So after picking up Super Mario Land 2 in the recent EU sale (and making minimal savings by doing so) i've finished it once more, now having played all 3 Mario Land games (Wario being the outlier until I finished it last week) I can conclude that it's my favourite of the three. Of course all of them play quite differently but dammit they all say Mario Land.
It's funny that SML1 gets given praise for its crazy setting and unusualness in the Mario series but land 2 doesn't, it's no slouch in the odd department either, sure it plays things more safer leaning on a more cartoon like style which isn't quite as out there as whatever the hell SML was doing but it's certainly far removed from the SMB stuff. Mario Zone and Macro Zone are still the highlights of this game, it's quite astounding seeing the jump from ML1 to ML2, bringing over SMW alt exits and world map is nice as well.
It's not perfect, Mario's jump has some odd momentum at times, the jump from a short run is criminally poor which can be problematic when making precision jumps (a similar fault in 3D Land now I think about it), the 3DS analogue pad doesn't mesh that well here, a bit slippery and I kept doing mid air spins though that's not too much of an issue.
Wario's Castle is a brutal difficulty spike and suffers from no checkpoints and some hazards are not really visible until you've jumped into them, but anyway I enjoyed my return to this game.
Plus the music is awesome.
Now lets get some Wario Land 2 out here, I need to see if my nostalgia holds up.