Mappyland was developed by Tose in 1986 and released by Taxxon for the Nintendo Entertainment System. It was later released for the Wii U on the Nintendo Virtual Console. The object of the game is to collect all of the numbered items and reach the end of the level. There are 8 different worlds that cycle 4 times with different layouts, giving you 32 maps. There are useful pickups that can be used as distractions, like the cat toy, the jar, the fish, and the coin. Each area has unique tools you can utilize, such as the cannon, the zip line, bowling balls, grapes, or punching bags. Some levels require a special key item to complete the round, like a flower or trumpet.

Mappy moves from the left to right and can bounce on a trampoline up to three times in a row before it breaks. He is also invincible to enemies while airborne. It can be tough getting off and on sometimes, and there are some questionable fall deaths. The A button drops a decoy, and the B button jumps to pickup items-- it can be used to jump over the cats, but you need to be pixel perfect.

The sheer variety in this game keeps everything interesting the whole way through and the music is awesome. The graphics are also pretty good, although it is hard to distinguished stuff sometimes, this may have been intentional but who knows. There are levels within levels which makes the game feel bigger than it is. And there's a fun bonus game at the end of each cycle where you need to collect all the rings or whatever before the music stops. There's even a hidden bonus stage that I hadn't discovered until 30 years later. Overall, Mappyland is must-play for anyone revisiting the retro library despite a few minor gripes. I was going to call it rare gem, but I'm not sure it's all that rare. A-