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GAMEPLAY: 9/10

It took a few levels to get used to the 3D, as well as how to move but you get the hang of it. By the end, I was moving in ways I didn’t think I’d be able to do in the beginning. There is one thing, that is the most important thing in this game and relates to gameplay: Mario’s shadow. Sometimes the 3D can be really…tricky. I found myself only able to move in some places because of Mario’s shadow. Without that aspect, this game would be 10x harder. Even the levels where the shadow is missing are considerably harder than the ground levels.

One of the hardest parts of the game is that it wears on your stamina. I think it’s your visual stamina, but I might be incorrect. In a 2D game, you see things for what they are. In a 3D game, especially when you’re Mario, jumping on blocks/clouds in the sky, where there’s no shadow for Mario, your brain really has to think hard to determine one thing all the time: where you are. It’s really frustrating in this game sometimes, and the reason why I’ve knocked gameplay down a point. Otherwise, you move like Mario and everything do/can do is pretty much what you’d expect Mario to do.

Regarding Difficulty: This game is either too easy, or pretty damn hard. There are 16 worlds, comprised of about 6 levels per world. The first 1-7 worlds are easy. So easy that this game was originally a joke to me. You could finish some levels so fast, it was ridiculous. Of course, me having to get the 3 Golden Coins per level made it trickier but regardless, the first 7 worlds are such a joke. The game really starts to get complicated on the 8th (and what I thought was the last) world. It was much more difficult than the super easy levels before it, but that’s not a bad thing due to the rest of the game’s ease. Despite that, after you finish the 8th world, you’re introduced to 8 more “Special” worlds. These 8 worlds, in which some levels are re-done older levels, with twists, were much more complicated. Some of the levels were damn frustrating even. Overall, if you look at the game’s difficulty, there are more difficult levels than easy ones. Don’t let the first 7 worlds fool you, this game can be pretty difficult even to a seasoned Mario pro.

Two other ways they made the last 8 worlds difficult, other than modified surroundings and environment, wwre the 30s time limit levels (in which you can gain 10s for every enemy you kill) and the stupid Shadow Mario (not to be confused with Mario’s shadow). The 30s time limit levels aren’t too difficult, as long as you kill a bad guy here and there, but they do give you a sense of urgency, making you play faster and force stupid mistakes. To be honest, I think I only died once to the time limit expiring, most times were just careless moves due to lack of time. One of my biggest peeves of this game was Shadow Mario. He’s a character that follows your exact moves, about 1-2s behind. Meaning if you stand still for 2 seconds, he catches up to you, and each time he touches you, you get hurt. In the first level with him in it, I tried to run away from him as fast as I could, not realizing he just mimics your moves. I kept dying to him repeatedly and I was swearing at the game “this guy is so f*cking fast, it’s so unfair”….not realizing it was me that was fast, and that I wasn’t supposed to stay still. I really really hated the levels where he followed me, I think I found those to be the most difficult levels. That is until you get to Special World 8, where most of the levels put the 30s timer on you AND Shadow Mario. Ugh. Like I said, they really made this game hard. Especially at the end. At least I wasn’t disappointed with the ease of this game, the feeling I got from the first 7 worlds. I didn’t feel like I was cheated out of my money on this joke of a game that I finished in a few days.

GRAPHICS: 10/10

Everywhere I read, they said that in this game, the 3D is necessary to playing it. I found this not to be true at all. While I played most levels with 3D on near the beginning, it became quite tiring on the eyes and I proceeded to play most of the game without 3D. Regardless, this game is a visual feat. I thought that with so few levels, they really did a small, crappy job on this game but that’s not true at all. After playing all 96(?) levels, there’s quite a bit of variance in levels….despite some levels being redone old levels. [Note: Super Mario World [SNES] had 96 levels too…just thought that was interesting]

MUSIC AND SOUNDS: 10/10

Once again, Mario takes some of its classic music and reinvents it, or creates new, interesting music. One of the funnest things about this game is getting these rainbow coloured musical notes to appear. If you collect them in the right order, the play a little Mario melody as you get them, it’s quite nostalgic and cool at the same time.

FUN: 10/10

I’m really happy with how well Nintendo did with this game. It’s got all the Mario fun of old games, small 2-D puns (like cardboard cutouts of enemies and 1-up mushrooms). It’s just plain fun. The powerups are cool though it’d be awesome (though maybe a bit OP [overpowering]) if you could throw more than 1 boomerang with the boomerang power. Still, the Toonoki Suit and the upgraded Toonoki Suit are really fun and useful. One of my “I’m having difficulty with this level” things to do was to go to S1L1, beat it in 50s but get the Toonoki Powerup. Grab two of those, save it before a difficult level….and if I couldn’t beat the level in a few tries, I’d quit and start from the save with the 2 suits. It ended up working really well. I know you get “special” power-ups if you can’t beat a level after 6 or 8 times but I found that as kind of a hack. There’s no fun in running around with Star power (invincibility) cuz you’re too n00b to beat something with normal powers.

FINAL THOUGHTS

I’d say this is almost a perfect game in terms of Mario games…but overall, compared to other games, it really falls short on story. Like, it’s no Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Maybe visually. Maybe in fun….but without story, you’re simply left with a pick up game with no emotional attachment to. Just like for the New Super Mario Bros. [DS] that I beat last week, I doubt that in a months time, I’d remember any of the levels, or any of the secrets in these games. I’d have to rediscover them if I replayed them. It’s kinda sad, almost feels like a waste of time playing these types of games. Even more wasted than playing other games that at least give you a story/something to think about. The only thing this game helps you with is improve your general gaming ability. But there’s no “remember when this happened?”. Like remember when you rode Epona and beat that Luigi looking character in Zelda: Ocarina of Time? Or when you stealthily went through the Gerudo Fortress? I do. But if you say “Remember when you beat that airship level” it’d be like “huh? which one…also…no”. Or if you asked “Remember doing the Bowser level” and you’d be like “well, I did it 16x but I don’t remember them… :/”. See?

Oops, sorta went on a bit of a rant there!

Anyways…I definitely recommend this game to longtime Mario fans. Despite beating it in 6 days (and I think 2 of the days, I didn’t even play it), I don’t think it’s a really short game, especially if you’re not a Mario pro. It’s got the fun factor you’d expect form Mario games but the 3D twist is nice compared to the general 2Dness of the games (though I haven’t played Mario Galaxy >_<). Anyways....