Super Mario 3D World Completionist Review

Super Mario 3D World... where do I begin? Well, starting off, I should tell you how I played this game. I have not completed this game 100%. I have only completed the first eight worlds 100%, collecting every green star, stamp, and got every golden flagpole. The reason I have done this is because I love mario games. I am not a completionist with every game I have. The only games I complete 100% are mario games. Now... on with the review!

Super Mario 3D World is a sequel to Super Mario 3D Land. It reminds me that the sequel of Super Mario Land (on gameboy) was Super Mario World (on SNES). Basically, it goes from a portible game to a consle game. Now, I 100% mario games, which not everyone does. So, I will be rating this game twice. Once with a normal, sit down and play type rating, and a completionist rating.

The Casual Rating
So, most of the time, I never actually played casual. Sometimes, I got all of the items but didn't get a golden flagpole, and casually replayed the level. Other times when I had a friend over, he hated me for trying to get everything, so we played casually together. And let me just say... this was the best casual game of 2013. I absolutely ADORED playing this game casually. It's a call back to other linear mario 3D platformers, with similarites to galaxy and mario 64, but keeping it feeling VERY fresh and new. Now, you're probably thinking "Well, all mario games have similarities to older ones" to which I reply, this one does, yet doesn't. I cannot explain how classic yet new this game is. It is something you have to experience for yourself. Now, there is one MASSIVE problem with this game (in both areas). Now, in one review I saw of this game, the reviewer said "Super Mario 3D Land was pretty much a trial to see if we could do this." And, I completely agree. The problem is, this isn't the same thing as Super Mario 3D Land. In 3D Land, you had 3D. It helped you position where you were going to land, how far something was from you, etc. In 3D world, you have shadows... yep... that's all you get. As you can see, it doesn't work as well.

The Completionist Rating (Please, i'm not ripping of Jirard)

Now, this game was a challenge to complete. Some green stars are completly stupid chores to find or get. Same thing with stamps. Kind of a SPOILER ahead, not really. On the last level, after defeating the boss, I had realized that I had all three green, but was missing the stamp. I panicked that I had missed it, but when I saw the flagpole, IT WAS RIGHT NEXT TO ME IN PLAIN SIGHT. This was the last stamp of the main worlds, they at least could have put some effort into hiding it or putting it in a challenging location. SKIP TO HERE TO AVIOD SPOILERS: Now, even though there are some crappy star and stamp places, there are some fantastic ones. Ones that really push your platforming skills to there limits, which is a good thing. You have to use long jumps, wall jumps, ground pounds, and high jumps. It was really cool to see these once useless things in mario to become things that are actually really important in 100%ing. Golden flagpoles can be stupid too, but not as bad as the stars or stamps. Over, it wasn't very fun 100%ing this game. But the implementation of once kinda useless features is a great bonus for mario patrons like me.

Misc

Music: Now, I really liked the music in this game. I thought it was a bit more repetitive than other people thought, but still great. Now, Koji Kondo wasn't the main composer of the music, and it would probably have been better with him, but lets be honest here, all music would be better with Koji Kondo.

Graphics: Six words for the graphics in this game: Super Mario 3D Land in HD. Impressive, but average compared to PS4 and Xbox One

Conclusion
Super Mario 3D World is a great casual game, especially with friends. But completing can be a chore, a kinda fun chore. Super Mario 3D World gets my casual rating of 95 out of 100, and my completionist rating of 78 out of 100.

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