I just got a 3DS due to pokemon-based peer pressure. I still don’t like pokemon, but I was surprised at how fun Mario 3D Land is — I’ve been lukewarm on the NSMB series, including the Wii U one, but 3D Land has a crazy amount of variety and good difficulty and a really huge amount of content, which is great. I love the Galaxy games, but I think I like this even better, somehow... maybe just because a much smaller proportion of time is spent waiting on cutscenes and dialogue.

I felt like it plays more like a 2D Mario than a 3D one, which doesn’t make much sense, because there are even fully 3D style levels that control exactly the same as the “fat sidewalk” style most of the levels use. But I’ve heard other people say the same thing. Maybe it’s just the jumping/crouching physics, which are much more like the 2D games than they are like 64/Sunshine/Galaxy.

It feels better to me as a Mario game, though the crazy floaty jumps in Galaxy have their own fun to them. I like it more than the NSMB games too, for some reason. I guess because it has a mixture of moves I mostly like. It has the turnaround jump from Mario 64 and on, which most (all?) of the NSMB games don’t have, which just feels good to me. It doesn’t have triple jumps, which the NSMB games do have (and rely on, for secrets), which I never cared too much for. Maybe because it’s such a deliberate thing. The turnaround jump you can use in an emergency. The triple jump is just like... I spotted a high up place to go, now I just need to line up my runway (or start the level with it in mind) and go for it.

Oh, and the roll is fun. Why is it so much fun to roll in video games? I don’t know.

That Mario 3D World trailer LOOKS like the funnest Mario game I’ve ever seen. Even if it “just” turns out to be 3D Land with different levels and powerups (and Peach), I’ll be really happy with it. Even little stuff like apparently being able to freely move around the world map gets me excited.

Yeesh, kind of gushing about this. Sorry.