First Impressions: Super Mario 3D World

So on Friday, Super Mario 3D World dropped on an unsuspecting populace.  They were unsuspecting, because people were losing their minds beating off to the Xbox One launch (so furiously in fact that many pant fires were started outside of the lines at Gamespot midnight launches all over the country).  Don't get me wrong, I got a Xbone on launch day with Dead Rising 3 and Killer Instinct.  This is the first console launch I've participated in since the Dreamcast.  Yeah, last gen, I was broke... hell I was broke a year ago, so I couldn't take part in the Wii U launch for over a month.  Now, I'm employed, and saved up all year basically for the Xbone, which also allowed me to get Mario 3D World as well

Anyway, back to the beating off.  So if you hadn't noticed, the gaming media had been either negative about the Wii U for the last year or ignored it almost completely.  Once again, don't get me wrong, there have been a lot of missteps from Nintendo regarding the launch and the first year of the Wii U, but some of the critiques are unfair.  When New Super Mario Bros U was announced I remember either IGN or Joystiq calling it New Mario 8 (it's actually the fourth in the series and only the second on a home console... one game per console) and being really hateful about the Wii U before it was released.  When the bigger gaming sites say shit like that, it isn't surprising that the Wii U sales were lack luster at first.  Also on NSMBU, Call of Duty literally makes a game a year and has what, like 10+ games in the series(don't get me started on sports games), and they would NEVER DARE to say something like that about COD.  When the game came out, it got good reviews, and was labeled the best in the New Mario 2D series.

Fast forward to E3 2013, Super Mario 3D World is shown as one of the biggest Nintendo games displayed at the Expo.  While Microsoft was making rape jokes and imploding before our very eyes, Nintendo was bringing great games out to show the internet... because they didn't have a real E3 presentation... which was a mistake and I hope they don't repeat it in 2014.  Not to say MS didn't show cool stuff, it was overshadowed by a lot of other things... like rape jokes towards a female co-worker... did that dude et fucking fired?  3D World was automatically attacked for being a rehash of 3D Land, both by the commenters and by professional gaming journalists... like people who get paid to do what I'm doing for free.  Sooooo.... flash forward through some more trailers, people gradually dropped that shit talk and when the reviewers played it... they loved it.  It got near perfect and perfect scores.  I am tired of this shit and everyone needs to play these games before bitching about it... especially if you get paid to do it.

Anyway... light hearted video!!

How are you not filled with nostalgia and happiness?  Anyway...

So how's the game?  It's awesome.  The amount of detail and love put into the game is breathtaking at times.  It uses the concept of 3D Land (which I wrote about in a previous post).  They upgraded to beautiful HD graphics and reformatted the levels to be unique from anything in Land.  You can see the scales on Bowser and when it's raining, there are drops on the camera and sheen on the characters.  There are bunch of other neat lighting and details examples, but I could go on forever.

The game is basically the 2D Mario system dropped into a 3D Mario game.  While most 3D Mario games have timed power ups, a pie chart energy gauge and is mostly exploration based, this game has infinite powers (excluding a few), but timed levels. It's a race to the flagpole.

The newest power up is the Cat Suit.  You get it right away, you can climb up walls and attack with the run button.  There are other power ups, fire flower, boomerrang suit (from 3D Land), the double cherry (it clones your character, as well as your attacks), the starman, the tanooki suit (the white tanooki suit for damn cheaters) as well as a few others... well there are 19 power ups, so more than a few.

The multiplayer is where it's at though. I played it on my own on night 1, but on Saturday evening we got 4 player going, and it is the best thing ever.  It's less chaotic than the 2D games, so you can do your own thing to some extent, but some of the harder levels do suffer from having too many people.  I recommend 2 to 3, but don't shy away from 4 if you've got the players and controllers.  By the by, you can use everything from the pad, just a wiimote, with a nunchuk, classic and pro controllers.  You should be able to get your game on in almost any situation.  If you hated the New Mario multiplayer, you may love this game.  I actually played for hours on two seperate multiplayer files... it's nuts how fun the game is.

The other thing I like is the freedom of the game.  I can choose any of the four characters at anytime (there is a fifth character, but she's secret/unlockable).  In the New Mario series, unless you beat the game, you had to be Mario no matter what.  I'm a Luigi guy, I could never be him in the original, because everyone wanted to be the 'white/green Mario'... oh childhood.  Also Princess Peach hasn't been playable in a Mario game since Super Mario 2 (not counting Super Princess Peach).  This is the first game where she got power ups... and they are cute

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Fire Peach

I think for the first Wii U 3D Mario, it is a great entry point for old and new school gamers.  If you haven't played Mario in a while, it works basically like the old games, just dropped into 3D.  It very well may be the system seller Nintendo needs for the Wii U.  There should be demos set up everywhere for this game.  You shouldn't be able to escape this game in advertisement or in store displays... if Nintendo were smart.

There are collectables in the game.  The green stars act like the Power Stars or Star Coins to unlock stages, etc, but you also can collect stamps. The Stamps you can add to your Miiverse posts (after the first stage of the second level).  These are awesome and also add another social aspect to the game.  It's funny to make these little panels with funny or witty things happening to Mario characters (someone made the Plessie dino smoke a joint, I'm sure that got removed).  There are also ghost players that show up after you play the levels.  I didn't think I'd like this and you can turn it off, but I've found secrets following other people on the internet running around.

I'll expand on this and make a full review later.  If you needed a reason to buy a Wii U, this is it.  It's cheaper than the other two systems plus this game is rated higher than anything released on it's two competing next gen (I guess it's this gen now) competitors.  I have all 3 Xbox consoles, so I'm not ripping on them, but there will be a dry spell in 2014, just like the Wii U had in 2013.  This is the perfect time to get one... I promise.  Review forthcoming.