Super Mario 3D World – World Castle

It was time to play some Super Mario 3D World, so I started up my Wii U and resumed my game. I’m on the 7th world, but it isn’t called World 7. It’s called World Castle (actually it uses a castle icon instead of the word castle), which just sounds a bit strange. But it takes place within Bowser’s castle, with lots of fire and lava everywhere. I started the first level, World Castle-1, which is subtitled Fort Fire Bros. It has a unique visual style, with blue lava surrounding everything. Piggybacking Goombas may carry power-ups or even other enemies such as Fire Bros. It’s an easy, but enjoyable level, and a good start to the world.

sm3dw-c1The next level is World Castle-2: Switchblack Ruins. It takes place in a dark cave and Mario has limited visibility. Some parts of the level have torches that can be lit with a fireball; it reminded me of Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. There are some rooms in this level that have better lighting (thanks to lava), and those areas often have you stepping on tiles, turning question marks into exclamation points.

sm3dw-c2World Castle-3: Red Hot Run is a race against the clock. Mario has only 100 ticks on the clock to make his way through across narrow platforms while avoiding spikes (and spiky rolling pins). It’s a tricky level, but it’s fun.

sm3dw-c3World Castle-5: Trick Trap Tower is quite an interesting level. It has lots of moving platforms and Thwomps that you must climb to ascend to the top of a tower. Once you reach the top, you’ll fight three Magikoopas on the Lego-covered roof.

sm3dw-c5aYou then move on to another tower, where you have to collect five keys. But reaching the top of this tower unleashes some purple poisonous gas, and Mario has to escape in a hurry! Me-YOWZA!

sm3dw-c5bWorld Castle-6: Rammerhead Reef is an underwater level where Mario must avoid the “rammerheads,” whose heads resemble the spiky rolling pins I mentioned earlier. There are also bloopers swimming around. I’m not generally a fan of water levels, but this one is pretty cool.

sm3dw-c6Once you reach the castle, it’s time to fight Bowser in the ridiculously named “World Castle-Castle.” Also known as Bowser’s Lava Lake Keep, this level has you battling Bowser in his car. It’s a pretty cool boss fight, but after knocking Bowser into the lava, I saw this:

sm3dw-timeIt was kind of funny to run out of time right then, actually. But I beat him again, this time with more time remaining on the clock. This is a bit of a spoiler coming up, so you may want to skip the rest of this blog entry if you don’t want to know what happens. But as I crossed the flag of this world, all seven of those floaty fairy munchkin girls were there. I guess the game was trying to trick me into thinking I beat the whole thing. But then suddenly, Bowser drops in and puts them all in a bottle again and takes them all away. I’m not sure how Bowser recovered that quickly, but that’s video game logic for you.

I found myself back on the world map, and I took a clear pipe up to the 8th world, World Bowser. This world appears to be a noen-filled amusement park…I love it! It looks great, and I’m looking forward to going there next time.

Picross e Impressions

I’m a big fan of Mario’s Picross on Game Boy. So when I recently saw there was a series of Picross games online in the 3DS eShop for just $5.99 each, I knew I had to give them a try. For the time being, I just bought the first game in the series, Picross e. (Picross e2 and Picross e3 are also available). For those that don’t know, the word Picross is a combination of picture and crossword. It’s a puzzle/logic game that will likely appeal to fans of Minesweeper.

Each puzzle has a grid, usually 10×10 or 15×15. Each row and column displays a number, or a series of numbers. Those numbers represent the numbers of consecutive squares that need to be filled in. However, you don’t know how many blank squares are in between them. For example, if a row shows “1 3,” that means there will be a single square filled in, followed by one or more blank spaces, and then another three consecutive squares filled in. Using logic and the process of elimination, you can color in all of the appropriate squares. The filled in squares will then reveal a picture when the puzzle is complete. Here’s an example of what the touch screen will look like during gameplay.

Picross e gameplayThe stylus controls are ideal for a game like this, and they work well. However, I wish the shoulder buttons (L and R) could be used to switch between the pencil (for filling in squares) and the X (for eliminating squares). That would have made things more efficient. Instead, the L and R buttons are used for turning hints on or off. Anyway, a standard control method (control pad plus A and B buttons) is also supported for times when using a stylus may be inconvenient.

The top screen of the 3DS is fairly useless during gameplay. It shows the picture’s progress so far, as well as the elapsed time. Once a puzzle is done, the squares turn from black into different colors, making it more apparent what the picture actually is.

picrosse-2My biggest complaint about Picross e so far is the music. From what I can tell, there’s only one tune that ever plays during gameplay. And while that one song isn’t awful or irritating, it is rather boring and isn’t catchy at all. Mario’s Picross gave players the option to choose between five different tunes, most of which were pretty good. While the gameplay is essentially the same as Mario’s Picross, the lack of decent music does make it a bit less enjoyable. But this is still a fun game to play on the go, and it’s likely that I will give the sequels a try at some point in the future as well.

Super Mario 3D World – World 6

I resumed playing Super Mario 3D World in World 6, the cloud world. It starts off with World 6-1: Clear Pipe Cruise. The level has a lot of clear pipes which you must navigate through. Often, there will be enemies moving through the pipes also, so you’ll have to make sure your timing is good. The level is a bit easy and plain, but it’s not a bad start to the world.

sm3dw-61Things get more exciting in World 6-2: Spooky Seasick Wreck. The level takes place on a haunted airship that constantly sways from side to side. Part of the level takes place inside the ship. where there are some flooded cabins and some ghosts. But most of the action takes place on the outside of the ship, where “bullies” will charge at you and try to knock you off the ship. You’ll have to give them a taste of their own medicine.

sm3dw-62World 6-4: Deep Jungle Drift is one of those levels where you’re on a log raft that flows through the poisonous waters of the jungle. The raft keeps moving constantly, so you can’t be too slow overcoming the obstacles in the stage or else you’ll be left behind. I found myself switching the camera angle a lot in this level. Some parts are easier with the side view, but you don’t get to see what’s coming up next if you use it for too long. This was not one of my favorite levels.

sm3dw-64World 6-5: Ty-Foo Flurries has some ice-skating areas where you can again stomp a Goomba to take its ice skate. I like to call it Kuribo’s ice skate. Using those things is just pure fun, although there’s only a (relatively) small area of ice to use it on. But the “star” of this level has to be the enemy known as Ty-Foo. These overgrown clouds with sinister eyes and soft-serve heads will blow strong gusts of wind. They can easily blow you off of whatever platform you were standing on, so you have to be extremely careful around these airheads.

sm3dw-65In World 6-6: Bullet Bill Base, you’ll be climbing a tower as Bullet Bills shoot out from almost everywhere you look. There are floating clouds and other platforms you can use to climb up, but the cat suit (with its climbing ability) is particularly helpful here.

sm3dw-66World 6-7: Fuzzy Time Mine has you rushing up through a mine shaft as a horde of fuzzies chases after you. The scrolling is forced, which emphasizes the need to hurry your butt up.

sm3dw-67After a regular boss fight in World 6-Tank, there’s another boss fight looming in World 6-C. This time you’re fighting Motley Bossblob, a court jester who becomes huge before breaking into dozens of blobs of liquid metal.

sm3dw-6cOverall, World 6 was enjoyable, but it wasn’t my favorite world. Next time, I’ll be heading off to the seventh world, which is actually called World Castle instead of World 7. It looks to be a hot and fiery place.

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