Super Mario 3D Land

What's with the transparency layer?

So I skipped the entire Super Mario 3D generation of Mario games... until now.

It's true though. I've even skipped Super Mario 64 on N64 back in a day, those games just didn't feel like true Mario games to me. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed 3D platforming for a while now. I remember totally falling in love with Crash Bandicoot on my PlayStation (my guilty pleasure of 3D platforming is the 5th Element game for PS1).

I've just finished a bunch of platformers on my 3DS XL (currently without my gaming PC to play all my Steam games and don't feel like using my wife's) and after completing New Super Mario Bros 2, New Donkey Kong Country 3D I was left still hungry for some more platforming action.

So I was looking on the Nintendo e-shop for a new game in a $50 range and I was kind of torn between Super Mario 3D Land, Paper Mario Sticker Star and Luigi's Mansion. My wife and I decided to get a Wii Mini for ourselves for Christmas and I was curious if I'd enjoy 3D Mario games like Super Mario Galaxy games.

I found out Super Mario 3D Land is an excellent transition game from 2D Mario to 3D Mario games. The levels feel very 2D even though all environments are 3D. It's actually hard to explain. The general game mechanics just feel familiar. You feel like you can aim when jumping platforms naturally even with the third dimension added. The powers like Flower and Tanooki suit are familiar and their usage intuitive.

The game did seem slightly easy until World 7 and I heard World 8 makes up for the easiness of the earlier worlds. I'm curious to find out if that's true since I'm currently on level 1 of World 8. I won't hold the easiness of this game against it though. It could be just me, I'm finding games slightly easier these days. New Super Mario Bros 2 (thank you for the game hun), seemed to be incredibly easy to finish, even when going for a 100% completion.

Super Mario 3D Land is a perfect game for old school Mario fans like myself to get out of our old comfort shell and try a new generation of Mario games.

Super Mario 3D Land is one of the top shelf games recently reduced to $29.99 on the Nintendo
e-shop, so it's not a budget killer either.

4.5 Bowser Jr's out of 5