The original “Super Mario Land” was the Mario adventure you thought you wanted at the launch of the GameBoy. Its sequel is the game you really wanted. This release caught up to the kind of gameplay experiences players were having on the NES in 1992.

“Super Mario Land 2” looks like a black and white take on “Super Mario Bros 3”. Mario and his enemies are large and expressive, locked in battle across a range of distinct locales. The worlds not only look different from one another… they feel different. Navigating a giant tree, for instance, prioritizes vertical platforming, while swimming through the depths shows off Mario’s buoyancy, and wandering through a haunted house requires a little stealth.

The one notable drawback to the game is that the physics are not as polished as intuitive as they are in the NES games. But once you adjust, it’s smooth sailing. On a lesser note, the game is very easy and quite short – though it’s double the length of its bite-sized predecessor.

It’s not the definitive Mario game on Game Boy – that honor goes to “Donkey Kong”. But “Super Mario Land 2” is one of the system’s killer applications, and it’s worth adding to every Game Boy collection.