I’ve been playing a lot of Splatoon lately…so much that it’s kept me from completing the last world in Super Mario 3D World: World Crown. But I made it a priority to finish it off recently. And it definitely wasn’t easy, but I did it. While the previous two worlds didn’t have stamps in the levels, they returned for World Crown. This world only has three levels, but don’t be fooled. It provides a monster challenge and will probably take longer to complete than any previous world.
World Crown-Toad: Captain Toad’s Fiery Finale is the last (and most challenging) Toad level. A piranha plant near the center of the level will constantly shoot fireballs at you as you navigate across floating platforms above rising (and falling) lava. Some of the platforms are the kind that require you to blow into the gamepad microphone…as you’re rotating the camera and avoiding fireballs. This is quite a tricky level…but it’s nothing compared to what’s to come.
World Crown-Cube: Mystery House Marathon is set up like other previous “Cube” levels. You are presented with a series of short challenges (with 10 seconds to complete each one), and they are presented in rapid-fire succession. If you die or fail to collect a star before time runs out, you must start all over. And unlike previous Cube levels, this one has a whopping 30 challenges with 30 stars up for grabs. Some of the challenges are easy, some are hard, and many others only seem difficult until you figure out what to do. But doing everything in one go is what makes this level a beast. Lots of trial-and-error is required, and it took me many hours to clear this stage.
World Crown-Crown: Champion’s Road is the granddaddy of all challenges. This is the most difficult level in the game, and it has to be one of the most challenging Mario levels ever. It starts out with a platforming section, where you have to avoid cannonballs being spit out by enemies. There are also Fire Brothers and Chargin’ Chucks to contend with. You then warp to a section where you have to climb a bunch of beat blocks, which constantly alternate. Peach’s float move comes in handy here, but it’s still quite a challenge.
After an area with Magikoopas and blocks that fall when you stand on them, there is a section where you have to maneuver around swinging spiky cylinders while watching out for fuzzies. You then have to scale a wall by wall-jumping and bouncing off of enemies. A spring board gets you started, but this section is extremely difficult if you don’t have a cat suit.
Clear all of that, and you’re taken to a high-speed area where you have to run and jump across speed boosts, while avoiding pulsing rings of electricity. If you can collect five keys and make it to the warp box, you’ve survived the worst of it. You have to go through a series of transparent pipes that spell out “THANK YOU.” They’re not hard, but it takes some time to go through them, so you’ll need ample time remaining.
By the way, this level has no checkpoints. Die anywhere and it’s back to the very beginning. Each section is challenging and requires lots of practice. I don’t know how many hours I put into this level, or how many times I died here. But I’m sure my death count is easily in the triple-digit range. This level is brutal.
What a huge relief to get that done with. Looking at the stamps screen, I saw that I had all of the regular stamps. The only ones I didn’t have are the large character stamps you get for completing *every* level with that character. Since I’ve been using Peach for most of the game, I saw that I only needed to complete about a dozen more levels/mini-bosses to complete everything with her. Most of those were in earlier worlds (before I switched to Peach permanently), so it wasn’t very hard to do. That earned me the large Peach stamp.
As for the others, let’s just say I don’t need the stamps that bad. Asking players to replay a game with four other characters to unlock trivial things such as stamps is a cheap way of artificially lengthening a game in my opinion. And I am so done with World Crown that I have no interest in playing it again anytime soon.
But don’t let my negative opinion of World Crown deter you from playing Super Mario 3D World, though. Overall, I’ve enjoyed Super Mario 3D World quite a bit. Stay tuned for my review in the near future. Update: The review is here.