Super Mario 3D Land

NINTENDO MONTH PART 2 OF 4

First a disclaimer.

Two weeks ago I HEAVILY hinted that my next review would be Animal Crossing: Wild World. It is not. I TRIED, good GOD I tried, but I had nothing funny to say.

It's a life sim with furries, a decent one. If you like life sims check it out. The end. Buy a Game Grid t-shirt. (ATTENTION: THERE ARE NO GAME GRID T-SHIRTS AS OF YET. I WILL TRY TO FIND SOMEONE TO HOOK ME UP LATER)

I will find something to fill the fourth slot I had planned for Nintendo Month. In the meantime let's get on to week 2.

As I have said before Mario to my knowledge has never released a bad game. In fact I think that it's the only long running game franchise that can claim that. This game is no exception.

Good gameplay, good graphics, sidescrolly head-jumpy fun, blahdy blahdy blah. Punch and Judy can do a Mario review at this point.

BUT...

You don't go to an electrician to compliment your lamp, and you didn't come to me to be nice to a game.

So I started Super Mario 3D Land, or, as it SHOULD be called Super Mario Tanooki Suit.

Yes! Back from Super Mario Brothers 3, the Tanooki Suit dresses Mario up as a raccoon and allows him the ability to glide temporarily because..... Japanese..... Folktale? You had better have this suit ON in every single level. If you don't have one, go to the nearest door and take dead lessons from the nails.

There is practically NO LEVEL that can be completed without it. The levels that CAN be completed without it, will make you miss out on valuable Star Medals, but who cares, right? It's just used for extras. I can probably complete the game without those.

WRONG! As I found out when I got to the midway boss castle! I needed FIFTY star medals to enter the level.

I had fifteen.

The next TWO HOURS of playtime were spent trudging through previous levels getting EVERY star medal I missed. Dying again and again again and AGAIN. However it didn't matter that much because at this point I was hoarding lives in my tree for the winter. It was at this point that I saw something very strange.

I respawned at the checkpoint for the BILLIONTH time when I saw a box that had not been there before. On the box was printed the icon of a Tanooki Leaf.

"Oh good!" I thought. "The game has clued in that the Tanooki Suit is as needed as BREATHING! It is apologizing by giving me a free one!"

I opened the box and out popped a GOLDEN Tanooki Leaf. This gave me the white Tanooki Suit. Which allowed me to gain unlimited invincibility. I was very proud of myself for gaining this rare and valuable unlockable! Though when I moved to the next level I lost the suit. I also, no matter how hard I tried could not make the block reappear.

I looked online to see how I could make this gaming lightning strike twice and I got a SHOCKING answer. The Golden Leaf only appears when you have died enough times on one level.

That's right. THE GAME IS FEELING SORRY FOR YOU!!

"Ohhhh." smarms the game "You're a little SLOW aren't you. Here take the shiny thing and go about your merry way. Your helmet's got your name on it."

Who the HELL do you think you are! You can take your Pity Leaf and shove it up your pixelated ASS! I'm hardcoring this mother.

That's what I THOUGHT, not what I DID.

Of COURSE you take it. You ALWAYS take it. The White Tanooki Suit, however, DOESN'T keep you from falling of cliffs. So you can still die....

If you do that ENOUGH. You get ANOTHER item.

The P-Wing.

The P-Wing allows you to SKIP TO THE END OF THE LEVEL.

"Oh I'm sorry! I thought a HUMAN BEING was at the controls! You are obviously some kind of unwashed chimp who got his grubby hand-feet on a 3DS. Here monkey! Go! Make the little man fly! At the end if you're good you get a mango!"

Again, this IS Mario. It's a great game. Remember, though this IS Mario, game has no mercy at all.

I haven't COMPLETED a game since I've been doing this blog. I can't give you the full scope of a review if I haven't played through the whole game. What I need is something I can easily blast through in an afternoon, but I can still find serious fault in.

NEXT ON THE GAME GRID'S NINTENDO MONTH: STARFOX 64 3D!

There we go.