So I just got back from the second day of New York Comic Con 2011. Nintendo once again has a booth set up with their demos from E3, so I played a few of them so I could share with you guys here.
Super Mario 3D land. Where do I begin? For starters, perhaps I'll talk about some of my expectations before I played it.
Let me make this clear right now: I'm a very, very big fan of both traits of Mario games: I grew up with the 2D ones, from 1 and onward, and I spent my teenage years with 3D Mario. I've always loved both (though more specifically, I always loved Mario 64). Before playing Super Mario 3D land, I watched a lot of videos, and saw all the interviews and stuff. Now aside from the insulting comments from Miyamoto and the stupid things he put in this game, I was hoping, deep down inside, that at the very least, it would be at least a little faithful to the fun, now traditional 3D type I've enjoyed in the past.
Boy was I wrong.
The first thing I want to make clear is that, though this is obvious by now, this is not 2D Mario. Not even in the slightest, most stretched definition of the term. But there's something else you may not have been expecting that you hadn't noticed either, that became very clear as I played this game: this is not 3D Mario either. This is some seriously twisted bastard child of 3D Mario, with gimmicks packed in by the shovelful, no polish, and most of all, no content.
So, as you've all probably seen, the demo lets you sample 4 different levels. You also have probably heard that the timer from 2D Mario games is here. Why though, I'll never know. I want you to picture this. Do you remember Super Mario Sunshine's bonus no-pack levels? Okay, think of the shortest one you possibly can, in all its generic glory, and then chop 3/4ths of it off. That's a level in Super Mario 3D land. They are by far the shortest levels I've ever played in any mario game ever. They go by in such a meaningless, forgettable blur. Every stage is completely contentless (I played the first 3 out of the 4). I mean, they really are the most generic, boring, worthless stages I've ever seen. Nothing about it is threatening (the first stage has moving platforms you have to jump on, but for some reason there's a platform underneath them so you can't die if you fall off anyway???), nothing about it is remotely interesting or fun, and the stages are so laughably short I really thought someone was playing a prank on me. Seriously,
I can't stress this enough: the. levels. are. so. short. it's. a. joke.
The Tanooki tail. What a worthless addition. The attack is basically what you'd expect, but pretty worthless considering:
1. this is a 3D game
2. there's no point in attacking when nothing in the levels is a threat.
For some weird reason, instead of pressing the button repeatedly to glide, you hold it instead. Every single person at the table was constantly asking the Nintendo rep how to turn into the statue, only to be met with disappointment when he told them you can't. No matter what it might look like, this just isn't the actual tanooki powerup from SMB3. This is something else entirely, and boy does it suck.
Something else that might be the only thing I would consider what I hated more than the length of the levels: the controls. Oh my god I hate these controls so much, and they're a big part of the reason I don't consider this a 3D Mario game. I can't tell how much of it is the game and how much of it is the fact that the slide pad is terrible for 3D mario, but either way it's garbage.
He's just so frustrating to control, it doesn't feel fluid at all. The analog stick was so great at giving you precise control and allowing you to move with very specific amounts of precision, but the slide pad just can't do it at all. You're either going full blast or you aren't. And it makes the levels so, so frustrating to play. The third level is one that takes place in the sky, and I got frustrated with it so fast I ended up walking away from the booth. And no, I'm not a novice, I'm anything but: I've 100% all the 3D Mario games (except galaxy 2 which I've never played), and I never thought anything about them was particularly challenging. I'm amazing at pretty much any Mario game I play, 2D or 3D, so the issue here definitely wasn't challenge.
The controls were just so godawful to the point of being frustrating. It was really hard to accept at first, because I've never played a mario game with controls this bad. I kept trying and trying and trying, but just kept finding myself dying, not from challenge, but from a lack of precision in the controls. It was really unbelievable, and I'm honestly considering trying it again just to see if I might have been wrong.
The only other thing I can think to touch on is the 3D effect. What people had said was that they noticed a lot of attention had went into putting lots of polish into the 3D (it sure as HELL isn't anywhere else). One thing I can give them credit for (literally the only thing), is that they definitely are using the 3D for the actual gameplay. That's where the positives end. Let me guarantee you something: the 3D in this game does not help you judge distances when jumping. Not at all. If anything, the 3D effect just made the game that much harder for me, because the 3DS is just so finicky about the 3D effect only working when you view it at a certain angle, so while you're standing there trying to make jumps accurately you're also constantly readjusting the angle of the screen so the whole thing isn't a huge blur as you play, so that's just ONE MORE thing frustrating you while you're making relatively easy jumps with crap controls (and still dying). Nothing about the 3D is really impressive or adds to the experience at all, all it does is piss you off. It's a gimmick at best, and a annoyance at worst.
I've said a lot of things and I could probably say a whole lot more, but I'll sum it up: Super Mario 3D land is the worst Mario game I've ever played in my life, and might just be the worst game Miyamoto has ever made. It's a completely contentless, frustrating, insulting piece of garbage with levels the size of my thumb. You'll hate it if you're a 2D Mario fan, you'll hate it if you're a 3D Mario fan, and you'll hate it if you're a fan of good games in general. Nintendo apologists are going to have to dig really, really deep to justify this pile of dogcrap. It's nothing more than an unpolished insult to gaming, and has no right to bear Mario's name.
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