Tag: SM3DW

I’ve taken a very long break from playing Super Mario 3D World, but in the past month or so, I’ve returned to it to finish collecting the stars, stamps, and flagpoles in the eight standard worlds. Once I did that, I opened up a bonus world: World Star. And yes, I’ve been playing primarily as Peach lately. Her SMB2 style hover jump is very helpful for levels with tricky jumps. It also helps for reaching the tops of flagpoles.

I’ll be giving my impressions and opinions of each level in this world.

World Star-1: Rainbow Run is bound to bring back memories of Rainbow Road in the Mario Kart games. The first and third sections of the level feature some tricky jumps on spinning rainbow-colored cylinders.

The second star challenge actually involves a cool Legend of Zelda reference, and the Zelda theme song even plays for a short time! This level also has a Plessie swimming segment that takes place over rainbow-colored tiles. This section is very short, but it’s a fun (and colorful) diversion from the platforming sections.

World Star-2: Super Galaxy is a Super Mario Galaxy themed level with lots of rotating platforms and some peaceful Galaxy music. The background features the northern lights and Rosalina’s ship, the Comet Observatory. Completing this level unlocks Rosalina as a playable character! She has a spin-attack move, although I decided to stick with Peach.

World Star-3: Rolling Ride Run is probably my second least favorite level from this world. It involves running on giant rolling pins–which in itself is quite tricky–while navigating through a maze of blocks and avoiding enemies and other obstacles. Needless to say, it’s a challenging level.

World Star-4: The Great Goal Pole is basically a practical joke on everyone who plays the game. You’re only given 100 seconds to complete the level, but it appears to be no problem since the goal pole is only a few feet away from the starting point. However, once you try to jump on the goal pole, it suddenly sprouts wings and flies away from you! It’s hard not to laugh the first time it happens. You then have to chase down the pole over a series of clouds and falling donut block bridges, while avoiding enemies of course. You have to be quick to clear this level!

World Star-5: Super Block Land features giant brick blocks and some hefty Chargin’ Chucks. You just know there’s going to be something hidden inside some of those giant blocks. Fortunately, there are bombs to throw at them and blow them up. There’s also a tanooki suit here, which gives you a helpful tail attack. It’s a pretty fun level.

World Star-6: Honeycomb Starway is played from a fixed, top-down viewpoint (except for the flagpole section at the very end). Some futuristic, sci-fi hexagonal platforms fly out of nowhere to assemble the path ahead of you. Some of them are covered in fire (lava) or ice, making for some hazards to avoid. And there are flying enemies (including bees and anti-gravity piranha plants) that will try to defeat you, but this level is short and fairly easy. Especially since there’s a helpful boomerang suit right at the beginning of the level.

World Star-Toad is a Captain Toad level located in a cube. Captain Toad can’t jump of course, but there are P-switches that change the gravity within the cube to let you rotate the entire playfield. Like most other Captain Toad levels, it’s a nice change of pace that’s pretty fun.

World Star-7: Gargantuan Grotto features some enormous Goombas, but also some mega mushrooms that can make you just as big. This level is very easy, and being a giant is quite enjoyable. I’m just disappointed that we only get one “giant” level as opposed to whole Giant World like in Super Mario Bros. 3. Oh well, it’s fun while it lasts.

World Star-8: Peepa’s Fog Bog combines  a large, open haunted graveyard with a winter wonderland. You’ll be fighting (or avoiding) ghots and snowmen alike as you collect the five key coins to proceed to the next section. There you’ll ride a raft on a poison river, leading to the final section with a sinking/rising bridge through fog. It’s a pretty cool, unique level.

World Star-9: Cosmic Cannon Cluster is my least favorite level in this world. It’s also the hardest level in the world (and one of the hardest in the whole game). Most of the level involves jumping on switchboards–directional platforms on rails. You’ll be wearing a cannon box power-up for most/all of the level, and you’ll need to shoot switches to change the paths–while you’re moving, avoiding enemies, and trying not to let your platform fall off the rails. But the hardest part of the level is a section where you have to scale a wall by jumping on cannonballs, one after another, before they hit the wall and explode. I lost quite a few lives here. There’s also an underwater segment, but it’s actually quite a bit easier than the rest of the level.

That wraps up this world, but there’s still more to come. Completing World Star-9 unlocks another bonus world, World Mushroom! The Super Mario 3D World coverage here on JVGS is far from over! Stay tuned!

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It was time to resume my game of Super Mario 3D World, so I headed off to the eighth world, known as World Bowser. It starts off with Spiky Spike Bridge (World Bowser-1). It’s a tricky level played in the rain, with raindrops running down the “camera.” And of course there are a multitude of spiky bridges and dangerous jumps. I must say, I really like the graphical style of these last couple worlds.

World Bowser-2 is another Plessie dino-riding level. But instead going down a river, this time Plessie plunges down sand dunes. These Plessie levels may provide a change of pace and some variety, but I don’t really care for them that much.

World Boswer-Train: The Bowser Express is a cool train level, where each car of the train has a different type of enemy or obstacle. One car has a spiky trapeze to avoid, another has bullies that try to push you off the train, and one even has an underwater segment. Once you reach the front of a train, a Hammer Brother guards the pipe to the boss fight.

World Bowser-4: Footlight Lane has you walking on a series of invisible platforms and bridges. Parts of them become visible as you stand on them, so you can see the area directly around your character, but not much beyond that. The level also has some Thwomps however, and their hard landings will make the platforms temporarily visible. The stage is a bit tricky, particularly in the later part of the level, but it’s not as bad as it may look in pictures.

In World Bowser-6: A Beam in the Dark, Mario has an unusual power-up to wear. He essentially puts a flashlight on over his head body and rides moving platforms through a haunted house. If you direct the beam of light onto ghosts and hold it there for a couple seconds, the ghosts will be defeated. This is a unique, creative level and it’s a lot of fun.

World Bowser-7: Grumblump Inferno has you riding a rotating block through fields of lava. It reminds me of those challenge levels from Super Mario Sunshine (the ones where you didn’t use the waterpack). It can be a challenge to keep your footing, but it’s also a very enjoyable level.

After a couple of encore fights against previous bosses, I made it to World Bowser-Castle: The Great Tower of Bowser Land. You need 170 stars to unlock it, but I only had 168. However, it didn’t take me long to revisit a previous level to get the other two stars I needed. I was then able to enter the castle.

The level consists of a huge tower you must ascend. The final boss reveals itself about halfway through. I won’t spoil it for those who haven’t played this far yet, but I’ll say it wasn’t exactly what I expected. In fact, I laughed out loud when I saw what I was up against. I continued my climb upwards, and at the top, I easily beat my opponent in about three seconds flat.

The game started acting like I had beaten the game, but I knew that couldn’t be it. The little rainbow fairy munchkin girls were freed from their bottle, and the path to the flag was right in front of me. I just knew something was going to happen right before I got to the flag. But nothing did. A message said “Course Clear,” so I figured there must be another level waiting for me. And then…the credits started rolling. What? Seriously? There were no tricks, I had beaten the game. That final boss fight wasn’t really even a fight. That was a bit disappointing, although World Bowser overall was quite impressive and fun.

And even though I’ve beaten the game, I still haven’t completed it. I’m going to go back and get all the stars and stamps that I’ve missed. I’ve had a lot of fun with the game, and it’s not over yet. There may still be another blog entry about Super Mario 3D World, and later on, a review as well. So stick around!

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.

The 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.

World 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.

World 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.

You 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!

World 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.

Once 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:

It 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.