Rating of
3.5/5
One D Too Many
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 06/07/14
Despite inventing the 3D Platforming sub-genre with “Super Mario 64” on the ill-fated Nintendo 64 back in 1996, Nintendo has increasingly minimized the 3D-ness of subsequent 3D ‘Mario’ games ever since, culminating in the two ‘Mario Galaxy’ games on the Wii, which felt more like traditional 2D ‘Mario’ games translated into 3D instead of games designed around 3D space from the ground up. It is no secret that I break with the accepted position among the gaming media in that I hated “Super Mario 64” when it was released, and still can’t stand to play it to this day. Likewise, as the 3D-ness was tempered out of the franchise (along with drastic improvements to the general mechanics of gaming in 3D space), I came to appreciate 3D ‘Mario’ more and more. The subject of this review, however, is “Super Mario 3D World” (“3D World”), which breaks from the paradigms that Nintendo built into the 3D Platforming genre from the outset and tries to reinvent the wheel.
However, what “3D World” is missing – as a WiiU game – is the hardware gimmick for stereoscopic 3D that is built into the 3DS. Thus unlike its inspiration, “Super Mario 3D Land,” “3D World” was built on an untested 3D gameplay model solely for the sake of consistency with a preceding handheld spinoff. Is this really a good reason to abandon a much-loved 2D gameplay model and an established 3D gameplay model that finally had all of the kinks hammered out of it?
Presentation
“3D World” does a good job of showing off the WiiU’s technical capabilities. The 3D engine is sharp and clean, with jaggy-free models and beautiful, vibrant textures. There are a few snazzy weather effects thrown in as well, though when characters are standing in the rain, they don’t so much look “wet” as they do “glossy,” which looks somewhat hokey. The strangest thing about “3D World’s” visuals, however, is the fact that the stage designs feel oddly disjoined. Every piece of the game’s environments floats in space, leaving even earthbound stages devoid of any kind of anchor to the ground.
The soundtrack in “3D World” is a pleasant combination of remixes and new tunes (though the remixes make up the lion’s share). Nintendo still hasn’t adopted full voiceacting in their games, and I can only thank them for it, since listening to full-length dialog featuring Charles Martinet’s annoying Mario/Luigi voices would be too much to bear. In fact, not only are there no voiced dialog segments, there is nothing in the way of text either, with “show, don’t tell” and pantomime taking up the slack. If course, the characters do all have their unique noises during gameplay, upon stage completion, or upon game over.
Story
‘Mario’ games have really taken the easy way out for a long, long time with regard to story. While we all know the franchise is capable of hosting well-written, humorous, and thought-provoking narratives due to the success of the variety of ‘Mario’ flavored RPGs (the ‘Paper Mario’ franchise, the ‘Mario & Luigi’ franchise, and Squaresoft’s one-off “Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars”), Nintendo has been content to tread water with the platformers that form the core of the franchise. The drill typically involves Bowser Koopa kidnapping Princess Peach (again). The Mario Bros. (sometime in the company of one or more Toads) must rescue her, fighting off an army of Bowser’s misbegotten children in the process. Usually, there is cake involved.
“3D World” thankfully takes a break from this tired routine. Bowser is still the villain of the story, but instead of kidnapping Peach for unspecified reasons, his current objective is the capture and control of a number of tool-wielding fairies that live in a land accessible via a transparent warp pipe. Mario, Luigi, Peach, and (the original) Toad travel to this foreign land in an attempt to stop Bowser’s plans just because that’s what they always do.
The story elements that really stand out in “3D World” don’t have much to do with the actual narrative. The most exciting part of the story is instead the additions of many new enemies and tactics among Bowser’s horde, mixed in alongside plenty of old standbys. These new concepts really help to refresh a franchise that was becoming almost as predictable and rote as the popular mainstream “AAA” games that produce a sequel every year.
While “3D World” is worthy of praise for the new story elements it introduces, it is not particularly worthy of praise for the way in utilizes those elements. The plot really doesn’t make much sense, and it is never clear what exactly Bowser plans to do with the Tool Fairies. Likewise, the large stream of bonus stages that become available upon defeating Bowser don’t feel connected to rest of the game at all.
Gameplay
Taking a cue from “Super Mario Bros. 2 USA,” “3D World” empowers each of the playable characters with different capabilities. Mario is an all-arounder who isn’t particularly good or bad at anything, Luigi is good at jumping but is a little slow, Peach can float gracefully through the air but runs only slightly faster than molasses uphill in January, and Toad can zip across stages at lightning speed but has a severely gimped jump. These character capabilities allow players to choose a character that suits their style, but can come into conflict in multi-player games where faster characters zoom ahead, leaving slower characters to get auto-bubbled by the system when they are too far off-screen. The bubbling mechanic has also been adjusted in a cruel way compared to the recent 2D ‘Mario’ games, not preventing players from manually bubbling themselves if they aren’t standing on solid ground. Characters in a multi-player game now share lives from a single pool of 1-ups instead of each having their own, which makes the stricter bubbling rules even more annoying.
What ultimately differentiates “3D World” from every other (non-handheld) ‘Mario’ game before it, however, is the way it attempts to fuse mechanics from the ‘New Super Mario Bros.’ series with a 3D camera that behaves more like the isometric camera from Sega’s “Sonic 3D Blast” than any ‘true’ 3D platformer. Thus the player(s) is tasked with navigating a series of (floating) obstacles from the start of any given stage to a flagpole at the end of said stage. Between the start and end points there are hidden 3 green stars and a stamp for the player(s) to collect. Stars are required for destroying occasional roadblocks on the stage selection map, while stamps allow players to create “Mario Paint” style scenes and post them to MiiVerse.
These stage completion mechanics are great. However, the fact that the player(s) have no control over the camera is not. Moreover, the quasi-isometric viewpoint used in most stages is not optimal for 3D platforming and can lead to a lot of frustration due to misaligned jumps, misjudged distances, and unrecoverable falls.
Multi-player is a mixed blessing. While many of the green stars and stamps are much easier to retrieve with a group (since one player can sacrifice themselves while the others remain safe), the fact that the same button used to make characters run and pick up objects ALSO allows them to pick up each other is endlessly annoying. The only reason to pick up another player is so two people can receive a ‘free mushroom’ power-up from the mid-level checkpoint flag. Otherwise, the entire mechanic just leads to a lot of unnecessary deaths as players standing on a small, floating platform try to setup a running jump, only to accidentally chuck each other into the game’s ubiquitous bottomless pits.
Along with the new enemy types and tactical elements I mentioned earlier, “3D World” has a nice mix of old and new gameplay mechanics as well. There are returning powerups, like the Fire Flower and Tanuki Leaf, as well as new ones like a Boomerang Flower, Double Cherries, and box-art-worthy Cat Suit. The team can store up to three extra power-ups in reserve and use them as needed, which can be quite helpful in a pinch, as many of “3D World’s” stages are quite difficult.
I remember seeing other game reviewers whining about the difficulty of “New Super Mario Bros. Wii” and wondering what they were talking about, as I found the game to be ‘just right.’ “3D World,” on the other hand, is genuinely difficult, with certain stages standing out as particularly horrible (leading to many ‘NEVER AGAIN’ moments upon finally clearing them). Of course, the difficulty finally culminates in the last two bonus stages, which are both fiendishly designed for difficulty AND completely devoid of checkpoints, forcing players to start from the beginning after each failure and, in the process, becoming Truly Nintendo-Hard. The return of Nintendo-Hard is NOT a good thing.
Overall
“Super Mario 3D World” deserves a lot of praise for the amount of innovative and new material Nintendo managed to squeeze out of an old franchise that has been feeling a bit rut-worn lately. However, between the obnoxious new take on an unadjustable 3D camera and the Nintendo-Hard difficulty spikes, I found myself not enjoying “3D World” as much as I had hoped. Hopefully Nintendo will take some of the proven novelty of this game and apply the same design mentality to the next 2D ‘New Super Mario Bros.’ title.
Presentation: 4.5/5
Story: 3.5/5
Gameplay: 3/5
Overall (not an average): 3.5/5
