the entire level!

The only way to make any kind of progress with this game is to get the Bunny Ears, collect up a bunch of Starmen in the first level, and pray that you don't die in the process! So, I guess it is possible to beat this game, but if you die, you might as well go back and restart the entire game from the beginning! I don't enjoy playing Super Mario Land 4 very much at all. The game leaves almost no room for any mistakes. You can collect extra lives, but they really don't do any good because you'll just keep dying in the same places if you don't have enough Stars or if you aren't Super Mario or Bunny Mario.

One thing I forgot to mention is the invisibility item that you get by finding the Yoshi sprite. Mario transforms into Yoshi with this item and is supposed to be invisible. He can breathe fire, but I found that this doesn't always work. Somehow, after the item wears off, Mario is small! Why? He's supposed to be invisible! How does he take damage? This game doesn't make any sense at all! I don't get how anyone is supposed to make any kind of progress with this game! The player cannot die (which is impossible due to poor/unresponsive controls and terrible enemy placement), you have to enter the stages with a lot of items or you might as well restart the game! Ahhh! When you take all this into consideration, I don't feel like this game can be beaten without save states. It isn't very fun or entertaining!

Story N/A: From what I've read, I don't think that Super Mario Land 4 has any storyline to it. This doesn't affect how I feel about the game. There are a lot of great games I have reviewed that had no plot either, but this is not one of them!

Content 2/10: Super Mario Land 4 only has about 4 stages (I think). It is game that isn't very long, but I have never beaten it. It only takes about 20 minutes to finish if you know what you're doing, or you use some kind of cheat code. This is another downside to this game. It hardly has any content, and what it does have is virtually unplayable.

Difficulty 10/10: This section goes without saying. Due to unresponsive controls, obstacles that are impossible to avoid, limited items, no continues, and other things that are beyond the player's control, you cannot play this game without save states which is basically cheating! You have to cheat in order to make any progress with this game! That speaks for itself about how hard it is!

Overall 3/10: After playing Super Mario Land 4 as much as I've played it and also reviewing it, I can see why it is basically an unknown game. I read that it isn't part of the Mario series at all and is just a ROM hack of another rare game. Originally, I thought it was part of the Super Mario Land trilogy and had pretty high hopes for this game. This has to be one of the worst games I have ever played!! There is no soundtrack to it, the gameplay is impossibly difficult, and it has little to no content. I guess the game looks okay with exception to Mario's sprite. Overall, I defiantly give Super Mario Land 4 a big thumbs down!!