Reviewer’s
Copyright for games
Tiramisu
Nintendo
The_Ninja
SEGA Team
Anvildropper
Maxis
Graphic Designer Tiramisu Cover Tiramisu Designer Tiramisu
Fireaxis Games Valve Corp. Undead Labs Morjang Game Freak Image & Form
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Dear Users,
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CONCEPT
reduce the maximum time to reach full speed by a third to make dashing less tedious.
Save the Sprixie princesses from Bowser in this 3D platformer.
Controls Score: 8.5/10
Difficulty
Graphics Mario has been in HD before (New Super Mario Bros. U) but never has he looked this good. Environments are fairly detailed (not extremely detailed, but fairly detailed) and characters look amazing. The game only runs in 720p, but has a 60 frame-per-second rate. Graphics: 8.5/10
Super Mario 3D World starts out very easy--even when collecting the game's collectibles, Green Stars and Stamps. As you progress to about…World 6 or so, the difficulty will ramp up. A few worlds later, it'll ramp up even more. As you reach the final world, it'll become insanely hard, having a final level that will be difficult even to pro players in the Mario series. Interestingly enough, I actually didn't mind the way the difficulty was handled, because honestly, the game is so fun you probably won't even notice. However, thankfully you aren't handed out as many lives on a silver platter as 3D Land did. Sure, the game is easy, but it's better than having so many lives it's impossible to lose. You can still do the infinite lives trick, though, heh heh. Difficulty Score: 8.8/10
Sound Almost every theme in Super Mario 3D World is catchy, fun, and often memorable. 3D World has jazzy music like 3D Land, but they've branched out a little since then instead of restricting it to that one type of music. Interestingly enough, a good amount of the game's music comes from Super Mario Galaxy. I loved Mario Galaxy and all, but it feels cheap to just take Mario Galaxy's soundtrack, and it put it in at least a fifth of the whole game. I'm not kidding, either. Sound Score: 8/10
Controls Controls fine most of the time, save for the Fire Flower power-up. I do, however, have one complaint: the way dashing works, you have to continuously run for a certain amount of time to reach full speed. Do you know what that means? Running in circles for 5 seconds every time you want to make a big jump. Perhaps
Lasting Appeal/Length and Replayability Super Mario 3D World may seem shorter than 3D Land. After all, it has 4 less worlds than that game had, right? Wrong. Super Mario 3D World appears to be shorter than 3D Land, and maybe in some ways it is. But if you look a little closer, it is much, MUCH longer than 3D Land that I'll have to make a list to fully express what's new to extend the length here: 1. Longer worlds 3D Land's worlds had many 5 or 6 levels each. Almost every one in 3D World, however, has a minimum of 7,
and then you have to count the roadblocks, Captain Toad levels, Mystery Houses, you get the picture…overall, each world feels longer now. In 3D Land, you could breeze through them in 30 minutes or so without collectibles at the most, but now each one will take at least an hour or two. 2. More collectibles 3D Land had you collect 3 Star Medals in each level and get to the top of the flagpole with both Mario and Luigi for 100% area completion. Now? Now you must collect 3 Green Stars (Similar to Star Medals), a special stamp (I'll talk more about these stamps later), a Golden Flagpole, level completion with Mario, Luigi, Toad, Peach, AND the hidden character to completely finish a level. Simply put, you're always given the choice to go back into a level and find something new, because of how long and secret-packed this game is.
3. New hub world designs 3D Land had regular 2D hub worlds, making you go left to right. In 3D World, you'll be going through 3D hub worlds, broken of the "you have to always go on a certain path" chain. Now you will find hidden levels, forks in the roads, new level types by exploring, hidden coins and 1-ups, and so on. Just when you think you've found everything in a hub world, chances are you'll find something new--and I love it. Those are just a few small glimpses of the new lengths that this game has, and the game itself is still very memorable. Plus, after completing the hidden final level, you'll be given a challenge that'll keep you playing this game for weeks. Lasting Appeal/Length and Replayability Score: 9/10
Gameplay At first, 3D World seems like a 3D Land rehash with multiplayer and new levels. But it is FAR from that--and I mean VERY far. Although the game follows its predecessor's level style, it completely expands upon it. The levels are packed with several new concepts (such as the new clear pipes), power-ups (such as a cannon head or a cherry that clones you), sometimes even using genius use of the GamePad like in Hands-On Hall where you get to tap doors using the GamePad to open them, bang gongs, and more. Each level feels cleverly designed and new that it beats 3D Land in every way it can possibly think of. One of the biggest changes to the formula is multiplayer. Sure, there's been multiplayer in 2D Mario games before, and yes, you get a slight co-op role in Mario Galaxy 1 and 2, but here you can fully play the game with 3 other people in a chaotic and fun multiplayer mode with the characters Mario, Luigi, Toad, Peach (and a hidden one) with their own abilities. In the 2D Mario games, multiplayer would often feel frustrating due to being restricted to the second dimension. With 3D World, you get more exploration tools (as you are now in a 3D World) and a more satisfying twist to multiplayer. In this mode, the game is mostly the same, but you can use help from your allies to find secrets, defeat enemies, or you can compete against each other for the most points. It feels like the developers wanted to max out the potential in this mode, instead of just launching Star Bits or stunning enemies in the Galaxy series' co-op mode.
Ah, yes, I forgot to mention the new playable characters! Giving a nod towards Super Mario Bros. 2, you can play with 5 different characters instead of just Mario and Luigi now. Each character feels truly unique now where they didn't in other Mario games; Mario is an all-around character, Luigi has a higher jump, Toad can run fastest (but has the worst jumping abilities), Peach is the slowest of the bunch but can float, and there's even a hidden character which I won't spoil which can do some pretty cool things. I said this before, but each character feels extremely different and I love how unique each one feels. While there are 3D hub worlds, (which I talked about before), a new type of level called "Captain Toad" is here. These puzzle-based levels place you in the position of the toad captain from Super Mario Galaxy. What makes these levels so special is that you are trying to collect Green Stars without jumping, meaning you'll have to make clever use of the Wii U GamePad's abilities by raising platforms, stunning enemies, etc. These levels don't come too often, but they're definitely a nice treat that'll really make you think ahead later on. With some more additions such as enemy blockades and Mystery Houses, you can now collect Stamps. Stamps are hidden in every normal level, and give you a special picture when you finish an area with one. These pictures can be posted to Miiverse, and you can edit them along the way with your own drawings to make some pretty cool scenarios, such as Luigi about to jump on an enemy or Mario about to collect a power-up to give a few examples. Speaking of power-ups, there are a ton of them in this game. Take the new Cat Suit, for example; this allows you to pull off parkour, do some minor combat, or even dive towards something. I love the way this power-up looks and feels, along with the way it performs. Another new power-up is the Double Cherry. While nothing we haven't seen in other video games, this lets
you control at least five of the same character (through clones) at once, allowing you to solve certain puzzles. The way these clones move is interesting, but it's easy to get used to. Along with some other new power-ups, we're seeing the return of older power-ups such as the Tanooki Suit or Mega Mushroom. These don't appear very often, but they're there enough not to feel overshadowed by the other new power-ups, a problem that was in Super Mario 3D Land. I could go on and on about this game, but that would take awhile. Needless to say, this game has amazing levels, amazing power-ups, amazing characters, amazing multiplayer, and that's just a start. 3D World bursts with creativity, and I love it. There IS one flaw, though, and that's the bosses. Mario was never really known for bosses, but here there's still as easy as they were in previous Mario games, some even being reused. But there is a small flaw that doesn't stop a great game. Gameplay Score: 9.9/10
FINISHING WORDS Super Mario 3D World proves that just because a game is Mario, doesn't mean that it's not fresh. 3D World IS the idea of fresh. Bringing in tons of new concepts, a polished multiplayer experience, memorable levels, it's hard not to like this game. Super Mario 3D World is worth buying the Wii U for, as it is possibly one of the greatest Mario games--no, one of the greatest games IN GENERAL, and I highly recommend you play it. The graphics could have been better, and the bosses were a little disappointment, but that does nothing to that game. Rarely can you find games with this much creativity or great ideas.
FINAL SCORE: 9.9/10