No, not the most fun, but the most \”sincere\” fun.

It’s not every day that I log five continuous hours of gameplay in one sitting. We\’re not even talking about a strategy game or MMORPG here, where your play time can naturally range from two to five hours or perhaps even longer, depending on the type of player you are. It’s also not every day I return from a gaming session so amazed that I feel compelled to charge straight to my desk to jot down my epic experience so that I may not leave any details out in the final draft. And as a gaming enthusiast with over two hundred unique games in stock and as someone who doubted the next 3D Mario would be able to cause my jaw to hurt from smiling too long or my eyes to water from being too distracted to blink, even I\’m surprised that these experiences are my own.

Let’s get some things straight first. For those of you who look at trailers and don\’t see what all the fuss is about compared to other games of similar critical reception, your initial inkling is right. Super Mario 3D World is not The Last of Us or Half-Life 2 nor is it any other game that earns its acclaim for having a standout narrative and for being technically impressive for its time. For those of you who look at the trailer and do not see how the game compares to anything you saw from Super Mario 64 or Super Mario Galaxy, you\’re only mostly wrong (I say mostly because there still is a difference. Whereas the Galaxy games focused more on exploration, Super Mario 3D World focuses a lot more on challenge. I point to Super Mario 3D World’s time limit as an example. This, though, is where one could make the argument that Super Mario Galaxy and all the past 3D Mario action-adventures were considerably better games. There were actually some extra timed challenge stages in those games).

The goal of Super Mario 3D World is not to provide the next open world 3D Mario action adventure like we all thought the game would be doing before it was announced. Instead, you get something so much more mind-blasting that it’s hysterical. What Nintendo EAD Tokyo does with Super Mario 3D World is essentially take everything you know about 2D Mario and everything you thought 3D Mario was about to completely rearrange it in such a way where every level is still more progressively unpredictable, still progressively more unique and fresh in level design, and still progressively more challenging, all contributing to a factor we like to call \”fun.\”

For a game that was supposed to be an up-resed carbon copy of Super Mario 3D Land, the definition of sheer laziness and lack of creativity, it does an excellent job of being everything the fans wouldn\’t expect. Impressive visuals aided by an artistically creative perspective? Check! Level design that leaves you thinking about how brilliant the development team must be? This has returned! Is it fun? Progressively!

Long-time Mario fans will love the ability to actually be able to walk and even jump on the map, which has been transformed into a 3D playing field. This time, you don\’t simply flick the analog stick to the right and press \”A\” to move on like you would in Super Mario Galaxy. Instead, your character has the ability to physically walk off the path to perhaps find hidden coins and tap breakable bricks and coin boxes. While you cannot do much more than walk and jump and, while the other players in multiplayer cannot control their characters on the map, the ability to explore the map is a really nice edition to the game.

What isn\’t immediately obvious from watching footage of the game is exactly how useful the Super Bell (the Cat Suit) and the Double Cherry power-ups are. Just like the Tanooki suit added a new level of depth to Super Mario Bros. 3, the strategic use of Cat Mario and the Double Cherry are necessary to complete the game. For instance, in certain levels, there will be high places you won\’t be able to reach if you don\’t have the Cat Suit or if you don\’t know how to use it strategically (i.e., scale walls in a certain way). Likewise, with the Double Cherry, if you don\’t maintain a certain amount of characters by a certain point in a level after doubling them — the amount possible is infinite — you won\’t be able 100% that stage.

I did mention clever level design, didn\’t I? Well, you remember seeing this stage in trailers?

It’s not a simple as you might have thought. I\’m not sure how this stage plays in single player yet, as I haven\’t played that yet, but if you\’re playing with a group of people, everyone needs to control the dinosaur in unison for the most success. This all works rather smoothly but still provides enough of a challenge to promote the best use of teamwork. I mean, you\’re riding an orange dinosaur through hoops down a rapid waterfall. It doesn\’t get any more serious than that. Additionally, for maximum nostalgia, EAD Tokyo opted to use the tune from the slide races in Super Mario 64 as the music for this very same stage.

Another stage with a brilliant design was another one of the beginning stages where the game has you blowing on the mic on the GamePad in order to move certain platforms and allow you to get to your destination. Thanks to the screen on the GamePad, there’s no need to look up and down at your controller; the entire game is displayed on the screen. In single player mode, I can only assume that this is much simpler. In multiplayer mode, timing is very important when you have two to three other players working with you, not to mention you still have responsibility over your own character. At the end of it all, you feel like a master of hand-eye(-mouth?) coordination. Blowing on the GamePad doesn\’t only move platforms, though, as you also possess the ability to blow certain enemies away, depending on their size as well as a whole host of other abilities. In addition to blowing, there is also a need to use the touch controls to complete certain stages and they can also be used to your advantage in multiplayer mode similar it is used in New Super Mario Bros. U.

I wasn\’t kidding when I said each stage provided something new and unique, either. If it didn\’t, I don\’t think my friend and I would have been able to play for as long as we did (about five hours). In addition to the above mentioned, there is a music level that capitalizes on the one seen in Super Mario Galaxy, challenging you to complete the stage with double the characters (using the Double Cherry) in order to 100%.

There’s even a stage that gives tribute to Mario Kart on the SNES. You\’re sprinting through the course as if it were a kart race (more fun with a partner once again). I haven\’t even begun to cover Captain Toad, which is a series of minigames within the game that sport what can be considered one of the best uses of the GamePad’s capabilities yet. I\’d even go as far as to say that each Captain Toad in Super Mario 3D World could be turned into its very own Nintendo eShop title, but then again, every stage in most recent 3D Mario action-adventures could be.

As you might have read, I personally received the game best while playing with a friend, but I\’m happy to inform that Ghost Data helps to alleviate the discontent with the lack of online multiplayer for those who simply aren\’t able to play with a nearby friend. For example, in that very same Mario Kart NES racing stage, instead of racing a friend, you could race the ghost of another player. This does not always provide a worthy substitute, but it’s great when it does.

If the remarkable level design doesn\’t fuel your interest to complete the game, you can collect stamps within the game, which act as usable achievements. I say \”usable,\” as these stamps can be used in Miiverse drawing messages. Here’s how creative my friend and I got with this.

Ultimately, Reggie Fils-Aime was right: you, in fact, do have to \”play the game\” in order to know exactly what it is you are getting. Super Mario 3D World is joy on a disc — or in a downloaded file — and this joy is exponentially increased when you play with other interested players. I definitely encourage taking the plunge with this title if you\’re still on the fence about the game, even despite its current critical reception. Once again, I found myself asking why I ever even doubt Mario in the first place. I might explain that it’s because I only fear for the day 3D Mario stops being fun. Fortunately, that day does not come with this title.

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