Yesterday, I randomly had an itching to go play Super Mario Land. I was not able to play yesterday because VBA was being a bitch, so I switched over to BGB today–less functionality, but hey, it actually runs, and at 60 FPS to boot!

Having mainly played SMB, SML’s physics threw me in for a bit of a loop. Mario is more sensitive to button presses, jumping feels a bit faster, mushrooms are harder to catch, and superballs in open-air stages are useless unless I jump first. On the plus side, thanks to the extra stages you get for taking upper exits and clearing the 3rd stage of each world, you get a lot of extends (though it wasn’t enough to get me through the whole game).

Points of fail include:

  • All: There was a time when my dad and I knew where all the secret elevators that would take you above the ceiling were. Well, that time is no more. Also, stupid cut-and-paste segments.
  • 2-3: Hey, this thing moves faster moving backwards than in any other direction!
  • 3-1: Stupid rocks, and stupid Christmas lights spikes
  • 3-2: Stupid tricky jumping sections involving stalacites of doom and spiders
  • 4-1: Stupid jiang shi-like enemies that respawn after being “killed”
  • 4-2: Stupid moving platform segments where I fall to my doom because of the finiky controls

I plan to make a comeback this weekend and 1CC this shit.

also why oh why does windows not reset the screensaver timer on controller input