Super Mario 3D Land

This is just what the title says, its a mario game. Theres hardly anything special about this game though it is very nice to play through and i did enjoy it specifically for its simplicity, though there are quite a few issues.

The game is incredibly easy, like stupid easy, i beat this entire game with every star coin (minus the special stages bc im not playing through the same game disguised as new content) and ended off with 109 lives, and ended up dying probably about 2 dozen times, and like half of which was just me being an idiot. Speaking of the star coins, there are maybe like 10 that are genuinely difficult while the rest are either blatantly obvious, or literally DIRECTLY along the intended path for the level like any other coin (mostly near the end of the game). Not to mention how the game basically gives you a win button if you die like 4 times on a stage. This game is made for a very young audience and it shows, which isnt necessarily a bad thing, but even for that standard this is brain dead easy.

The game is also very linear which i actually enjoy a lot. Most other 3d platformers ive played try to go for a super mario 64 approach with trying to be as big and open as possible, but this plays more like a 2d platformer with an extra dimension, and thats very fun and interesting to me. Though the level design definitely couldve used some work, with many levels (especially the further you get in the game) being pretty bland, samey, and uninteresting. I have nothing wrong with a simple fun game, but this gets outright boring after awhile.

And the boss fights are a joke. They can be some of the easiest levels in the game when their supposed to be the hardest, and the game basically just repeats the same 3 bosses (2 being very similar) over and over. The final boss is also possibly the easiest one in the entire game which makes 0 sense and should obviously be the polar opposite. The standard levels are harder, and more interesting, and the bosses feel more like an afterthought than anything else.

The game is still enjoyable specifically because its easy and simple, and i wouldnt deter anyone from checking it out if theyre interested, but this couldve been much better and there are definitely mario, or even just nintendo games. 7-/10

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.