I’m really impressed with this ROM Hack for Super Mario Land and it’s certainly better than the other colored ROM Hacks where they were just simply colored with no professional effort and didn’t stay as close to the elements source material as possible with the palette limitations until Super Mario Land DX by toruzz was born!

But it’s more than just a colored ROM hack from the original, now the sprites are more consistent and feel a bit more complete looking as they all have cartoony outlines now making it not clash, unlike the original Game Boy title. It even feels more alive with actual colored backgrounds now!

My only gripes are that it didn’t add at least one or two new content and fixing some issues to make the game even better and not badly flawed. For example sometimes, if Mario jumps onto a Piranha Plant, he goes right through it without getting harmed like in the original.

A minor issue that bothers me is that the 1UP Mushrooms didn’t replace the 1UP Hearts to make some replace use of the Game Boy Color. The original Game Boy games reasoning is that 1UP Hearts are used is because the 1-Up Mushrooms in black-and-white palettes of the original Game Boy would make it impossible to distinguish between 1-Up Mushrooms and Super Mushrooms. But now that there is color the 1UP Mushrooms should’ve fittingly be included. Just like how we can use special tunics in Link’s Awakening DX for the Game Boy Color. Super Mario Land 2: DX had 1UP Mushrooms and now it seems inconsistent the first game doesn’t have any to follow to the sequel.

What I was even more baffled about it that Luigi wasn’t included in this enhanced variant to Super Mario Land, which felt like a missed opportunity as Luigi fans would’ve had the option to save Princess Daisy more as his own story and fittingly save her since the two are commonly paired in the games, even as a Green Mario swap (his own psychics don’t have to be included, if it’s not possible) like in Super Mario Bros. Deluxe for the GBC with edited text over Mario’s name to become “Luigi’s” name would’ve been the best way to save space storage with the limited ROM. Now that we have color in this I don’t see why it’s not a problem to include him regardless, Yet Luigi was added in Super Mario Land 2 DX? It now feels inconsistent with the sequel as well but not having him in the first game is the stranger part.

If an alternate patch to have 1UP Mushrooms and Luigi (or as his own patch) was included it would certainly make this hack twice as better and be fairly consistent to the sequel!

Overall, I still enjoy this version of the modified Game Boy Classic it’s better than the original Game Boy title I can say for sure, but I feel that Super Mario Land 2: DX is still more superior than the first games colored title. Now we just need Super Mario Land 3: Wario Land then all the Game Boy Wario Land and Super Mario Land games are complete in color!