Super Mario 3D Land

[maf-me-quick]

i wasn't sure whether to start a thread for this since there's only about 3 of us who have played it. but after finishing the main quest it's gotta be talked about. even if it ends up with only 3 posts.

the game is bananas! them last 2-3 worlds were so clever and so fun. so were the rest, but i felt like that's when the game only really gets going. also that first ending is magical and probably the best bowser castle sequence in years. well, galaxy has some neat ones, but they don't have bowser chasing you, so.

i really feel like this is the only game i've played that has come the closest to transitioning a 2D game in to a 3D game. and i mean that in the conventional sense. i mean when you think back to mario 64, and any 3D mario game really, they are wildly different from their older counter parts. it's hard to nail down what mario is about anyway because the next thing is always different from the last thing, the only thing that's ever been consistent is iconography, gravity (until recently) and the "story" i guess.

but i feel like nintendo EAD has absolutely nailed that super mario 3 design philosophy and bought it up to date, and nailed it while adding in an extra two dimensions (3D and 3D counts as two, right?). strip back the moves so the power ups make you feel powerful, and make short but compact levels and blow the roof off of each one with content. it borders on ridiculous. some of the secret areas, no, some whole levels are absolutely throw away and i mean that in the best possible sense.

there's one level where you just go in to a clock and work your way around the insides until you get back out again. the whole thing lasts about a minute, but it's cool as shit.

if there's one thing that's made me happiest about the game, it's also the thing i never thought 3D mario would ever go back to; mushroom kingdom type levels. ridiculous in hindsight.

see, when i was playing mario galaxy, i got kind of caught up in the whole, OH, JESUS, MARIO IN SPACE angle. i thought, and still do to some dungaree, that it changed the game. what do you get when you take gravity away from platformers? rules out the window. but i never realized with the whole planetoid concept that they'd also done away with traditional levels. most of the planetoids was like one idea on display, you figure it out, have some fun, blast off, next idea.

mario 3D, i don't think, is as much of a melting pot of ideas as the mario galaxy games, but it's nice to see some of them taken and blown out in to full on levels. for example there's one level in mario galaxy where the floors made of wood and tiny buzz saws cut parts of the floor off and it's all like 'ha, look what we're doing' you see that idea again late in the (main) game in 3D land but it's more devious and a bigger test of dexterity that separates it in to 'please, stop it, look what you're doing!'

some ideas are more advanced. in galaxy there were levels where every time you spin the blue and red floors flip. in 3D land they flip every time you jump. and are also surrounded by them airship moles that throw the spanners at you. i died so many times. i love it!

as much as i spin the game as a wonderful blend of super mario 3 design and mario galaxy levels, though, and some will consider that a detriment, i feel like this still stands on it own. it does have one level composed 90% of just tight ropes. there is one level mostly made of a moving pressure plate platform. there is a level all about moving platforms just using mario's momentum. it does bring a lot of new but is also very familiar without being like a throwback ala NSMBW. like how i started, i've never played a game before that splices 2D and 3D so well together.

and i didn't even get to the verticality stuff or how well it uses 3D in a way that actually effects gameplay. oh, well.

needless to say, i think this game is amazing. and i'm only half-way through! i've only really got to play rayman before i do that little tick for platformer of the year, and take it as a mario fanboy rant if you want, but rayman has a lot to do, and everyone else needs to play this game. the only downside to the game is the 3DS's battery won't last long enough for me to play all the rest of it right now. bummer.

all hail the mushroom king.

[bellow]

Nice post! I thought the game was cute as a button. It was also perfectly pitched for hand held gaming - short, tight levels, pretty easy, but enough of a challenge to make you smile when you reach the flagpole. Of course then there's the special worlds, where the hardcore can have their fun. I've got to about S level 3 and have already lost most of the 1ups I accumulated in the main campaign Drat.

Perfectly worthy of a thread I think. And I'm sure more people will have played it as the year develops and the 3Ds becomes more of an attractive proposition.

[Shadowman]

There's a lot that I liked about this game. I guess the main thing was that unlike SM64, Mario Sunshine and even the Galaxy games this really felt like a 2D Mario game but played out in 3D. At many times through the game it really does feel like what I'd have imagined Mario 3 to be like if it was in 3D which is really cool. It is a bit on the easy side for the first few worlds but thankfully it picks up later in the game plus getting all the coins kept me occupied searching all the stages for secret area's etc. so I wound up spending 20+ hours playing it in the end.

While it made the game quite easy in places having the Tanooki Suit return was great, if nothing else its a godsend once you do the final level as its very difficult to do without it!
Also the Boomerang Suit is fantastic fun with loads of enemies around as its possible to easily chain together kills (just don't grab the boomerang) and it'll stay on screen for a while killing any enemies that gets in its way. Very useful to get lots of extra lives really quickly

The 3D effect is subtle but incredibly useful. At one stage I had it turned off and I never took for granted how much easier it was jumping from platform to platform with it on, it actually really helps to judge the depth and required length needed for jumps.

Lastly I thought there were loads of great homages and nods to the classic Mario games. As mentioned above the Tanooki powerup is back and the levels do have a very SMB3 feel to them.
Other cool bits include one level where you traverse a bridge while cheap cheap's fly out of the sea at you (like in a couple of levels in the original SMB), one level which takes a previous stage and adds an endless stream of bullet bills for you to dodge (again in a Mario 1 homage) and the bowser fights feel far more like the battles in the original SMB where you were far more reliant on dodging his attacks and hitting the drawbridge switch if you didn't have a fire flower.

[Shaolin_monkey]

I've only dipped my toe into the first couple of levels, but so far it does seem really cool. Bright, colourful, well designed, and just plain fun. It has so far given some nice relief between Skyrim sessions.

[Christian09]

I think it's a pretty good sign that there are so many good Mario games that people have to hate on critically acclaimed entries. Some people who love the 2D platformers but not the 3D ones. I even know people who play only Mario Kart and Mario Party. There's no way to please everyone.
i'm platformer man when it comes to Mario. The rpg stuff is baffling.

[maf-me-quick]

i finished this game up last night. all 294 coins and all special worlds done. fucking amazing. just a shame that it's all over.

some of them last few levels were bastards! but in a good way.

once i'd all finished up the game rated me 4 stars. huh? why not 5? i did everything! maybe because i died 146 times in total i bet 100 of those lives were lost on special worlds 6-8. man.

[Shadowman]

i finished this game up last night. all 294 coins and all special worlds done. fucking amazing. just a shame that it's all over.

some of them last few levels were bastards! but in a good way.

once i'd all finished up the game rated me 4 stars. huh? why not 5? i did everything! maybe because i died 146 times in total i bet 100 of those lives were lost on special worlds 6-8. man.

I think it only gives you 4 stars. You can get sparkly stars if you completed all of the levels up to the end of world 8 without losing more than 4 lives in each level. How did you get on with the super secret level unlocked after clearing all the worlds with both Mario and Luigi?

[maf-me-quick]

I think it only gives you 4 stars. You can get sparkly stars if you completed all of the levels up to the end of world 8 without losing more than 4 lives in each level. How did you get on with the super secret level unlocked after clearing all the worlds with both Mario and Luigi?

super secret level? i had no idea. i'll do that later.

and, how did you learn this stuff?

[Maryokutai]

Don’t you get something special too when you finish every stage with a golden flag? Thought I read about this somewhere. Not that I’d bother –– I loved the game for as long as it lasted (including the special stages, of course), but I don’t see me playing through it again with Luigi and trying to reach the top of the pole in every level.
Really good game though and probably the only "real" 3DS game thus far, as it’s more or less the first one which utilizes the 3D as part of the gameplay. Only thing I’d change is the music. I love those classic tunes, but they become somewhat repetitive after a while. Bowser’s stages would have benefitted a lot from Galaxy-style orchestras IMO.

I wonder how the launch would have looked like if this came bundled with the console...

[maf-me-quick]

i didn't know about the flag pole thing either. i did notice that sometimes they were yellow, but i didn't think it would count towards anything.

that would also be really hard. i would swear you need the tanooki suit to get to the top of some of them. i won't do that, but i'll play again as luigi.

[Shadowman]

i didn't know about the flag pole thing either. i did notice that sometimes they were yellow, but i didn't think it would count towards anything.

that would also be really hard. i would swear you need the tanooki suit to get to the top of some of them. i won't do that, but i'll play again as luigi.

Its the same reward. Clear each level with Mario and Luigi and touch the top of every flag pole (indicated by the gold flagpole icon on the map screen) and get all the coins in each world (you only need to do this once thankfully) and you'll unlock a bonus stage.

Beware, the stage is way harder than anything else that came before it! You'll definely be needing a Tanooki suit for that one!

In regards to touching the tops of the flagpoles - the Tanooki Suit is incredibly handy and I'd suggest at least keeping one stored in your inventory on the touch screen at all times, plus Luigi jumps higher than Mario making it slightly easier to get the tops.

[maf-me-quick]

Its the same reward. Clear each level with Mario and Luigi and touch the top of every flag pole (indicated by the gold flagpole icon on the map screen) and get all the coins in each world (you only need to do this once thankfully) and you'll unlock a bonus stage.

wait, wait, wait. i need to do one of these 3 things, or i need to do all of these 3 things? i'm not going to do all of that.

[Shadowman]

Its the same reward. Clear each level with Mario and Luigi and touch the top of every flag pole (indicated by the gold flagpole icon on the map screen) and get all the coins in each world (you only need to do this once thankfully) and you'll unlock a bonus stage.

wait, wait, wait. i need to do one of these 3 things, or i need to do all of these 3 things? i'm not going to do all of that.

All of them. Took me about 20 hours to do in total but was worth it in the end for the secret level even if it was bastard hard!

[maf-me-quick]

mate, i turned the 3D off tonight while playing because i was getting tired and couldn't keep the hand held in that sweet spot you need for the 3D to be stable, and i could not play a 3d platformer without the 3D. after playing for so many hours with the 3D on, going back to 2D just made everything look like it was all jumbled on top of each other. even nintendo's key use of shadows underneath everything couldn't save me.

the 3D in this game is a lot like heroin in that respect. if you don't over do it, you'll be fine. but come reliant on it too much it becomes impossible to go with out.

[Shadowman]

mate, i turned the 3D off tonight while playing because i was getting tired and couldn't keep the hand held in that sweet spot you need for the 3D to be stable, and i could not play a 3d platformer without the 3D. after playing for so many hours with the 3D on, going back to 2D just made everything look like it was all jumbled on top of each other. even nintendo's key use of shadows underneath everything couldn't save me.

the 3D in this game is a lot like heroin in that respect. if you don't over do it, you'll be fine. but come reliant on it too much it becomes impossible to go with out.

I know exactly what you mean! I did the same thing when trying to clear a couple of the final levels and just found it unplayable for some reason!