I know what everyone thought when they first saw this title during Nintendo Direct, “oh boy another mediocre, dilapidated Mario game that will be identical to past 2d Mario games, even though it was announced as a 3d Mario game. This is definitly not the case, in fact if you are like me and have seen most of the Nintendo Directs up to it's release date you would know that it wasen't just the same Mario game and you would be as excited as I was to get this game.
Story: Oh boy were saving Peach again aren't we? Actually no we are not that's surprising huh? Instead we must save eight little fairy's called Sprixies, from Bowser. Sure I know it might as well be the same plot as it usually is, but hey it's not completely the same, and anyone contemplating the purchase of a Mario game over it's plot is as wet as a warthogs backside. These metaphors doing anything for you?
Presentation: I've mentioned in many Nintendo game review's that Nintendo never has a problem when it come's to presentation and obviously this game is no different in fact this is one of the best looking and most creative Mario games to date. They usually include New in the title of the past few Mario game's which obviously divulge that their should be something new, and while a lot of people complain about this I still enjoy playing them, but the point I wanted to make was that it's Ironic that they did not call this New Super Mario 3d World because it honestly deserves the title new in it because there is a lot of new in it, while the other games that claim to be new our ridiculed by fans to be the same thing, but anyways, this is truly a spectacular new Mario game that has so many different types of enemies, level designs, power ups, it makes the presentation all worth while and a pleasurable experience. The soundtrack on this game is also one of the best soundtracks in a mario game to date and will make any agitated person start humming the song over and over again. The presentation is spot on and possibly the most memorable presentation in a mario game alongside Super Mario World, and Super Mario Brothers 3.
Gameplay: When it comes to gameplay it's your usual Mario game, it's a 3d platformer, that Is a joy to play through out. First off the level designs our Mind boggling, they our absolutely stunning, they our a joy to play and every single level has it's own new feel and their aren't a whole lot of Mario games that can say that but this one throws that theory out the window, their our so many memorable, challenging, enjoyable levels that make the gameplay so worthwhile. You got four characters to control (well really five but I'll get to that later) in this one Mario who wasn't my favorite character(second favorite to be honest) cause he can tend to be a little heavy at times, but other then that he's a solid character to play as, and then next we got Luigi who was my favorite character he controlled light, but not to light, and he had a great jump like in Super Mario Bros 2, nothing much to say but I always liked using him, next we have Princess Peach who also like in SMB2 she can float for a little while, she's not to light and not to heavy and my third favorite character in the game. Then last but not least we have Toad, who doesn't really have a special ability and is kind of slow for my taste so I never really used him and he was probably my least favorite character. One thing I did want to mention with the controls for the characters was that they can be a bit stiff sometimes because when you our trying to run, you must run a little bit to reach top speed and this can get quite annoying sometimes for certain area's but this is just a small oversight that is barley worth bringing up. Next lets talk about the new power ups you got your usual power up's the mushroom, the fire flower, the tannoki suit, the super star, some that have come back like the boomerang suit and the new one's and their our a lot so excuse me if I miss some The cat suit which everyone had been waiting to use, this was the power up that Nintendo tried to enthuse us with during Nintendo Direct and maybe to some it might look like a gimmick but it really isn't in fact I love this power up, it's basically makes you climb up walls and you can attack in it, it just makes sense for a Mario game and I really like it. Next we have the cherry which adds an extra copy of your character this isn't a bad power up but I was never really that excited to use it because it was really hard to control your copy's, but their were some levels that used the power up well, but to be honest it wasn't my most favorite power up ever but still worthy of being in this game. Next we have the uhh,,,, oh God I don't remember all the other power ups oh noo! But in all seriousness their our some other weird power ups that I'll let you play to find out about them, they really do have some cool power ups but they honestly don't have a lot of detail to them. I've said it before in this review that the level designs our some of the most memorable level designs in Mario and their all different so I don't want to go into huge detail on all of them but I will say this, if you are a Mario fan there is no excuse to not have this game because of this, so yeah... go get it. The boss battles have some great variety in this one also must bosses our pretty easy and some our recycled, but for the most part their our a lot of bosses in this game that some new players may have trouble with but hey at least some our original. Their really is so much to say when it comes to gameplay and for the sake of this review to not be a world record for longest review ever I will just finish the gameplay section with it's perfect.
(Spoiler Alert) The final boss is Cat Bowser it's not really a boss battle or at least does not feel like a traditional one but instead feels more like a level design where you are trying to avoid bowser to get to the top of the building to hit a pow block to knock him down it's a challenging level with the right amount of challenge and it's a great boss battle if you would consider it that,(I would) even though it's technically kind of an actual level. The ending is what you would expect The sprixies our free and that's it, you shouldn't expect much of an ending should you?
Overall Mario for the most part gets a bad name when it comes too 2d platformers(I don't think it should) even though this is a 3d one in the company with Mario Galaxy one and two sunshine, and 64, pretty good company most people would say but I think most people would of saw this with the crowd of the New Super Mario Brother games which some see as a lack of innovation, but many would be pleasantly surprised to see that this truly stands out to be an absolute new game that any Mario fan should pick up.