Super Mario 3D Land is really fun and is one of those perfect portable games. I don’t have much to say on the subject, since I’m by no means an expert on Mario, and other people have already expounded on the subject enough, but it’s a great blend of 2D and 3D Mario elements.
I’m not very fond of 2D Mario games at all. They feel a little too simplistic and unforgiving, and I get bored of them very quickly, since there isn’t a whole lot to do other than run and jump—and you’re always going one direction. 3D Mario games, however, are great. I love the freedom of movement and all of the different moves and abilities Mario can use to explore the world around him, both horizontally and vertically, with no restrictions as to where he can go.
With Super Mario 3D Land, it looks as though Nintendo, after a significant amount of trial and error, have managed to identify precisely what people appreciate about both 2D Mario and 3D Mario, and incorporate those features into the same game.
It has the simplicity of 2D Mario games in that the end of the level is in one direction and one direction only—forward. Your ultimate goal is the flag pole at the end of each stage, and pushing on “forward” will eventually lead you to it. Meanwhile, the exploratory appeal of 3D Mario is present as well, in that each stage has Star Coins—which replace the Stars from 64 and Galaxy—and these are scattered in just about every direction imaginable, whether it’s front, back, left, right, up or down.
This means that you can play Super Mario 3D Land rather flexibly. You can either make straight for the end of each stage, or you can stop to smell the roses. Eventually, you will have to search around for Star Coins, since you need to collect a certain number to progress at different points in the game. This is a nice way to prod non-exploratory players into actually putting in the effort to explore each stage and seek these Star Coins out.
It took me the longest time to get down to playing Super Mario 3D Land. The game was released in 2011, but I didn't buy it myself until this past week because I wasn't sure if it would be "3D enough" for me. Luckily, it is. There's exploration within linearity here,which means that while stages are more guided as far as completing them is concerned, there are plenty of hidden things to uncover along the way, which will require some serious exploration and experimentation. Even the countdown clock in each stage, which I was initially skeptical of, serves a purpose—it keeps you on your toes and prevents you from boring yourself.
Effectively, Super Mario 3D Land is addressing a problem that Nintendo have had for a while now. 2D Mario games are relatively cheap to develop and a lot of people buy them because of their simplicity. 3D Mario games, however, cost much more time and money to make, but far less people play them, because they’re more complex games.
It’s nice that, instead of abandoning the 3D games, Nintendo instead are attempting to address the problem that lesser-honed gamers have with them, while maintaining the complexity that more seasoned gamers enjoy. The only downside is that the resulting stages feel like random places in the Mushroom Kingdom, rather than the more choreographed “locales” of Super Mario 64, which all felt like distinctive places with personality. Hopefully, this issue, too, will be addressed in the future.
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