While not as good as other games in the series. Super Mario 3D Land brings old-school and modern into one fun game.
Or are you a modern Mario fan? Who played to death Super Mario 64, Sunshine, and Galaxy 1&2?
Well Super Mario 3D Land on the 3DS tries to unite both worlds into one game!
How well does it do?
Well lets find out!
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-Story
If you were expecting a sweeping epic story then you will be disappointed.
Its the same story as normal with Bowser kidnapping Peach and our mustached hero having to save her by traveling through 8 worlds.
The story is very typical but at least its a bit interesting by being told through slightly animated postcard pictures.
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-Graphics, Sound, and 3D
The graphics of course look very bright and colorful and have that usual Mario charm to them. If you have a 3DS XL you will notice some pixels around the edges but it still looks fine.
The sound and the music are a whole bunch of classic Mario sounds and tunes, What to hate?
Although the sounds we hear come from Mario, Peach, and Bowser are all old sounds that we have heard a billion times in other games, Peach's "MARRRRRIIO!!!" is especially irritating.
And of course we have to talk about the 3D effects.
The 3D effects are actually really good and create lot of immersion in the game especially when your looking down at platforms to jump to and looking through binocular stations.
Although of course when you are using 3D your eyes will get soar after awhile and you'll have to turn it off. The game still looks just as good and I actually prefer playing with the 3D off.
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-Gameplay and Level Design
The games plays like a typical Mario platformer, you can jump, crouch, do a backspin, wall-jump, and butt stomp. Weirdly though you can't do a triple jump or a long jump...
Since this is a callback to the old 2D games you have a dash button...
and having a dash button on a 3D game kinda sucks and is awkward.
Super Mario 64 DS anybody?
Speaking of callbacks to the old games Mario doesn't have a life bar anymore. Instead he grows big when you get a mushroom and gets small again if you get hit by an enemy. Just like the old games!
Also there plenty of familiar power-ups like a Life-Mushroom, Starman, and a Fire- Flower, also they have a Tanooki Leaf and the Boomaran-Flower power-up which last appeared in Super Mario Bros 3, and man are they a blast to use blast to use.
Unlike other 3D Mario games where each level has about 6 or 3 stars/shines to collect, The only goal in a level is to reach the flag at the end just like the old Mario games ( except of course that its 3D ). When you play a level it feels like your playing a classic Mario game but also that its in 3D.
They have lots of throwbacks to old game like Bullet Bills coming infinitely from the side of the screen, flags at the end of the level, crossing a bridge and destroying it in the Bowser battles, airship levels, and music blocks.
They also added modern things into it like checkpoints in the middle of the levels, and 3 hidden star coins.
Level in this game are varied and look cool, The bridge over the ocean and the snow mountain levels come to mind.
But sadly the levels are extremely short.
You can complete most of them in less then 3 minutes.
You can go back and try to find all the star coins in each level but most of them are extremely easy to find and won't provided much of a challenge.
The whole game itself isn't short by any means though.
You have 8 worlds to play through, 8 additional bonus worlds, not to mention getting 3 star coins in every level!
So you get plenty of bang for your buck!
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Overall Super Mario 3D land is a fun platformer which successively mixes classic Mario with modern Mario and is a must own for 3DS users!
+ Old school and Modern mixed.
+ TANOOKI LEAF!!!
+ Fun gameplay
+ Level design is fun and varied
+ 3D effects work
- Levels are way too short
- a Dash button
- Star coins are too easy to find