…………………………………………………

Super Mario 3D Land Game Review

Super Mario 3D Land is a 2011 platform video game developed and published by Nintendo for Nintendo 3DS. It is a fun platformer that is far from the best installments in the series.

………………………………………………….

“Let’s-a play!“

…………………………………………………..

When this game was first released, it was critically acclaimed. It was a hugely popular game that is mostly well regarded. Although I personally find it to be quite good, it lacked the originality and memorability of the greatest Mario entries.

The plot is once again your standard save the princess trope, but the voice acting was reliably fantastic with Mario’s exclamations and catchphrases making me smile with joy every single time. The length of the main campaign is reasonable – not too short and too long. I wished for more side activities, but what was included was pretty fun.

Let’s talk about its unique graphical presentation. It’s a mixed bag to be honest, though I do admired its originality. This is after all the only truly unique element in this otherwise quite familiar platformer. It has been described as a 2.5D game, but most reviewers actually called it more of a 2D game, an assessment that I wholeheartedly disagree with. I agree with Shigeru Miyamoto himself – it’s a 3D game that plays as a 2D game, but the former elements are much more prevalent.

And that brings me to my main contention with this game and that is its camera. This is the worst camera system in any Mario game since ‘Super Mario 64’. It’s so unintuitive that it took me quite a while to get used to it. Eventually I got accustomed to it, but only after many painful hours of struggling to know where exactly to jump. Whenever the level design incorporated jumping in all directions, especially up and down, it was quite difficult to get the right jump. With that being said, I did appreciate the almost stagelike quality to the level design as the 3D effect would let you find certain power-ups and special coins when you stumble upon a hidden area. The game looks great and it is unique, but I wished for a more intuitive camera.

…………………………………………………..

But I ended up really enjoying the unique mixing of linear platforming of older games with the more advanced gameplay mechanics of ‘Super Mario Galaxy’, the game that clearly had a big influence on this entry with some ideas directly taken from that classic. All of the standard Mario moves are back here with all the different jumps being well incorporated. I loved grabbing the flag pole at the end as that element is a classic one for a reason.

The power-ups are numerous in this installment and the game showers you with them quite liberally. The usual ones are all here and they are essential, but the Super Leaf from ‘Super Mario Bros. 3’ is finally back here. The Tanooki suit made this game so much easier than it otherwise would have been so I abused the hell out of it. The extra power-up that you can store on the second screen was a terrific choice and it made the game so much fun to play.

But the difficulty level is way too easy. It made the game breezy and fun for everybody, no question about that. However, it’s simply not a challenge for experienced platformer players, being pretty much the easiest Mario game of all time if you discount the quite difficult last level or two. The game was already quite easy, so adding that invincibility power-up was just unnecessary and whenever I saw that one included after numerous deaths, I was quite insulted. I very rarely used it.

The map layout is standard, but what works works, so I had no qualms with it. The Toad Houses give you power-ups, which was great, and I liked that there is no game over in this game at all. The highlight for me in terms of gameplay was searching for all the Star Medals, three in each level. Some of them were so cunningly hidden across or beneath the entire screen, so it was quite an adventure getting to all of them. As for the bosses, they are a bit on the easy side, but at least Bowser can be quite difficult, especially in the last world.

…………………………………………………..

The score is pretty familiar, but fun. The level design is as always top-notch and quite creative at times. The game is over after the eighth world, but it does include other special stages, which was such a great idea for anyone who would like to play more. As for the original eight worlds, the second world was too annoying in its camera and the seventh world had those rope-climbing challenges that were also frustrating, but the fifth one was among the highlights in its hard platforming challenge while the third snowy one was a visual delight.