I've mentioned this multiple times in my let's play of this game, but Super Mario 3D World is my new favorite Mario game. Heck, the entire point of the let's play was to show why I loved the game. But in case you don't have the time to watch a 15-hour LP, here's a much shorter rundown.


The Power-Ups

Now, when Mario 3D World was first announced, I wasn't all that interested. The formulaic New Super Mario Bros. games were still being churned out, and this game happens to be the sequel to Super Mario 3D Land on the Nintendo 3DS, which has to be one of the most sterile Mario platformers ever. But then they showed off the featured power-up in the game: the Cat Suit.



Okay, while the idea of a Cat Suit sound silly, they certainly made it look fun in the trailers. You could run around on all-fours, you could pounce on enemies, and you could climb up walls. And having played the game, yes, romping around in the Cat Suit is as fun as it looks. (Spoilers ahead - Highlight to read.) It gets even better late in the game, when you aquire a Cat Suit that can turn into a gold statue, which instantly kills anything that runs into it.

Of course, the Cat Suit isn't the only power-up in the game. There are more. Lots more.

For starters, there's the Fire Flower, which is the standard Mario power-up. Despite how long it's been around, I actually found myself using it often, thanks to your ability to throw two fireballs at a time, and the fact they can bounce off walls. There are also a few levels where you can use the Fire Flower to light up the area.

Then there's the Tanuki Suit (I refuse to spell it "Tanooki"), returning from Super Mario Bros. 3 on the NES and Mario 3D Land. In the latter, it was an obvious throwback power-up included just for the sake of attracting old-school gamers. And while I initially felt the same way about it in this game, I found myself really enjoying it, as the ability to float across long gaps was very useful, and whacking enemies with your tail was pretty satisfying. It's kind of a shame that it doesn't have the statue feature as it does in Mario 3, but I didn't miss it too much. (But if it did have that ability, it's not like it needed to instantly kill anything that touched it, like the Gold Cat Suit does. Maybe it could've just made enemies ignore you.)

Probably the coolest power-up, though, was the Boomerang Suit. You could only throw one boomerang at a time, but unlike fireballs, the boomerang could plow through multiple enemies at a time. And it had a rockin' look to it.



So those are the main four power-ups, and they can all be carried from level to level. But there's a bunch of power-ups and items that are level-exclusive. For example, there's the Mega Shroom, which makes you giant and invulnerable for a short time (at the cost of whatever power-up you were wearing at the time). There's the Double Cherry, which creates another you that you control alongside yourself. And we have the return of the POW Blocks, which cause destruction to anything nearby it.

But wait, there's more! There's also the Goomba's Ice Skate, Baseballs and Snowballs and Bombs (oh my), the Super Star, Propeller Hats, Light Hats, Cannon Hats, the Coin Hat, the White Tanuki Suit, Potted Piranha Plants, Koopa Shells to ride in, and the Goomba Disguise. I really can't describe them all, so I'll just show you the trailer that Nintendo made.



Before I played Mario 3D World, my favorite Mario game was Mario 3, and the reason why it remained my favorite for so long is because of its large collection of power-ups. But this game trumps Mario 3's collection easily.

It's also worth noting that just like Super Mario World on the SNES, you have an inventory slot for a spare item, useable at a moment's notice.


The Characters

The other thing that attracted my attention was the cast of playable characters, each with their own abilities, just like way back in Super Mario Bros. 2 on the NES (as well as the Super Mario Advance remake).

Mario, as usual, is the most well-rounded character. Runs at an average speed and jumps at an average height. To me, though, he felt a little too average, and I enjoyed the other characters better.

Luigi has the highest jump, at the cost of him sliding around a little too easy.



Toad is the fastest character, but has the smallest jump. Not that that's a big issue for me. In fact, his quickness made him my favorite character in the game.

Princess Peach makes her first playable appearance since Super Princess Peach on the Nintendo DS, and thankfully without her mood swings. Instead, she has her floating ability from Mario 2, which is great for first-time players. Also, it's nice to see her replacing the second Toad from the New SMB games. (Seriously, it's like they couldn't figure out who to include as the fourth character.)

And, after beating the main game, you can unlock Rosalina from the Super Mario Galaxy games. What makes her special is that she has her own personal spin attack, much like Mario used in those games. The spin attack can also be used as a double-jump. Unfortunately, the double-jump still uses the attack button. And not only is it awkward jumping with the attack button, but her attack is disabled if she has a power-up, which means so is her double-jump. A neat inclusion, but for me, not very fun to use.

I really like how varied these characters are, though. It adds an extra level of strategy deciding who you want to use. Or just gives you a better reason to choose a person other than "I like Peach because she's a princess".


Level Design

Now, having some cool power-ups and characters is all well and good, but like I said before, the reason why I didn't pay much attention to this game at first was because I was worried it would be as sterile as other recent Mario games. In fact, the New Super Mario Bros. games are so formulaic, you have to wonder if they used a generic Mario Game editor. Heck, there actually exists an NSMB editor on the web!

Thankfully, the designers for Mario 3D World really put a lot of thought into their levels. I mean, yeah, there's your standard Mario levels of fields, water, fire, ice, and ghosts. But there's also levels with a focus on POW Blocks, there's levels that take place on a train (with epic music present), there's levels all about ice skating, there's levels that use the touch screen and microphone (which thankfully weren't as gimmicky as you'd think), there's levels with shadow play, there's circus levels, there's levels where you have to avoid searchlights, and there's even a level based on Super Mario Kart. One of my favorite levels is Beat Box Skyway, which has blocks that disappear and reappear in time with a catchy beat. And, between you and me, there are a couple levels that have secret exits that warp you to the next world!

One of my favorite new level mechanics is the clear pipe. Those of you familiar with Super Mario Bros. 3 should remember World 7's pipe mazes. These are now a prominent feature, except the pipes are clear so you can see what's going on inside them. They aren't really mazes so much as they are instant travel to another area of the level, but they can get pretty fun and elaborate!



There's also the Mystery Houses, where you need to complete a set of ten-second challenges all in a row in order to aquire a collection of green stars. If you mess up, you have to start over, but they're so quick and fun that I always look forward to doing these.

And lastly, there's the Captain Toad levels. In these, you play as Captain Toad, who cannot jump or use any power-ups. Your goal is to traverse around a 3D cube (that reminds me an awful lot of the "Grow" flash games), avoiding enemies, riding platforms, and dropping off the right ledges in order to collect five stars. There aren't a lot of these levels, but they're really interesting, and I feel like the Captain Toad levels could make for an interesting standalone game. Not a large game, mind you, but a downloadable title.


Little Extras

In case you're wondering, green stars are one of the items you need to collect to get 100%. There's three of them in most levels, often requiring you to solve puzzles or complete challenges. Some levels in the game (including Bowser's final stronghold) actually require that you have a certain amount of these.

Other collectibles include stamps that can be used for post-its on Miiverse, and there's a special goal to grab the top of the flagpole at the end of every level. The flagpoles themselves are interesting, because a bunch of them require some quick thinking in order to successfully reach the top. Unless you have the Cat Suit. You can just climb to the top with that.

Collecting all the green stars, stamps, and gold flags gives you access to three extra levels, one of which happens to be one of the most difficult Mario levels, ever.

In regards to Miiverse, there are a couple of neat features with that, provided your game is connected to the Nintendo Network. For starters, the post-its I mentioned can be created anywhere in the game. They're usually just little comments or doodles, and they most frequently appear upon beating a level, but some Miis also carry messages on the world map.



The most interesting feature in the game is that, if your game is connected to the Nintendo Network, it records a "ghost" of your playthroughs through various levels, which play alongside other people who are also connected. They don't interact with anything, but it's nice to have the extra company if you're playing alone. The game doesn't have online multiplayer, you see. But it does have local multiplayer.


Multiplayer

I'm not going to go much into this, as I haven't spent a lot of time with it. The game supports up to four players simultaneously. Each person chooses a different character, and everyone shares the same life counter. When someone dies, they just come back in a bubble, just like the NSMB games. Unless everyone is either dead or bubbled, in which case you're all sent back to either the start of the level, or the last checkpoint. And upon beating the level, everyone is ranked based on their score at the end, adding a sense of competitiveness to the co-op.

Also, when you're playing on multiplayer, you're given extra inventory slots for extra items.


Graphics and Music

Most of the game is spent with the camera high up in the air, so you don't really pay much attention to the graphics. But it is pretty nice to look at, at times. Especially in the savanna level of World 5-4. That one is probably my most favorite level, because you get to run around this vast, open field in a Cat Suit, chasing down bunnies. And the atmosphere of that level really helps. The only drawback to the level is that some of the scenery pops in and out due to a limit with the draw distance (though that only applies to stuff like bushes and trees).



The music is a mixed bag, but most of it is pretty good. There's the return of everyone's favorite song from Super Mario Galaxy (Gusty Garden Galaxy), the song that plays during the final battle is pretty epic (more on that, later), and the main theme is rather catchy. There's also a couple of returning songs from Super Mario 3D Land, most notably being the boss victory theme, which has been given a noticeable oomph for this game. My favorite song in the game is probably Switch Scramble Circus, on account it's tied to your progress through the level. The furthur into the level you go, the more the song builds up, until the grand finale at the flagpole.


Bosses

The playable demo for Mario 3D World featured one of the bosses, and if the bosses are important enough for a demo, then they're important enough for me.

Now, let me get this out of the way: Boom-Boom is nothing but a throwback boss. And despite his origins as a mid-boss, he's been given end-of-world boss status in this game. And yet he still feels like a mid-boss. Along with that, he has a sister-girlfriend-cousin who also feels misplaced as an end-of-world boss. And it's not like this game doesn't have mid-bosses.

The rest of the bosses, though, are quite fitting for their placement at the end of each world. They're big, and they're bad. (Er, the good kind of bad.) My personal favorite is Hisstocrat, thanks in part to the pretty cool music that plays during the fight. This was the boss that was featured in the playable demo.

Another big boss is Motley Bossblob. You meet this guy a few times throughout the game, with his last appearance actualy being pretty difficult (read: arena-filling shockwaves).

But the coolest boss fight in the game is definately the final battle with Bowser. Or should I say, Meowser?

Click for spoilerific image.

Admittedly, this isn't really a "battle" in the traditional sense. It's actually just a scripted chase sequence. But it's a chase sequence done well. Not only does Bowser use his own Cat Suit, but he has the Double Cherry, as well -- the chase ends with five Bowsers trying to hunt you down! And it helps that the music is pretty cool, too.

Despite the game not having a real epilogue, the fight was so exciting for me, that I really didn't mind much.


World Maps

Okay, it might seem weird to wait until after talking about the bosses to bring up the world maps, but it's the world maps that helped clinch this game as my favorite Mario game.

Taking a quick look at the world maps in Super Mario 3D Land... well, they weren't really world maps. They were level selection screens pretending to be world maps. So it was nice to see actual, explorable world maps in this game. And when I say "explorable", I do mean "explorable".

You see, while the world maps in Mario 3D World have paths to follow, you aren't actually restricted to those paths. Essentially, what we have here is the first Mario game with free-roaming world maps. (No, hub levels like Peach's Castle and Delphino Plaza don't count.)

And the game gives you reason to explore a little. There are hidden coins here and there to collect, sometimes a slot machine appears on the map for some extra lives, and there are some pipes to hop down to reach extra locations. And it's those extra locations that really impressed me, as some of these pipes are actually hidden.



One particular hidden pipe brought me to a golden train level that is chock-full of coins ripe for the picking. And it was while going through that level that I knew that this was one special game.

That said, there was a lot of missed potential with the world maps in this game. Which brings me to...


Suggested Improvements for Super Mario 3D World 2

Let's face it - this game was so popular, a sequel is inevitable. But how do you follow up on a game as good as this? It's very possible that a sequel to Mario 3D World will wind up victim to the same fate that befell Super Mario Galaxy 2 - that is, feeling more like an expansion pack for the original game, rather than standing out on its own. And so, for the sake of pretending that Nintendo is actually paying attention to this review, I have come up with a list of suggestions to ensure that 3D World 2 will feel just as awesome as the original.

Suggestion #1 - Even Better World Maps

I've got a few different suggestions for this. One of the smaller things being about the coins you can find on the world maps of Mario 3D World. While it's kinda interesting, I eventually started ignoring them because they're only worth one coin, each. I can understand this was probably because they respawn every time you return to the map, but considering how many coins are thrown at you in the levels, maybe the coins on the world map could be worth a bit more. I'd accept 5 per coin.

Maybe also there could be a little bit of platforming on the world maps. I'm not asking to turn the world maps into actual levels, mind you. But we already have the ability to jump on the world map. Give us a few small platforms to hop around on.

More importantly, it would be cool if there were items useable on the world map. Looking back at Super Mario Bros. 3, that game had several of these. There was the Lakitu's Cloud (bypass levels), there was the Music Box (put wandering enemies to sleep), and most interestingly, there was the Hammer (break boulders to explore new areas). Imagine if we had exploration items in Mario 3D World 2, as well.

In fact, another exploration item in Mario 3 was a boat. It would be cool if one map in Mario 3D World 2 involved boating around a lake to various islands. You know, just to mix things up.

Suggestion #2 - Yoshi

Okay, you had to know this suggestion would be in here. Everyone loves Yoshi. But while Yoshi's return in various Mario platformers has been generally fun, there is one flaw that I have disliked about him ever since Super Mario Sunshine - you can't keep him. And no, I'm not talking about how getting hit makes you lose him. That part's fine. What I mean is that you flat-out leave him behind every time you finish a level. Why? What harm would it do to be able to bring Yoshi to the next level? You could do that in Super Mario World on the SNES, and it didn't break the game back then. In actuality, it made Yoshi an even cooler power-up.

So regardless of what abilities Yoshi comes with, it would be really cool if you could bring Yoshi with you to other levels. And no, don't make him a playable character. Yoshi's inclusion in Mario 64 DS as a playable character made him less special. He needs to be a power-up. And, speaking of power-ups...

Suggestion #3 - Another New Power-Up

Really obvious, this one. Every new Mario game has to have a new power-up. And it has to be the star of the show, just as the Cat Suit was in this game. But here's the trick: it has to be something special. The Sugar Glider Suit in New Super Mario Bros. U was kinda interesting, but all it amounted to was a Tanuki Suit that could cling to walls.

Just to give an idea of the sort of specialness a power-up could have, I'm going to hearken back to Kirby Super Star. One of Kirby's abilities in that game was a bird power. It enhanced Kirby's flight ability by allowing him to quickly flap across the level, and with a variety of attacks to use. Heck, even the flap of his wings could damage enemies if you were good enough. The quickness and versatility of the power made it my favorite in the game. It would be cool if something similar were featured in Mario 3D World 2. A "bird suit", if you will.

Oh, it doesn't have to provide infinite flight, of course. There could be something like a meter that showed how many flaps you could make before you have to land. But it's the quick flapping that would be the draw for me. Acting like a double-jump, with the flaps being made in quick succession. The speedy flight across gaps would make such a power-up pretty fun to use, and the ability to time your flaps would be especially useful if you needed to fly under an obstacle.

But that's just my idea.

Suggestion #3 - Don't Make Bowser Giant

This isn't a suggestion so much as it is a plea. In the past five years, Bowser has been the final boss in nine games, and among those nine games, Bowser has been giant a whopping SEVEN TIMES. You want to know what the two games were in which he wasn't giant? Super Mario 3D Land and Super Mario 3D World. In other words, the people who made this game are the only ones who are being original right now. Keep up the good work.



Suggestion #4 - Make Getting 100% Easier

I talked a little about getting 100%, earlier, but I didn't go into complete detail. I wanted to save that for this suggestion. You see, in order to get 100%, you first need to get all the green stars, stamps, and gold flags in the game. And if that was all it took, I'd be fine with it. Collecting all this stuff is pretty enjoyable.

Where things fall apart is that in order to get 100%, you also need to beat every level in the game with every character. If you're playing alone, that basically means you have to play through the game FIVE TIMES in order to get 100%. Even if you have a group of four players, you still have to play through at least twice, thanks to the inclusion of Rosalina. Which, by the way, just gives me another reason to dislike her.

To make things even better [/sarcasm], the game has a special version of the Tanuki Suit called the White Tanuki Suit. This thing is given to you if you die too much in the level. It functions just like the regular Tanuki Suit, but you can't get hurt by anything, and it lasts until you either fall victim to instant death or beat the level. The reason I bring this item up is because you can't get 100% if you beat any levels with it. At least not until you go back and beat the level without it.

And what do you get if you manage 100%? Five sparkly stars on your game file. That's it. Totally not worth it.

Again, collecting all the stars, stamps, and gold flags is fine, especially considering those extra levels you unlock with them. But forcing you to play through the game with every character is a terrible idea. You shouldn't have to force the player to replay your game, they have to want to! The only good thing is that the game eventually tells you which characters have beaten which levels. Eventually.

Suggestion #5 - Tell us what's going on? Please?

Bowser kidnapped a bunch of fairies and used them to create Bowser Land. Why? No idea. The game doesn't tell us. Now, I'm not saying we need to have any elaborate cutscenes or anything like that, but you could at least tell us what's going on in the instruction manual?

Suggestion #6 - Online Multiplayer

This is the biggest and most important suggestion that I can make. It's 2014. It's the age of the internet. Nobody over the age of 20 has any local friends, anymore! They all live across the country!

*ahem*

Wii would like to play with them.

What's especially baffling is that, as a reminder, the game does have online capabilities, including those "ghost miis" that can play alongside you. And yet, you can't play alongside someone live.


Final Thoughts

Despite the ridiculous requirements for getting 100% (which I'm never doing again) and the lack of online play, this game still stands as my new favorite Mario game, and I'm definately going to play it again sometime. But after having already played through it six times since its release (once with my little cousins, and five times for my let's play), it's probably going to be a little while before I do that. Still, if you have a Wii U, I consider this game a must-have. No, it's not Super Mario Universe. But to me, it is definately the Mario game that the system needed.