On the launch day of the latest Square Enix Diablo clone, Heroes of Ruin, I went to my local video
game store only to find out that it indeed was not there.
I went again a couple of days later and it was still not there. So I decided to give someone else my
money because Square was being a gigantic douche for not releasing the game in Iceland.
The game I decided to buy was Super Mario 3D Land. It's weird that I bought it so late since I was
one of first people to see the trailer live at E3 2011, and it was one of the main reasons I bought
a 3DS, along with a few others (Namely: Ocarina, KH3D, Luigi's Mansion 2, Bravely Default and a
few others).
I think it's time to talk about the game. It's amazing. It's the perfect 3D Mario game. It's better
than Super Mario 64 (Oh yes, I went there.)
Basically, it's a 2D Mario game in 3D. It sounds crazy but that's exactly what it feels like, it's
a 3D Mario game that plays like a 2D one. It's almost like they took Super Mario Bros 3 (Which is
my favorite Mario game), changed the levels and put it in 3D. (Be honest, how many of you wanna buy it right now just because I said that?)
Alright it may not be exactly 100% like Mario 3. That would be a bad thing and would make people
think that the big N is losing ideas. There are a few differences like the 3D environments of course,
and some of the power ups are missing, like the Hammer Brothers suit, but instead of that one we get the Boomerang suit, which probably works better since it's a 3D environment. The Hammer suit
probably wouldn't have worked as well since it would only shoot straight up, land, and disappear.
The other suits that appeared in the game have not appeared since Mario 3 if I'm not mistaken, like
the classic Fire Flower which originated in the first Super Mario Bros. and the Raccoon tail and
Tanooki also made their first appearance since their debut in Mario 3.
The level designs were very creative. It's amazing that Nintendo still has the creative minds to
make each stage seem new and fresh.
Star Coins are back from the New Super Mario Bros. games and are sometimes well hidden, but sometimes they're just put somewhere in the middle of the stage where you were about to walk anyway. Altough you shouldn't be ashamed of using a guide for some of them, and you're going to need to find most of them if you want to play through the entire game.
The first eight worlds aren't very difficult, but then the special worlds hit you right in the face.
Those worlds were challenging and will drain your lives in minutes if you're not an expert in both
2D and 3D Mario games.
That's pretty much all I can say about the game. You should definitely buy it if you own a 3DS, and
if you don't have one then I think Reggie said it best.
It's the perfect homage to the old NES and SNES Mario classics, even better than the New Super Mario Bros. games.
9.5/10
