Uploaded June 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins has one of the most surprising origin stories of any character introduced in the Mario series, and it comes straight from the team that resented even working on it. Developed and published by Nintendo R&D1, the same team behind the original Game Boy, the game released November 2, 1992, produced by Gunpei Yokoi and directed by Hiroji Kiyotake. Mario's actual creator, Shigeru Miyamoto, had no involvement at all, since he was busy working on Wave Race and Super Mario Kart at the time.
That gap is exactly where Wario comes from. The R&D1 team reportedly had little creative passion for making a Mario game they did not create themselves, and out of that frustration, they built Wario as a kind of evil mirror version of the character, jealous, greedy and obsessed with stealing Mario's castle for himself. It is a strange way for one of Nintendo's most enduring characters to be born, but Wario went on to headline his own Wario Land series two years later and has stuck around in the franchise ever since.
The game itself was a genuine technical leap for the Game Boy too, shipping on a 4 megabit cartridge that was eight times larger than the original Super Mario Land. Composer Kazumi Totaka, who also worked on Mario Paint, hid his signature musical Easter egg here as well, playable by waiting at the Game Over screen for two minutes and thirty seconds. All of that paid off commercially, with the game selling more than 11 million copies worldwide and topping Babbage's Game Boy sales charts in the US for two straight months after release.
Let me know in the comments if this commercial is how you first found out Wario existed. Subscribe to Game Forest GF for retro gaming content every single day.
#supermarioland2 #wario #gameboy #nintendo #retrogaming #classicgaming #90scommercial #retrocommercials #90sgaming #nintendoclassic #oldschoolgaming #vintagegaming #gaminghistory #90snostalgia #mariofranchise
Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins has one of the most surprising origin stories of any character introduced in the Mario series, and it comes straight from the team that resented even working on it. Developed and published by Nintendo R&D1, the same team behind the original Game Boy, the game released November 2, 1992, produced by Gunpei Yokoi and directed by Hiroji Kiyotake. Mario's actual creator, Shigeru Miyamoto, had no involvement at all, since he was busy working on Wave Race and Super Mario Kart at the time.
That gap is exactly where Wario comes from. The R&D1 team reportedly had little creative passion for making a Mario game they did not create themselves, and out of that frustration, they built Wario as a kind of evil mirror version of the character, jealous, greedy and obsessed with stealing Mario's castle for himself. It is a strange way for one of Nintendo's most enduring characters to be born, but Wario went on to headline his own Wario Land series two years later and has stuck around in the franchise ever since.
The game itself was a genuine technical leap for the Game Boy too, shipping on a 4 megabit cartridge that was eight times larger than the original Super Mario Land. Composer Kazumi Totaka, who also worked on Mario Paint, hid his signature musical Easter egg here as well, playable by waiting at the Game Over screen for two minutes and thirty seconds. All of that paid off commercially, with the game selling more than 11 million copies worldwide and topping Babbage's Game Boy sales charts in the US for two straight months after release.
Let me know in the comments if this commercial is how you first found out Wario existed. Subscribe to Game Forest GF for retro gaming content every single day.
#supermarioland2 #wario #gameboy #nintendo #retrogaming #classicgaming #90scommercial #retrocommercials #90sgaming #nintendoclassic #oldschoolgaming #vintagegaming #gaminghistory #90snostalgia #mariofranchise
