Am I writing a game review of a Mario game on the back of the Super Mario Bros movie, yes i am. Which honestly isn’t a bad film and it’s grossed over 1 billion, pretty much everyone has seen it at this point. Also i’m writing this because I found it for a few quid and in between everything else I have to do with life this is a quick, easy and fun game to play. Having been unable to play much as of late, having my end of year assignments to do, now they are out of the way, I can finally move onto bigger and better things. Firstly this, then secondly and obviously Zelda Tears of the Kingdom. I will also be attempting to play the mid levelled reviewed, The Callisto Protocol, whilst I have a few months to myself I really aught to work through my obscene backlog of games, which only gets worse. With the addition of AEW fight forever finally being released the end of next month, plus Final Fantasy 16 dropping, it seems I’m doomed to be swallowed and consumed by my own greed of collecting games and struggling to get anything played. I haven’t even got the platinum for Hogwarts Legacy still, and I’ve basically done everything outside of collecting all the collectibles in Hogwarts itself and replaying the other houses at the start of the game.
Anyhow, enough of my gaming woes, which ultimately are highly trivial in the grand scheme of life. To the meaty part of this review, the game itself. If you’ve ever played a Mario game, you’ll know what’s in store for you here. It’s your typical story Bowser takes Peach. Mario gets outraged and goes around jumping on stuff until he finally beats him again, and gets reunited with the Princess. At this point in time with the series itself being around 30 years old, you’d have decided whether or not you like Mario games, as they all tend to follow the same formula. Not a bad thing mind, or it could be you just really enjoy Mario Kart as any sane person does.
You traverse through 8 different worlds. Within each of these worlds are your playable levels. Each level puts Mario in a different environment with different obstacles to traverse and enemies to get past. This games level creativity are superb. Each mission is genuinely different, considering at the basic concept it’s reach the flag pole at the end of the level whilst collecting coins, and finding the three hidden star medals in each level and jumping on some Koopas to smush it. Once you’ve completed the main worlds, you unlock Luigi as a playable character. Allowing you to go through the worlds again as the small plumbers brother. Not really affecting the gameplay any. You do unlock a few extra bonus worlds though, so you can at least attempt those first time round as the green counterpart.
Throughout this game you’ll come across the usual power-ups, and transformations. These include small and super Mario, plus fire, Tanooki and and boomerang if you get those ability power ups instead. Plus a few other smaller ones, like invincible Mario if you keep doing, the 1up health as well. There’s enough to help you traverse these mini biomes, a few extra wouldn’t have hurt though, just to spice up the game variety a little bit more.
As a game, much like Tearaway on the PS Vita, this is one of those titles that truly utilises the hardware and capabilities of the console it’s on. Making full use of the 3D,making use of it in level, and making for some of the mini-games where sliding it on or off reveals how to solve the puzzle before you. Even the gyroscopic functionality is used for firing canons, binoculars and a few other things.
This game is deserving of a big and beefy 8/10, A highly tasty game. It’s the epitome of quick bite-sized fun. Each mission is quick and different enough from the last to keep you entertained, whether in quick bursts or longer gaming sessions. It has great re-playability and like most Mario games, just plain and simple fun.
Released November 18th 2011, Nintendo 3DS
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