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92-474: Super Mario Land is a 1989 platform game developed and published by Nintendo for the Game Boy . Released as a launch title for the system, it is the first Mario platform game to have been released for a handheld console (not including the earlier Game & Watch ). In gameplay similar to that of the 1985 Super Mario Bros. , but resized for the smaller device's screen, the player advances Mario to

184-433: A Mario game to sell the new console. It is the first handheld console Mario game and the first to be made without Mario creator and Yokoi protégé Shigeru Miyamoto . Accordingly, the development team shrunk gameplay elements for the device and used some elements inconsistently from the series. Super Mario Land was expected to showcase the console until Nintendo of America bundled Tetris . The game launched alongside

276-608: A true 3D platformer is a French computer game called Alpha Waves , created by Christophe de Dinechin and published by Infogrames in 1990 for the Atari ST , Amiga , and IBM PC compatibles . Bug! , released in 1995 for the Saturn , has a more conservative approach. It allows players to move in all directions, but it does not allow movement along more than one axis at once; the player can move orthogonally but not diagonally. Its characters were pre-rendered sprites, much like

368-452: A 1980 arcade release by Universal , is sometimes credited as the first platformer. Another precursor to the genre from 1980 was Nichibutsu 's Crazy Climber , in which the player character scales vertically scrolling skyscrapers. The unreleased 1979 Intellivision game Hard Hat has a similar concept. Donkey Kong , an arcade video game created by Nintendo and released in July 1981,

460-401: A 2D plane are called 2.5D , as they are a blend of 2D and 3D. The first platformers to simulate a 3D perspective and moving camera emerged in the early-mid-1980s. An early example of this was Konami 's Antarctic Adventure , where the player controls a penguin in a forward-scrolling third-person perspective while having to jump over pits and obstacles. Originally released in 1983 for

552-526: A 3D Sonic game, Sonic Adventure , for its Dreamcast console. It used a hub structure like Super Mario 64 , but its levels were more linear, fast-paced, and action-oriented. Line art Line art or line drawing is any image that consists of distinct straight lines or curved lines placed against a background (usually plain). Two-dimensional or three-dimensional objects are often represented through shade (darkness) or hue ( color ). Line art can use lines of different colors, although line art

644-462: A balance between open-ended and guided exploration. Another platform-adventure released that year, Pony Canyon 's Super Pitfall , was critically panned for its vagueness and weak game design. That same year Jaleco released Esper Boukentai , a sequel to Psychic 5 that scrolled in all directions and allowed the player character to make huge multistory jumps to navigate the vertically oriented levels. Telenet Japan also released its own take on

736-481: A bouncing car that jumps on various platforms such as buildings, clouds, and hills. Jump Bug offered a glimpse of what was to come, with uneven, suspended platforms, levels that scroll horizontally (and in one section, vertically), and differently themed sections, such as a city, the interior of a large pyramid, and underwater. Irem's 1982 arcade game Moon Patrol combines jumping over obstacles and shooting attackers. A month later, Taito released Jungle King ,

828-525: A brief burst of episodic platformers where the first was freely distributed and parts 2 and 3 were available for purchase. The abundance of platformers for 16-bit consoles continued late into the generation, with successful games such as Vectorman (1995), Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest (1995), and Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island (1995), but the release of new hardware caused players' attention to move away from 2D genres. The Saturn , PlayStation , and Nintendo 64 nevertheless featured

920-450: A forward-scrolling effect similar to Sega's 1985 third-person rail shooter Space Harrier . 3-D WorldRunner was an early forward-scrolling pseudo-3D third-person platform-action game where players were free to move in any forward-scrolling direction and could leap over obstacles and chasms. It was notable for being one of the first stereoscopic 3-D games . Square released its sequel, JJ , later that year. The earliest example of

1012-609: A high quality of animation. The 1988 shareware game The Adventures of Captain Comic was one of the first attempts at a Nintendo-style platformer for IBM PC compatibles . It inspired Commander Keen , released by id Software in 1990, which became the first MS-DOS platformer with smooth scrolling graphics. Keen's success resulted in numerous console-styled platformers for MS-DOS compatible operating systems, including Duke Nukem , Duke Nukem II , Cosmo's Cosmic Adventure , and Dark Ages all by Apogee Software . These fueled

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1104-631: A number of successful 2D platformers. The 2D Rayman was a big success on 32-bit consoles. Mega Man 8 and Mega Man X4 helped revitalize interest in Capcom 's Mega Man character . Castlevania: Symphony of the Night revitalized its series and established a new foundation for later Castlevania games. Oddworld and Heart of Darkness kept the subgenre born from Prince of Persia alive. The difficulties of adapting platformer gameplay to three dimensions led some developers to compromise by pairing

1196-441: A quarter and a third of all console games. By 2006, the genre had experienced a decline in sales, representing a 2% market share as compared to 15% in 1998. In spite of this, platformers are still being commercially released every year, including some which have sold millions of copies. A platformer requires the player to maneuver their character across platforms to reach a goal while confronting enemies and avoiding obstacles along

1288-455: A series of posts on Twitter by a user named ChronoMoogle. The remake features enhanced visuals, music and a multiplayer mode for up to 4 players. According to its creator, who gave an interview to Nintendo Life while asking to remain anonymous, the remake was built totally from scratch (hence, no ROM hacking was performed) using Assembly language , a few tools for graphics and sound and a Super Nintendo emulator for testing. After developing

1380-470: A shift in design. Later 3D platformers like Banjo-Kazooie , Spyro the Dragon , and Donkey Kong 64 borrowed its format, and the "collect-a-thon" genre began to form. In order to make this free-roaming model work, developers had to program dynamic, intelligent cameras. A free camera made it harder for players to judge the height and distance of platforms, making jumping puzzles more difficult. Some of

1472-406: A side-scrolling action game some platform elements: jumping between vines, jumping or running beneath bouncing boulders. It was quickly re-released as Jungle Hunt because of similarities to Tarzan . The 1982 Apple II game Track Attack includes a scrolling platform level where the character runs and leaps along the top of a moving train. The character is little more than a stick figure , but

1564-403: A submarine or airplane and fires projectiles towards oncoming enemies, destructible blocks and bosses. Levels end with a platforming challenge to reach an alternative exit located above the regular exit, the former leading to a bonus minigame styled after a Ghost Leg lottery that awards 1 to 3 extra lives or a Superball Flower power-up. Unlike the other Mario games , which take place in

1656-725: A teenager with a rebellious personality to appeal to gamers who saw the previous generation of consoles as being for kids. The character's speed showed off the hardware capabilities of the Genesis, which had a CPU clock speed approximately double that of the Super NES. Sonic 's perceived rebellious attitude became a model for game mascots. Other companies attempted to duplicate Sega's success with their own brightly colored anthropomorphisms with attitude. These often were characterized by impatience, sarcasm, and frequent quips. A second generation of platformers for computers appeared alongside

1748-473: A template for what were initially called "climbing games". Donkey Kong inspired many clones and games with similar elements, such as Miner 2049er (1982) and Kangaroo (1982), while the Sega arcade game Congo Bongo (1983) adds a third dimension via isometric graphics . Another popular game of that period, Pitfall! (1982), allows moving left and right through series of non-scrolling screens, expanding

1840-488: Is central to the genre, though there are exceptions such as Nintendo 's Popeye and Data East 's BurgerTime , both from 1982. In some games, such as Donkey Kong , the trajectory of a jump is fixed, while in others it can be altered mid-air. Falling may cause damage or death. Many platformers contain environmental obstacles which kill the player's character upon contact, such as lava pits or bottomless chasms. The player may be able to collect items and power-ups and give

1932-570: Is defeated. The first three bosses may be destroyed with projectiles, or the player may move past them to the exit without destroying them first; the last level has no regular exit, and the two bosses at the end of that level must be destroyed with projectiles to complete the level and the game. Some elements recur from the previous Mario games, such as blocks suspended in midair, moving platforms that must be used to traverse pitfalls, pipes that lead to other areas, collectible coins that grant an extra life when 100 are collected, and Goomba enemies. After

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2024-474: Is in a vector game called Major Havoc , which comprises a number of mini-games, including a simple platformer. One of the first raster -based platformers to scroll fluidly in all directions in this manner is 1985's Legend of Kage . In 1985, Enix released the action-adventure platformer Brain Breaker . The following year saw the release of Nintendo's Metroid , which was critically acclaimed for

2116-465: Is the endless runner , where the main character is always moving forward and the player must dodge or jump to avoid falling or hitting obstacles. Various names were used in the years following the release of the first established game in the genre, Donkey Kong (1981). Shigeru Miyamoto originally called it a "running/jumping/climbing game" while developing it. Miyamoto commonly used the term "athletic game" to refer to Donkey Kong and later games in

2208-424: Is usually monochromatic. Line art emphasizes form and drawings , of several (few) constant widths (as in technical illustrations ), or of freely varying widths (as in brush work or engraving ). Line art may tend towards realism (as in much of Gustave Doré 's work), or it may be a caricature , cartoon , ideograph , or glyph . One of the most fundamental elements of art is the line. An important feature of

2300-626: The Atari 2600 , with 256 horizontally connected screens, became one of the best-selling games on the system and was a breakthrough for the genre. Smurf: Rescue in Gargamel's Castle was released on the ColecoVision that same year, adding uneven terrain and scrolling pans between static screens. Manic Miner (1983) and its sequel Jet Set Willy (1984) continued this style of multi-screen levels on home computers . Wanted: Monty Mole won

2392-475: The Game Boy's technical limitations. But he too was perplexed by the new sphinx, seahorse, and Moai head enemies, and considered the exploding Koopa shells a "cruel trick" disdainful of the series' core gameplay. Super Mario Land ' s shooter levels, new to the series, were not revisited in subsequent Super Mario games except the Maker games. Subsequent series games such as Super Mario Land 2 both dropped

2484-683: The MSX computer, it was subsequently ported to various platforms the following year, including an arcade video game version, NES , and ColecoVision . 1986 saw the release of the sequel to forward-scrolling platformer Antarctic Adventure called Penguin Adventure , which was designed by Hideo Kojima . It included more action game elements, a greater variety of levels, RPG elements such as upgrading equipment, and multiple endings . In early 1987, Square released 3-D WorldRunner , designed by Hironobu Sakaguchi and Nasir Gebelli . Using

2576-530: The Master System with Alex Kidd in Miracle World . It has horizontal and vertical scrolling levels, the ability to punch enemies and obstacles, and shops for the player to buy power-ups and vehicles. Another Sega series that began that same year is Wonder Boy . The original Wonder Boy in 1986 was inspired more by Pac-Land than Super Mario Bros. , with skateboarding segments that gave

2668-536: The Mushroom Kingdom , Super Mario Land is set in Sarasaland and drawn in line art . Mario pursues Princess Daisy, in her debut, rather than the series standard damsel in distress , Princess Peach . When jumped on, Koopa shells explode after a small delay, Mario throws bouncing balls rather than fireballs (referred to as "Superballs" in the manual), 1-Up Mushroom power-ups are depicted as hearts, and

2760-694: The Nintendo Entertainment System in 1985, became the archetype for the genre. It was bundled with Nintendo systems in North America, Japan, and Europe, and sold over 40 million copies, according to the 1999 Guinness Book of World Records . Its success as a pack-in led many companies to see platformers as vital to their success, and contributed greatly to popularizing the genre during the third and fourth generations of video game consoles. Sega attempted to emulate this success with their Alex Kidd series, which started in 1986 on

2852-537: The virtual camera , it had to be constrained to stop it from clipping through the environment. In 1994, a small developer called Exact released a game for the X68000 computer called Geograph Seal , which was a 3D first-person shooter game with platforming. Players piloted a frog-like mech that could jump and then double-jump or triple-jump high into the air as the camera panned down to help players line up their landings. In addition to shooting, jumping on enemies

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2944-468: The Enchanted Castle , which was only modestly successful. That same year, Capcom released Strider in arcades, which scrolled in multiple directions and allowed the player to summon artificial intelligence partners, such as a droid, tiger, and hawk, to help fight enemies. Another Sega release in 1989 was Shadow Dancer , which is a game that also included an AI partner: a dog who followed

3036-1073: The Game Boy first in Japan in April 1989, and later worldwide. Super Mario Land was rereleased for the Nintendo 3DS via Virtual Console in 2011, and on the Nintendo Switch Online service in 2024, which features some presentation tweaks. The game was lauded by critics, who were satisfied with the franchise's transition to the Game Boy, but they also noted its short length. This was in reference to both contemporaneous and retrospective reviewers, who particularly praised its soundtrack. The handheld console became an immediate success and more than 25 million copies of Super Mario Land were sold, more than Super Mario Bros. 3 . The game received two sequels, including Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins (1992) and Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3 (1994),

3128-480: The Hedgehog into 3D. Their project, titled Sonic Xtreme , was to have featured a radically different approach for the series, with an exaggerated fisheye camera and multidirectional gameplay reminiscent of Bug! . Due in part to conflicts with Sega Enterprises in Japan and a rushed schedule, the game never made it to market. In the 1990s, platforming games started to shift from pseudo-3D to "true 3D," which gave

3220-469: The United Kingdom press. Examples include referring to the " Super Mario mould" (such as Kato-chan & Ken-chan ) as platform games, and calling Strider a "platform and ladders" game. The genre originated in the early 1980s. Levels in early platform games were confined to a single screen, viewed in profile, and based on climbing between platforms rather than jumping. Space Panic ,

3312-472: The United States, the game topped Babbage's Game Boy sales charts for two months in 1992 , from August to September. Many critics saw Super Mario Land as a "smaller" and shorter version of Super Mario Bros. At the time of its release in 1989, reviewers were excited to have a portable Mario game. Paul Rand of Computer and Video Games called the game "an arcade machine in your pocket" and

3404-455: The Year". Another term used in the late 1980s to 1990s was "character action games", in reference to games such as Super Mario Bros. , Sonic the Hedgehog , and Bubsy . It was also applied more generally to side-scrolling video games , including run and gun video games such as Gunstar Heroes . Platform game became a common term for the genre by 1989, popularized by its usage in

3496-529: The acrobatics evoke the movement that games such as Prince of Persia would feature. B.C.'s Quest For Tires (1983) put a recognizable character from American comic strips into side-scrolling, jumping gameplay similar to Moon Patrol . The same year, Snokie for the Commodore 64 and Atari 8-bit computers added uneven terrain to a scrolling platformer. Based on the Saturday morning cartoon rather than

3588-415: The basis for the non-linear mission structure found in most open-world, multi-mission, sidequest -heavy games. Another Capcom platformer that year was Bionic Commando , which popularized a grappling hook mechanic that has since appeared in dozens of games, including Earthworm Jim and Tomb Raider . Scrolling platformers went portable in the late 1980s with games such as Super Mario Land , and

3680-449: The company created the Game Boy, he wanted a fun game featuring Nintendo's mascot, Mario. The task came to Nintendo R&D1, a development team led by Game Boy inventor Gunpei Yokoi . Yokoi had previously created the Game & Watch series and worked with his protégé, Shigeru Miyamoto , on the game that introduced Mario, Donkey Kong . Super Mario Land is the fourth Super Mario game,

3772-609: The console as the Super Nintendo Entertainment System in North America, along with Super Mario World , while Sega released Sonic the Hedgehog for the Sega Genesis . Sonic showcased a new style of design made possible by a new generation of hardware: large stages that scrolled in all directions, curved hills, loops, and a physics system allowing players to rush through its levels with well-placed jumps and rolls. Sega characterized Sonic as

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3864-421: The criteria of a platformer, and was billed as an action adventure . It used true 3D characters and set pieces, but its environments were rendered using a rigid engine similar to the one used by Wolfenstein 3D , in that it could only render square, flat corridors, rather than suspended platforms that could be jumped between. Sega had tasked their American studio, Sega Technical Institute , with bringing Sonic

3956-419: The earlier Clockwork Knight . The game plays very similarly to 2D platformers, but lets players walk up walls and on ceilings. In 1995, Delphine Software released a 3D sequel to their 2D platformer Flashback . Entitled Fade to Black , it was the first attempt to bring a popular 2D platformer series into 3D. While it retained the puzzle-oriented level design style and step-based control, it did not meet

4048-405: The effect of the original Game Boy's monochrome. The game was released on the Nintendo Switch Online service on May 15, 2024. Following the Game Boy's "overnight success", Super Mario Land became the second best-selling 1989 release in North America (below Nintendo's Tetris ). Super Mario Land went on to sell more than 25 million copies—more than that of Super Mario Bros. 3 (1988). In

4140-468: The end of 12 levels by moving to the right and jumping across platforms to avoid enemies and pitfalls. Unlike the other Mario games , Super Mario Land is set in Sarasaland, a new environment depicted in line art, and Mario attempts to save Princess Daisy in her debut appearance in the series. The game has two Gradius -style shooter levels. At Nintendo CEO Hiroshi Yamauchi 's request, Game Boy creator Gunpei Yokoi 's Nintendo R&D1 developed

4232-521: The first award for Best Platform game in 1984 from Crash magazine. Later that same year, Epyx released Impossible Mission , and Parker Brothers released Montezuma's Revenge , which further expanded on the exploration aspect. The first platformer to use scrolling graphics came years before the genre became popular. Jump Bug is a platform-shooter developed by Alpha Denshi under contract for Hoei/Coreland and released to arcades in 1981, only five months after Donkey Kong . Players control

4324-462: The first portable Mario game, and the first in the series to be made without Miyamoto. Absent Miyamoto's direction, the development team used elements new and inconsistent with the series as Super Mario Land shrunk elements of the series to fit the portable device's small screen. Yokoi, the head of R&D1, served as producer, and Satoru Okada served as director. They had previously developed Metroid (1986) and Kid Icarus (1986) together, and

4416-541: The foreground and background, and the camera panning and curving around corners. Meanwhile, Pandemonium and Klonoa brought the 2.5D style to the PlayStation . In a break from the past, the Nintendo 64 had the fewest side scrolling platformers with only four; Yoshi's Story , Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards , Goemon's Great Adventure , and Mischief Makers —and most met with a tepid response from critics at

4508-470: The game a greater sense of speed than other platformers at the time, while its sequel, Wonder Boy in Monster Land added action-adventure and role-playing elements. Wonder Boy in turn inspired games such as Adventure Island , Dynastic Hero , Popful Mail , and Shantae . One of the first platformers to scroll in all four directions freely and follow the on-screen character's movement

4600-435: The game felt "radical and distinctive" for the risks it took. IGN's Thomas cited "out of place" gameplay elements like the shooter levels, exploding Koopa shells, non-extinguishing fireballs, and non-Princess Peach plot as departures from the series. Thomas attributed this to Mario creator Miyamoto's lack of involvement in the game's development, which he described as "famously hands-off". Schilling of Eurogamer instead blamed

4692-482: The game was "ridiculously short". Eurogamer reported that the game could be finished in under an hour. Complex ' s Gus Turner wrote that the game had the fun, intuitiveness, and difficulty associated with the series. Eurogamer ' s Chris Schilling called Hirokazu Tanaka 's soundtrack "surely one of the all-time greats", and Official Nintendo Magazine said it was among the "greatest videogame music ever composed". Eurogamer and Complex too complimented

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4784-458: The game was comparatively not as "ambitious" as Super Mario Bros. 3 . Mean Machines said it was not "a true Mario game", not worth its originally high review score, and "in retrospect, not really a classic". Glen Fox of Nintendo Life agreed, writing that it was an impressive achievement at the time but did not age as well as other Mario games. Eurogamer ' s Schilling wrote that Mario felt different—lighter, with more friction—and that

4876-517: The game, the creator flashed the game in thirty Nintendo Power cartridges and distributed them to his "Nintendo-loving friends" as a Christmas gift to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the original game. The creator no longer has involvement with the game, stating that "the project is terminated already" after sending the gift cartridges. Platformer The genre started with the 1980 arcade video game Space Panic , which has ladders but not jumping. Donkey Kong , released in 1981, established

4968-498: The gameplay from its precursor but traded the frog-like mech for a cartoony rabbit mech called Robbit. The title was successful enough to get two sequels and is remembered for being the first 3D platformer on a console. Rob Fahey of Eurogamer said Jumping Flash was perhaps "one of the most important ancestors of every 3D platformer in the following decade." It holds the record of "First platform videogame in true 3D" according to Guinness World Records . Another early 3D platformer

5060-457: The genre continued to maintain its popularity, with many games released for the handheld Game Boy and Game Gear systems. By the time the Genesis and TurboGrafx-16 launched, platformers were the most popular genre in console gaming. There was a particular emphasis on having a flagship platform title exclusive to a system, featuring a mascot character. In 1989, Sega released Alex Kidd in

5152-413: The genre, such as Super Mario Bros. (1985). Donkey Kong spawned other games with a mix of running, jumping, and vertical traversal, a novel genre that did not match the style of games that came before it, leaving journalists and writers to offer their own terms. Computer and Video Games magazine, among others, referred to the genre as "Donkey Kong-type" or "Kong-style" games. "Climbing games"

5244-417: The graphics "remarkable" for their size. French games magazine Player One said that Super Mario Land adequately compromised where necessary to bring Mario to a portable device. Electronic Gaming Monthly ' s Steve Harris considered the game "fantastic" and "very fun to play", though short. Ed Semrad and Donn Nauert of the same outlet both declared Super Mario Land "easily the best Game Boy cart" of

5336-536: The latter of which would later be spun-off into its own sub-series, Wario Land . Super Mario Land has been included in several top Game Boy game lists and debuted Princess Daisy as a recurring Mario series character . As a side-scrolling platform game and the first in the Super Mario Land series, Super Mario Land is similar in gameplay to the Super Mario Bros. series. As Mario ,

5428-514: The latter seems more like " Super Mario Bros. 3 with Mario Galaxy influences" than a successor to Super Mario Land 2 . The Superball Flower appears in Super Mario Maker 2 as an unlockable power-up item, usable only in the Super Mario Bros. style. Super Mario Land is remembered for its miniaturized Super Mario elements and "twist on just about every Mario mainstay imaginable". Many of its new elements do not recur later in

5520-412: The level-end flagpoles are replaced with a platforming challenge. Compared to Super Mario Bros. , which contains 32 levels subdivided into 8 "worlds" with 4 levels each, Super Mario Land is smaller, with 12 levels subdivided into 4 "worlds" with 3 levels each. There are five unique bosses, one at the end of each of the four worlds, and a fifth and final boss being Tatanga, who appears when the fourth boss

5612-454: The levels were open and had objectives. Completing objectives earned the player stars, and stars were used to unlock more levels. This approach allowed for more efficient use of large 3D areas and rewarded the player for exploration, but it meant less jumping and more action-adventure . Even so, a handful of boss levels offered more traditional platforming. Until then there was no settled way to make 3D platformers, but Super Mario 64 inspired

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5704-451: The main character new abilities for overcoming adversities. Most games of this genre consist of multiple levels of increasing difficulty that may be interleaved by boss encounters, where the character has to defeat a particularly dangerous enemy to progress. Simple logical puzzles to resolve and skill trials to overcome are other common elements in the genre. A modern variant of the platform game, especially significant on mobile platforms,

5796-489: The maze game, Namco's 1984 Pac-Land is a bidirectional, horizontally-scrolling, arcade video game with walking, running, jumping, springboards, power-ups , and a series of unique levels. Pac-Man creator Toru Iwatani described the game as "the pioneer of action games with horizontally running background." According to Iwatani, Shigeru Miyamoto described Pac-Land as an influence on the development of Super Mario Bros. . Nintendo's Super Mario Bros. , released for

5888-405: The more linear 3D platformers like Tork: Prehistoric Punk and Wario World used scripted cameras that limited player control. Games with more open environments like Super Mario 64 and Banjo Kazooie used intelligent cameras that followed the player's movements. Still, when the view was obstructed or not facing what the player needed to see, these intelligent cameras needed to be adjusted by

5980-536: The music video, but Nintendo of America was difficult to contact, and the track was never released in the United States. Mario's designer, Shigeru Miyamoto , approved the project, and the album, titled Super Mario Compact Disco , was released in Japan in August 1993, featuring tracks from other Mario games such as Super Mario Bros. 3 and Super Mario Kart . A homebrew for Super Nintendo Entertainment System called New Super Mario Land came to light in 2019 after

6072-634: The music. The game began a Super Mario Land series of portable Mario games. Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins added a non-linear overworld and introduced villain Wario , an evil version of Mario. The subsequent Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3 began the Wario franchise . After 19 years, the 2011 game Super Mario 3D Land for the Nintendo 3DS became Mario's first game in stereoscopic 3D . Audrey Drake of IGN argued that both Wario Land and Super Mario 3D Land are not "legitimate sequels", and wrote that

6164-534: The new wave of consoles. In the latter half of the 1980s and early 1990s, the Amiga was a strong gaming platform with its custom video hardware and sound hardware . The Atari ST was solidly supported as well. Games like Shadow of the Beast and Turrican showed that computer platformers could rival their console contemporaries. Prince of Persia , originally a late release for the 8-bit Apple II in 1989, featured

6256-455: The original's tiny scale and chose the classic fire flower fireballs over the first installment's bouncing balls. The game was included in multiple rankings of top Game Boy games, and Official Nintendo Magazine listed it at 73 in its top 100 Nintendo games. After her debut in Super Mario Land , Princess Daisy appears in later Mario series sports and racing games . The song " Supermarioland " (1992) by British group Ambassadors of Funk

6348-408: The platform-action game, Valis , which contained anime -style cut scenes . In 1987, Capcom 's Mega Man introduced non-linear level progression where the player is able to choose the order in which they complete levels. This was a stark contrast to both linear games like Super Mario Bros. and open-world games like Metroid . GamesRadar credits the "level select" feature of Mega Man as

6440-416: The play area. Nintendo 's flagship Super Mario Bros. (1985) was a defining game for the nascent genre, with horizontally scrolling levels and the player controlling a named character—Mario, which became a mascot of the company. The term platform game gained traction in the late 1980s, as did the alternate form platformer . During their peak of popularity, platformers were estimated to comprise between

6532-486: The player advances to the end of the level by moving to the right and jumping across platforms to avoid enemies and pitfalls, the screen only scrolls to the right, as the player advances, but will not scroll back to the left, and sections of a level that have passed off screen cannot be revisited. Mario travels to Sarasaland to save Princess Daisy from Tatanga, an evil spaceman. Two of the game's twelve levels are "forced-scrolling" Gradius -style shooters where Mario helms

6624-561: The player around and aid in battle. In 1990, Hudson Soft released Bonk's Adventure , with a protagonist positioned as NEC 's mascot. The following year, Takeru's Cocoron , a late platformer for the Famicom allowed players to build a character from a toy box filled with spare parts. In 1990, the Super Famicom was released in Japan, along with the eagerly anticipated Super Mario World . The following year, Nintendo released

6716-505: The player has completed the game they may play through again on a harder mode, in which the levels are the same apart from enemies being more numerous; if the player completes the harder mode, the game allows the player to start another play on any level in the game. Super Mario Land was developed by Nintendo R&D1 and published by Nintendo in 1989 as a launch game for its Game Boy handheld console. Nintendo CEO Hiroshi Yamauchi believed that fun games promote console sales, so when

6808-405: The player more control over the character and the camera. To render a 3D environment from any angle the user chose, the graphics hardware had to be sufficiently powerful, and the art and rendering model of the game had to be viewable from every angle. The improvement in graphics technology allowed publishers to make such games but introduced several new issues. For example, if the player could control

6900-993: The player. In the 1990s, RPGs , first-person shooters , and more complex action-adventure games captured significant market share. Even so, the platformer thrived. Tomb Raider became one of the bestselling series on the PlayStation , along with Insomniac Games ' Spyro and Naughty Dog 's Crash Bandicoot , one of the few 3D games to stick with linear levels. Moreover, many of the Nintendo 64 's bestsellers were first- and second-party platformers like Super Mario 64 , Banjo-Kazooie , and Donkey Kong 64 . On Windows and Mac , Pangea Software 's Bugdom series and BioWare 's MDK2 proved successful. Several developers who found success with 3D platformers began experimenting with titles that, despite their cartoon art style, were aimed at adults. Examples include Rare 's Conker's Bad Fur Day , Crystal Dynamics 's Gex: Deep Cover Gecko and Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver , and Shiny Entertainment 's Messiah . In 1998, Sega produced

6992-433: The protagonist, enemies, and overall game were shorter, and noted that Mario himself was just 12 pixels in height on the Game Boy's small screen. With this in mind, Thomas was concerned about player "eyestrain" in rereleases of the game. Still, IGN's Levi Buchanan thought the game made no compromises in its size reduction. Complex ' s Gus Turner wrote that the graphics were "simple", and Official Nintendo Magazine said

7084-454: The series, making Super Mario Land strange compared to the rest of the series, or what IGN's Thomas described as a "singular oddball". IGN's Marc Nix said retrospectively that Super Mario Land was the only uninspired Mario game, with "funky voids of white" and UFOs instead of the "strikingly original" Mushroom Kingdom. Mean Machines was also put off by the alien theme, easy difficulty, and dot matrix screen blur. IGN's Travis Fahs wrote that

7176-489: The songs on the game's score had a similar tempo to house music , so he was able to incorporate the samples into "Supermarioland" easily, recruiting Einstein to provide the rap vocals. After Harris created the track, he contacted Nintendo to clear the music samples, and the company, liking what Harris had done, also requested that he and Einstein record an album of Super Mario material. Nintendo UK quickly began to promote and market "Supermarioland", even providing an actor for

7268-489: The time. Despite this, Yoshi's Story sold over a million copies in the US, and Mischief Makers rode high on the charts in the months following its release. The term 3D platformer usually refers to games with gameplay in three dimensions and polygonal 3D graphics. Games that have 3D gameplay but 2D graphics are usually included under the umbrella of isometric platformers , while those that have 3D graphics but gameplay on

7360-484: The time. Tony Mott of Superplay said the game proved that Nintendo's Game Boy "had playability to match" its competitors. Matt Regan of Mean Machines agreed: "Playability to the nth degree!". British magazines Mean Machines and The Games Machine both commented on the many secrets to find. Player One too complimented the music. Player One further pronounced Super Mario Land a "masterpiece", "the pinnacle of portable video gaming". IGN's Lucas Thomas wrote that

7452-540: The top down perspective, Frogger (1981) as climbing games. In a December 1982 Creative Computing review of the Apple II game Beer Run , the reviewer used a different term: "I'm going to call this a ladder game, as in the 'ladder genre,' which includes Apple Panic and Donkey Kong ." That label was also used by Video Games Player magazine in 1983 when it named the Coleco port of Donkey Kong "Ladder Game of

7544-510: The two subsequently designed the Game Boy—Yokoi on its industrial design, and Okada on its engineering. Their Super Mario Land was planned as the portable console's showcase title until Henk Rogers brought Tetris to Nintendo of America and convinced Minoru Arakawa that the addictive computer game would help Nintendo reach the largest audience. The company subsequently chose to bundle Tetris with every Game Boy purchase. The Game Boy

7636-437: The video game industry internationally. The following year, Donkey Kong received a sequel, Donkey Kong Jr. and later Mario Bros. , a platformer with two-player cooperative play . It laid the groundwork for other two-player cooperative games such as Fairyland Story and Bubble Bobble . Beginning in 1982, transitional games emerged with non-scrolling levels spanning multiple screens. David Crane's Pitfall! for

7728-455: The visual flash of 3D with traditional 2D side scrolling gameplay. These games are often referred to as 2.5D. The first such game was Saturn launch title , Clockwork Knight (1994). The game featured levels and boss characters rendered in 3D, but retained 2D gameplay and used pre-rendered 2D sprites for regular characters, similar to Donkey Kong Country . Its sequel improved upon its design, featuring some 3D effects such as hopping between

7820-428: The way. These games are either presented from the side view, using two-dimensional movement, or in 3D with the camera placed either behind the main character or in isometric perspective . Typical platforming gameplay tends to be very dynamic and challenges a player's reflexes, timing, and dexterity with controls. The most common movement options in the genre are walking, running, jumping, attacking, and climbing. Jumping

7912-413: Was Floating Runner , developed by a Japanese company called Xing and released for PlayStation in early 1996, before the release of Super Mario 64 . Floating Runner uses D-pad controls and a behind-the-character camera perspective. In 1996, Nintendo released Super Mario 64 , which is a game that set the standard for 3D platformers. It let the player explore 3D environments with greater freedom than

8004-453: Was a primary way to attack. This was the first true 3D platform-action game with free-roaming environments, but it was never ported to another platform or released outside Japan, so it remains relatively unknown in the West. The following year, Exact released their follow-up to Geograph Seal . An early title for Sony's new PlayStation console, Jumping Flash! , released in April 1995, kept

8096-532: Was found in any previous game in the genre. With this in mind, Nintendo put an analog control stick on its Nintendo 64 controller, a feature that had not been seen since the Vectrex but which has since become standard. The analog stick provided the fine precision needed with a free perspective. In most 2D platformers, the player finished a level by following a path to a certain point, but in Super Mario 64 ,

8188-455: Was inspired by the game and became a novelty hit, appearing in the UK top ten charts. Simon Harris , the mastermind behind Ambassadors of Funk, said that he initially had no intention to create Super Mario -themed compositions, but after his friend introduced him to Nintendo's Game Boy console, he became fond of the theme music from Super Mario Land , composed by Hirokazu Tanaka . He realised that

8280-569: Was released in Japan in April 1989, North America in July, and Europe in September 1990, and Super Mario Land became a launch game. Its official first release was on April 21, 1989, in Japan, and its North American release followed in August. About 22 years later, Super Mario Land was released for the Nintendo 3DS via Virtual Console on June 6, 2011, as one of its first games. Its new features include an increased size (about 60 percent zoom) and an optional "shades of green" color palette to match

8372-418: Was the first game to allow players to jump over obstacles and gaps. It is widely considered to be the first platformer. It introduced Mario under the name Jumpman. Donkey Kong was ported to many consoles and computers at the time, notably as the system-selling pack-in game for ColecoVision , and also a handheld version from Coleco in 1982. The game helped cement Nintendo's position as an important name in

8464-540: Was used in Steve Bloom's 1982 book Video Invaders and 1983 magazines Electronic Games (US)—which ran a cover feature called "The Player's Guide to Climbing Games"—and TV Gamer (UK). Bloom defined "climbing games" as titles where the player "must climb from the bottom of the screen to the top while avoiding and/or destroying the obstacles and foes you invariably meet along the way." Under this definition, he listed Space Panic (1980), Donkey Kong , and despite

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