Super Mario Land 2 Gets a Fan-Made Colour Treatment

Just so beautiful.

I spent many an hour playing this title on my OG Game Boy during family car trips to wherever. It will be fun to give it another shot all these years later in color.

The very best platformer on the Gameboy!

I remember sneaking my GameBoy to school and playing this at the edge of the playground during recess back in fourth grade. Good times.

Top 3 Mario game for me but that is probably the nostalgia talking.

I don’t have a good working pc but this looks really good. This old game deserves more love.

Who is playing this, what an amateur

@Eagle9 The point is not to rush through the game but instead showcase as much as he can with the colours.

@Angelic_Lapras_King Exactly.

The point is to showcase the levels from the game.

This is one of the few Mario Games I never played.

Also one of the few that NEVER gets re-released.

It's supposed to be quite brilliant, isn't it?

@Angelic_Lapras_King
This was my first Game Boy game with Tetris. Maybe i know how to play this

I'm surprised this hasnt happened more often already, considering all the fan remakes, translations and so on. Still, it would be cool if Nintendo did this if they released GB games to the Switch when the VC launches (Well, they are meant to be adding online features to NES and SNES games, not something many GB games can benefit from, bar leaderboards).

So for my wishlist, Pokemon RBY (Proper colour), Metroid 2 (As it was originally planned but got cancelled), Wario Land 1, and Virtual Boy games, haha. XD

@Pod it is. Definitely one to try if you enjoy 2d mario

Wow! love it, want it

@Eagle9 Well, you'd want to see your childhood coloured in every part you remember dearly, not just see it for a micro second as the player dashes past every enemy and level.

@Angelic_Lapras_King
How you know what i want

Probably the best GB game next to Pokemon!

Looks great! There's some awesome GameBoy games but I have to admit I just can't stand the monochrome graphics (which is odd since I grew up playing the GB). This makes the game look truly amazing.

Beautiful. This was what I was expecting for Mega Man.

If I were Nintendo I'd throw these guys some cash and release this as a $7.99 Switch download, ala the Hamster titles.

The colors could've been brighter.

inb4 Nintendo issues a "cease and desist" order.

@Pod It's good, but I wouldn't rate it amongst the best Mario games ever. Even as a child I knew it didn't hold a candle to things like Super Mario World or Bros. 3. It's definitely one of the best platformers on the Gameboy for sure though, and you do fight the 3 Little Pigs in Lego Land, so... There's that...

As a side note, I'd give Kirby's Dream Land 2 the title of best Gameboy platformer any day.

I like this game a lot, so maybe I'll give this a go.

@Angelic_Lapras_King There is a patch for red/blue that adds full color and optionally gen 2 sprites that i can't remember the name of another one that does a similar thing also adds pokemon up to gen 6 in to the game and has some optional tweaks for difficulty it's called pokemon red/blue dx

I added the patch using unipatcher on my galaxy s7 edge but myoldboy and john gbc emulators wont recognize the game, what am i doing wrong?

To this day, I can still hum that theme of the first stage-- That's how catchy it was and still is. The color is a very nice touch and only helps. I miss those fun but overpowered rabbit ears

@AirElephant lol but it's Nintendo we're talking about, so there's no way they will acknowledge a fan project.

All the guy needs to do is pitch it to Nintendo. I want a 3DS VC version of this. In fact, I'd gladly cough up ten euros for this little beauty.

I mean, you guys had me at Luigi.

It’s cool that someone has done this. There are some great one and done ideas in Mario Land 2. It’s such a short and really easy game though.

What I’d really like for Mario Land 2 is the power ups, enemies and themes being made up to Mario World standard and being added to Mario Maker 2.

I haven't played Super Mario Land 2 yet because I've waited for a colorized version and now I can finally play it! ^_^

That's pretty sweet--and twice as impressive that it actually works on the original GBC too.

That looks terrific! It’s a shame we never got this back in the GBC days. Actually, it’s a shame the virtual console never gave us Super Game Boy functionality. Would different borders and color palettes have been that tough to integrate over the years?

Maybe then black and white games would have sold more on the service... Cough cough...

So I went ahead and played the game for a bit. I've never actually played Land 2, mind you.

Is the level design and music supposed to be so terrible? The controls and jumping seem incredibly stiffy too, I'd blame this on the game but I think it's just a hardware limitation, since Kirby's Dream Land 2 had the same problem (it's why I quit playing that, too).
The Game Boy games haven't aged exceptionally well. The few ones that are still good are the Zelda games, I suppose (and metal gear but that's GBC).

@Melkac The level design isn't the greatest, I agree, but that comes with the territory. The soundtrack is fantastic though, not sure what you're on about on that.

The greatest thing about this game is how bizarre everything is. It's not just the enemy designs, but the levels as well (Tree Zone - 2 is an early example of something that's not in any other Mario game that I know of). It doesn't feel like a Mario game, it feels like a dark fantasy platformer starring Mario.

the way it always should have been

why no rerelease?

Looks great but I already play the original on Super Game Boy and was satisfied by those limited colors but props to whoever made this.

This is kinda cool but it's not amazing considering the Super Gameboy version. Personally I don't like using unofficial emulated versions of games anyways.

@JHDK oh heck yeah, me too! played it on the 3ds a while a go, not as difficult as I remember it! Going to give this version a try

I’d put Donkey Kong down as the best Game Boy platformer but SML2 was pretty great.

@Eagle9 Hey! Them fighting words!

Great game yet the Starman theme still sounds really weird.

Amazing!

I guess it's time to play this game again!

This looks fantastic with color. Best Mario for Game Boy.

Brilliant.

@foodmetaphors yeah Donkey Kong is fantastic (but it's a pluzze game right?) and it has received official color treatment that looks quite nice. Too bad is not available on the 3ds, only the bw version.

WHAT?!
Never heard of this before, I only knew Super Mario Land... now I feel kinda stupid. ^^

@FinalFrog
I didn't say that there is only one way to play, mean that my eyes hurt when watch feel like player didn't even try.

Remember lads... Bullfishes!!

@vonseux I’d say it has enough elements of both to classify it a puzzle/platformer

Holy crap this looks a-mazing and is one of my favorite Gameboy games. I actually played the original all the way through again on 3DS; I didn’t just buy it to have it. It’s still an awesome game that holds up.
With color it reminds me of a Game Gear game!

But how ??

Man, this version should be official, and on Switch. I need it.

@Eagle9 Man, that hurts. Here I am busting myself 24/7 to bring you guys all the best retro related news, make my own videos into the late hours and I confess, I was too tired to use a joypad and played this using my arcade stick just to have this ready yesterday on time. Shiryusly dude, you hurt me right in my gamerfells.

Whatever seems like if to get banned, nothing to lose what been reading forums and news, 3DS haters so many and handheld consoles alltogether.

Call me crazy but didn't the Super Gameboy and Gameboy player do this exact thing?

@FinalFrog
It meant that seems like this place is better for everyone without me.

Now see for me, this is when emulation is okay. Technically this isn't necessarily emulation of a past product so it's a gray area. Otherwise complete ROM hacks or crazy expensive rare games that no reasonably average person could find or afford are also the exception. Am I gonna buy a NES cart of Little Samson for $500-$1000 just to check it out? Hell no but, I will emulate it to see if the hype is real. Then still not buy it because $750 for an NES game!?!? Are you kidding me?!?!

@NCChris Sadly no. You could only assign a few different combinations of colours for both backgrounds and sprites individually and some games had proper codes that gave them a neat look (like "Metroid II: Return of Samus").

This game, metroid 2, techno bowl, and Tetris are the my fav 4 games I had on my game boy. Many late nights playing in bed with gameboy light. No wonder why my switch dock is next to my bed as an adult.

@Donutman "Tecmo Bowl "is excellent... but "Blades of Steel" remains sublime.

@MarcelRguez "The soundtrack is fantastic though, not sure what you're on about on that."
I entered like five different worlds (the open world thing I like, too bad the levels you have access to are garbo) and none of them had particularly good or memorable music. And most of them repeated the same one.
There wasn't a single song as memorable as Land 1's overworld theme.

"It doesn't feel like a Mario game, it feels like a dark fantasy platformer starring Mario."
A particularly mediocre one at that.

Works great! Just be sure to patch it to the suggested rom version.

@Shiryu - I know you were (partially) joking, but just to balance things out; your retro game articles and videos are typically the highlight of my daily internet reading when they appear.

I would double dip if this came to an official release. I won't...I know, but it would be so awesome!

Doesn't work on official VBA & VBA GX; the game just crashes when you enter the Macro Zone. Does work with everything else and real hardware, though. Pointed this out in a (very complimentary) review of the patch and RHDN opted not to post it. Sod 'em. Just trying to help...

@Tasuki
Romhacking.net only host the patch files. These are legal as they just contain the required data to change. You have to find the roms yourself.

I own Mario Land 2 so all I need to do is dump the ROM, apply the patch, put it on some sort of backup device and I'm golden...

Wow, GB flash carts are expensive!

@Melkac Your loss, man ¯ (ツ)/ ¯

@bimmy-lee 110% joking. =)

@-DG
That one I did play, and it's amazing. When I many years later got around to playing Kirby's Adventure for the NES, it felt very dated and unstructured compared to Dream Land 2, so I couldn't really appreciate it the way many NES owners did at the time of its release.

A colour remake would be great for 3DS and Switch, but the "very best platform game on Game Boy" is Wario Land.

Watch Nintendo promptly take this down. They hate it when fans make fan games in respect for their IPs. Meanwhile Sega will literally hire fans who make fan games. I guess Nintendo isn’t better than Sega in some cases...

@Pod It's been on the 3DS Eshop for some years now... still one of the best games on that system.

@Pod Dream Land 2 i so much better than Kirby's Adventure or Dream Land 1. In my case Dream Land 2 was one of the only Kirby games I actually never played, so I played and completed it for the first time just a couple years ago, and I can't even describe how impressed and surprised I was. I never thought a Gameboy Kirby game would be that good.

@Pod it's a great game it's on the 3ds vc and very cheap

I got my first Gameboy on a trip to the US with my family. My first game was Link's Awakening, I remember going inside a store and looking at the box art for this game, Mario with the bunny ears, and launching the biggest campaign to my parents to get it. I promised doing the dishes for months, taking out the trash and so many other things. Finally the parents caved and I got it

Great game, greater memories.

@Melkac Agreed. This is one of those games I'll never understand the hype for. It's an awkward game, with poorly programmed physics, clunky movement and messy level design. Worst part is probably that it's all zoomed in a lot, exacerbating the existing problems.

I really prefer the first Super Mario Land over this one, because the sprite is tiny which works worlds better for such a tiny screen.

This looks gorgeous!

@Zelda_Geek This is not a fan game, big boy. It's just a patch you apply to the official game.
To even play this you need to dumb the rom from your GB cartridge.

@Fazermint I haven't played mario land 1 since I was a babby so maybe the game is poop now, but I still remember thee overworld theme quite clearly. It's the first piece of music I think about whenever I hear "mario".

@Tasuki "waah mods are mean"
Nice outrage, but they've never posted roms in an official article. Nintendo would sue them.
The only thing they ever post is PATCHES. Read above.

@KingdomHeartsFan @1UP_MARIO @ClassSonicSatAm @Yarrdave
Alright, I hear y'all. Thanks a bunch!

@-DG
I played it around the same time I played the first Wario Land and Link's Awakening. I must have been around 11-12.

Between the three of them, I was very impressed with what could be done with a Z80 and 140x140 pixels in four hues.

Really goes to show that it's all about the design and ambition.

As quoted from the article: "The game was also tested and it is fully working on real hardware if you fancy giving that a try."

Is anyone nice enough to explain this little tidbit?

This looks fantastic! Really makes me wanna take some time and replay that game.

I hate to be that guy, but I somehow doubt Nintendo would be keen about ROM hack articles like this, which is turn is promoting piracy.

@WaveBoy I don't think the level design was that bad, the low-gravity Space Zone levels were actually rather creative, and the game had locations we never see in Mario games, and didn't rely on the cliché "Forest World," "Desert World," "Ice World," and such. Plus the ability to chose any Zone you want was a welcome feature, and gave the map screen more reason to exist.
I don't even mind the low difficulty honestly, as not every game has to be hard to be fun. Plus finding all the secret stages without looking 'em up online can be challenging. (Odd, the Mario Zone doesn't have one.)

@Hordak You can buy Gameboy Flash Cards (basically a game cartridge with an SD card reader). That way you can play roms on an actual Gameboy instead of using an emulator.

Next thing you know, they'll be getting a cease-and-desist from Nintendo.
..and then Nintendo will announce the 3DS remake at the next E3.
XD

@Melkac Despite an excellent overall presentation, I agree with you that this game hasn't aged terribly well. While the level themes are cool, the level design itself is fairly bland.

Neat, but I've never played that game. The first game is a lot more fun to me.

One of the best GameBoy games

@Shiryu I understand, thank you for sharing that.

Lovely!