Super Mario 3D Land

Super Mario 3D Land was a pretty logical direction to take in the mainline Mario series, with Nintendo almost certainly stuffed to the brim with 3D Mario ideas to tinker with after the obstacle course structure of Galaxy 2. 3D Land very much feels like a laboratory of Cool Mario Shit thrown in a blender, with lots of nods to Nintendo games and characters of old. Level geometry is kept abstract and purposefully designed to jump on, the music is jazzy and bouncy, and the movement is simplified to keep the challenges contained in scope. Some have criticized this stylistic change as rounding too many corners for the series, losing some charming roughness of previous entries, and I do empathize with those positions as a fan of the open-ended layouts of the early entries in the 3D series. That said, 3D Land taken on its own merits is a tightly designed platformer that pulls its own weight.

Structurally, 3D Land strongly resembles Galaxy 2, both having a linear set of levels to complete that emphasize variety, giving a frenetic pace to progression and keeping things interesting. However, while the Galaxy games keep you in the same world for a group of separate challenges, 3D Land is content with a single romp through any given level, making it feel like a bit like Galaxy 2 with a turbo button. The levels themselves are more akin to the recent 2D Mario games, with Star Coins, time limits, and a flag pole to conclude. They're also quite short, with usually just one or two core mechanical motifs consistently implemented throughout. In sync with the game's theming, a majority of these mechanics are re-implemented from Mario's past - Lost Levels' poison mushrooms, airship stages from SMB3, Sunshine's tightropes, and Galaxy's jump-flipping platforms are all present here, repackaged to suit smaller, denser stages. This rapid introduction of mechanics and obstacles works to expand the player's platforming vocabulary, increasing confidence when the obstacles return in more difficult constructions. It works well, and even in higher-difficulty stages the complexity remains manageable. Nothing is ever "unfair" from a design standpoint.

The short length of the stages fits the handheld medium, but I found myself halfway through World 3 in a little over an hour during my first session with 50-odd lives accumulated. I was worried about the game's staying power if it was going to be that short, but to my surprise, completing the main game unlocks 8 more Special worlds to complete, featuring original levels as well as really devious remixes of the previous stages. The difficulty is on average higher here, with a few gimmes and a few that are downright ridiculous. There are a few minor tweaks here that make the straightforward level design feel much more punishing and challenging, the most common of which are the lack of checkpoints and occasionally even power-ups of any kind. Many stages also contain one or both of 2 new twists - a 30 second time limit where you must keep grabbing time refills and play faster and riskier, and a Cosmic Mario-esque chase where you can't retrace your steps or risk getting hit by a ghost mirroring your actions. When these are paired up with the more difficult base mechanics in World Special 8, 3D Land gets refreshingly hard for an official Mario title.

3D Land falls short in a couple of areas, some of which I think were avoidable and others that weren't. The elephant in the room here is that it's a portable game, arbitrarily condensing stage lengths for the sake of the mythical traveling gamer who never has more than 5 minutes of free time. The 3DS directional pad, while serviceable, is nowhere near as sensitive or responsive as the analog sticks on the 64/GameCube/Wii nunchuk, and the dead zones will lead to some dropped directional inputs. The problem is exacerbated by the typically fantastic implementation of the 3D effect - although it is immensely helpful in discerning jump distances, Nintendo was so confident in its implementation that the camera is completely uncontrollable by the player, creating more opportunities for the thumbstick to fail you. Hardware limitations are a difficult thing to assign blame for, but the problem does exist and does hamper the experience, which is unfortunate.

The difficulty curve was also not well-considered, with the first 5 or so worlds basically not ramping up at all, and the Special Worlds containing odd spikes here and there. On more than one occasion I would get my ass beat by a stage and beat the next one without breaking a sweat. Maybe these little reprieves are psychologically important or something but I prefer a more linear progression. Finally, I found the game overall to rely *very* heavily on auto-scrolling stages, with most in the final (and most difficult) levels in a world. They make dying extremely punishing, sometimes taking full minutes to return to the place where you last failed. While some of the ideas are memorable, like a bullet hell section on the 8-7 rollercoaster ride, replaying lengthier sections was never engaging for me, and these are the places where I put the game down more often.

It's hard for me to come down too hard on 3D Land here as I did genuinely have a super fun time beating it. Its length to 100% was perfect (around 9-10 hours for 75ish stages), there was real challenge to be found, and the nonstop variety of the stages and their short length makes it quite appetizing to "play just one more." I know 3DSes aren't exactly high-demand items anymore, but I feel like this is worth picking up if you're like me and missed it on its release. It's a very worthy entry in a legendary series, despite its limitations.

Super Mario 3D Land is a 3D Mario game, but the levels have a classic 2D feel to them which makes it seem different to previous Mario releases. As usual, Princess Peach has been kidnapped by Bowser and so Mario must travel through 8 worlds to save the day.

There are only 5 stages in each one plus a couple of extra, optional levels; so the game feels rather short. However, once you do this, it turns out you are only really half way to complete the game because another set of 8 worlds with 5 stages in each is revealed; and the real challenge begins.

In order to play these extra levels there is an increasingly harsh coin cost to unlock them. The required coins are the special 3 coins found in each level, located in the more dangerous and harder to reach places. If you want to play these extra stages, you will need to make sure to find the 3 coins, unless you will be replaying levels again and again to find the ones you missed the first time round.

In terms of power ups, the usual Mario ones are featured, and a stronger emphasis is placed on the Tanooki suit in which Mario can spin-attack and partially glide using the tail. The propeller box can make Mario fly to large vertical heights then slowly glide back to the ground, and an uncommon Boomerang Bro's suit makes an appearance in a handful of levels.

The main game is mainly easy and experienced players won't die too often. Most deaths I found were caused by some platforms being hard to judge their position, or when Mario didn't gain as much speed as predicted. Maybe it was me that just had problems with the 3DS circle pad, but sometimes Mario often didn't like jumping diagonally and came up short.

In the event that you do die many times, an optional Invincibility Leaf can be used which basically is a cross between a Tanooki suit and permanent Star power, which allows you to focus on the platforming and ignore all enemies. This is an optional easy mode.

The special worlds are much more trickier, with a higher amount of enemies, particularly the tricky ones like Spineys, and after the first world, you can have the choice of playing as Luigi.

Overall, 3D Land is enjoyable and should provide a fairly long lasting challenge, providing you are willing to replay the levels.