Super Mario 3D Land Review – I Did It All for Tanooki

It used to be that when a new Nintendo system launched, a fresh Mario game was there right alongside it. That’s a trend that has, unfortunately, disappeared in recent years, with Mario taking his sweet time to appear on the very systems he’s become the mascot for. And so here we are, some eight months after the 3DS’s debut before the portly plumber makes his debut on Nintendo’s newest handheld.

Super Mario 3D Land is a difficult game to classify. On the one hand, it sports a number of fully-3D environments and the sort of platforming action one would find in console-oriented outings, such as Super Mario 64 and Super Mario Galaxy. On the other, it boasts a simplified control scheme, power-up system, and design aesthetic that feels more in-line with Mario’s side-scrolling offerings, most notably New Super Mario Bros. The end result is a sort of hybrid between the two, somewhere comfortably in between a 2D and a 3D Mario game – an interesting development, considering the game’s name.

Does this strange amalgamation end up becoming the Mushroom Kingdom equivalent of chocolate and peanut butter? Hit the break to find out.

If you’ve played a single, solitary Mario game, you already know the setup of Super Mario 3D Land. The increasingly accident-prone Princess Peach has been abducted by Bowser, and Mario’s the only man suicidal enough to do anything about it. The twist this time comes in the form of the Tanooki Tree whose magical leaves get scattered in the ensuing chaos, granting those that touch them the mystical powers of… well, a raccoon-dog, apparently. 

The return of the fan-favorite Tanooki suit isn’t the only element brought back from Mario’s third NES outing. A vast majority of the game’s design seems to be ripped straight out of the pages of Super Mario Bros. 3 – colorful panels, music-note blocks, airships, even long-neglected miniboss Boom Boom. As a nice touch, it would seem that many classic Mario enemies have been Tanooki-fied, sporting side-swiping raccoon tails that make them a tad bit more dangerous.

Progression through Super Mario 3D Land takes place through eight worlds containing four to five stages each. Progression is entirely linear and stages must be beaten in order – there aren’t any branching paths or hidden exits to speak of. Occasionally, a stage will require Mario to possess a certain number of Star Coins to enter. Three such coins are strewn about each of the stages, adding a bit of a collection element to the proceedings.

However, hunting down star coins is about the extent of the exploration you’ll be doing in Super Mario 3D Land. Despite playing like a 3D platformer, level design is entirely linear. Stages are designed as obstacle courses and your only goal is to reach the exit. Don’t expect something akin to Super Mario Galaxy, where virtually every stage tasked you with some new wild objective. Running and jumping is the only game in town this time.

Despite the lack of variety, the platforming is handled quite well. Level design is absolutely top-notch, full of tricky jumps and intelligent enemy placement. Most stages have a midway checkpoint to reduce frustration in some harder areas, but typically the levels are just long enough to pose a challenge while still remaining quick enough to be appropriate for a handheld game. Later stages will mix in things like crumbling ledges and invisible platforms to keep things fresh.

The difficulty starts out simple enough and gradually picks up steam, but there shouldn’t be anything here that will prove too impossible for a reasonably seasoned Mario vet. Beating the game once will unlock “special” versions of each world, a new set of challenges featuring mostly remixed versions of the original stages with their challenge souped up. Star coin requirements in the special world also increase substantially, which means you’ll be playing through old stages a fair bit trying to nab those missing coins.

While you’ll be dashing left and right, back and forth, in and out, the underlying mechanics of Super Mario 3D Land make it feel very much like a side-scrolling Mario title. The items you’ll come across are legitimate, honest-to-goodness power-ups this time around and not the temporary time-based tools used primarily to solve puzzles like in Mario Galaxy. There’s no life bar either – get hit with a power-up, and it’s back to regular Mario. Get hit again, you get shrunk (and lose your hat!). Once more, and you’re toast. Thankfully, the game isn’t lacking in 1-up opportunities, so there should rarely be any excuse to see the “game over” screen. 

The power-ups themselves include the familiar – mushrooms, fire flowers, starmen – and some new additions, including a Boomerang Bros. outfit that lets you toss out their signature projectile, a propeller-laden block that fits snugly over Mario’s head, and the return of the famous Tanooki suit. Before you get too excited about reliving your Mario 3 glory days, you should know that the suit’s functionality has been limited significantly in this new title. It no longer grants the ability to fly, though you do retain the tail-wagging slow descent functionality and a spinning melee attack.

Most disappointing, however, is that the ability to turn into a statue, arguably the Tanooki suit’s coolest feature, is completely absent from the entire first half of the game. During the special worlds you’ll find “stone leaves” that will allow such a transformation. However, it’s absolutely baffling why the decision was made to essentially hide this element away until the post-game.

But the strange design decisions aren’t limited to the Tanooki suit. Mario games have always been renowned for their tight controls, which is why it’s so surprising that Super Mario 3D Land stumbles a bit in this area. For whatever reason, Mario can only move in eight directions, which immediately feels awkward to those used to the full-range of motion offered in his 3D releases. The level design compliments this, limiting itself to mostly angular paths. But the decision simply feels bizarre given that the 3DS’s circle pad offers full analog control, and it will take time for veterans to get used to the lack of pinpoint movement.

The physics for Mario also feel a bit off as well. It seems to take an inordinately long time for Mario to get up to full speed for a proper jump, leading to a lot of undershot leaps. Jumps can feel floaty and at times imprecise. Particularly baffling are the inclusion – and seeming uselessness – of Mario’s special jumps. The cartwheel and backwards somersault popularized in Super Mario 64 are present, but don’t seem to give much (if any) appreciable increase in height, coupled with the fact that the somersault must now be charged by crouching for a duration.

Similarly, the long jump doesn’t seem to give Mario any truly increased distance covered, though its quick animation and recovery will make it a valuable tool for speedrunners. True to its 2D roots, the game includes a dash button that just serves as an annoyance. There are few instances where you would ever not want to dash, and that could have just as easily been accomplished by lightly moving the circle pad. It’s as if the developers forgot their system had an analog input.

That being said, these issues are mostly nitpicky. The vast majority of the time, failure will be the result of your own mistakes, and the controls are more than serviceable for the tasks at hand. When it’s at its best, the game perfectly captures that classic obstacle course feel, giving you a strong sense of satisfaction as you leap and dash your way through each stage.

If you do run into a difficult part and find yourself dying repeatedly, the game offers you assistance by spawning an optional block at your spawning point that contains a super-powered Tanooki suit. This suit makes you impervious to damage while worn and can help you get through a tough spot, but considering that most of the difficult parts involve leaps over bottomless pits, it’s a bit of an odd design choice. Sadly, there doesn’t appear to be any special mark or indication that a level was beaten with this assistance, which might elicit a frown from platforming purists.

While Super Mario 3D Land may falter somewhat in its controls, it more than makes up with in its presentation. Simply put, the game features the best use of 3D visuals on the system to date. Objects pop out very well and the 3D effect is used cleverly throughout the game. An optional “deep” 3D mode can be toggled on and off that gives some added detail to the 3D effect, and it’s recommended that you play with this option on. The camera always seems to be in the best position to show you exactly what you need to see while still emphasizing the 3D elements, especially in highly-vertical segments of levels where it pans directly overhead and the 3D effect is used to gauge distance downwards.

The visuals themselves are about what you would expect from a Mario game. The game is marked by bright colors and animated enemies, but there are some really nice lighting effects in play to add some technical pizzazz to the proceedings. Strangely, there doesn’t seem to be any sort of thematic congruence to any of the worlds, even though the maps for them would seem to indicate otherwise. World 8, for instance, is marked with an ominous lava background, but the second stage takes you to a lush green grassland. On the audio side, Super Mario 3D Land boasts a fun, upbeat score that you’ll be humming in your head long after you put the game down, plus all the requisite old-school sound effects to tickle your nostalgia.

In terms of extra content, Super Mario 3D Land is somewhat lacking. The minigames and muliplayer that were packaged with Mario’s DS outings are nowhere to be found. There is some Street Pass functionality that will allow you to automatically trade stage completion times with those you pass, though an online leaderboard might have been a godsend for speedrunners. The special worlds offer a great incentive to keep playing after the credits, and an additional playable character can even be unlocked here (Spoilers: He wears green). You can blow through the main game in just a couple of hours, but there’s enough here to keep you replaying for quite some time, especially if you’re one who appreciates a good time attack.

All in all, Super Mario 3D Land is a solid little platformer. It doesn’t quite achieve the legendary status that the Super Mario Galaxy games have earned, but as a portable, modest adventure with a good chunk of replayability, it more than holds its own. It also serves as proof that Mario’s two distinct styles of platforming, seemingly separated by an entire dimension, can coexist in a single package. Here’s hoping that this is the start of a great new franchise, with perhaps a slightly more refined experience on the way sometime in the future… maybe even bringing back another long-forgotten piece of Mario history (it’s been far too long since he’s worn a cape. Wouldn’t you agree, Nintendo?)  

Super Mario 3D Land was released on November 13th, 2011 for the Nintendo 3DS.