The Most Ignored 3D Mario Game

when I say the words 3D Mario you probably have some thoughts along the lines [Music] of but rarely if ever do people hear 3D Mario and instantly go to Super Mario 3D Land is kind of a funny one because it's 3D Mario so by default it is royalty it sold 12 million copies except best for the system and with that it greatly aided in reversing the fate of the 3DS early on it has every reason to be remembered and it isn't every 3D Mario game ranked from worst to best Nintendo's Super Mario 3D Platformers are some of the best video games to date and here are all six so that's a red flag number six number five four 3 2 1 Super Mario Odyssey so where the [ __ ] for comparison sake Mario Galaxy 2 sold just over half of what 3 landed but in 2020 when it was announced what 3D Mario games were coming to the switch there were a bajillion people where's Mario Galaxy where's Mario nobody cared about Mario 3D Land it's the most discarded title I mean hell at least Mario Galaxy 2 was made available on Wii U even Mario 64 DS 3D Land is the only 3D Mario to never be re-released besides Odyssey like come on bro why isn't this game novelty for real for real where's the Nostalgia on God no cap PE the game today is largely forgotten and ignored for some reason whenever a discussion of 3D Mario takes place this one's just out of the question the people who do remember observe this phenomenon and there's been many theories which we will discuss so today I want to jump back into Mario 3D Land and determine whether or not it deserves the Legacy that time has stolen from it [Music] in late 2010 mamoto announced Nintendo was working on a 3D Mario title for their upcoming console the Nintendo 3DS because what better way to show off your system's power than by having it run a full 3D Mario they already did that but not only was this a brand new title by today's standards this is pretty damn insane not much was known about the title until that E3 2011 when Reggie took the stage Super Mario 3D boy you thought they were going back to stars and Overworld you idiot loser loser but actually reception was pretty decent for this game people were excited looks like Mario has done it again this is epic I want the game now I don't get it where's the gun they did not however feel the same excitement for this 3D Land hit the huge Road bump that was the 3DS that hit the huge Road bump bad sales and because this game was launching on a console a handheld console that was underperforming that leads us to the first reason that people constantly lose awareness of this game handheld bias yes I know total Shocker the stigma that portable games carry less value and integrity than console games this is such a stupid line of thinking that followed around so much of the 3DS library to the point where Nintendo said [ __ ] it now they're the same thing even today people still act like handheld entries in a series like Mario or Zelda just somehow don't count like if it's not in 3D is it really a true game thankfully and largely in part due to the switch this isn't a cultural norm as much as it used to be but some titles are just stuck here I wish people could look at 3D Land like they do links Awakening or Resident Evil Revelations but you you know before they got to home consoles anyway that was quite a rant we were talking about [Music] [Music] [Music] Mario I okay we go from Galaxy with its big serious opening about the Castle getting attacked on the night of the star Festival held every 100 years to Galaxy 2 which is pretty much the same thing in 2D and then this game which is two cut scenes of the same tree and a photo done in just 48 seconds I'm not saying the game needs more it it's just funny cuz you know exactly who's behind it I genuinely love how fast 3D Land gets you to the gameplay basically skipping over any tutorial or plot Foundation but I'd be lying if I said this counts towards the game being remembered by anyone cuz it's also non-existent first impressions are crucial to dragging an audience and even more important than the opening cut scene is the first level right we all remember our first time in bom Battlefield or Gusty garden galaxy or Bonnie Cascade Falls because that first taste is everything so 3D Land don't be shy let's see what you [Music] got let go no seriously why does everyone sleep on this game great design great music great snoo even fulfilling the tradition of showing off the new consoles capabilities the 3D I mean don't get me wrong 3D ultimately ended up being a gimmick Nintendo literally abandoned 3D not even halfway through its own generation but it's one of those things that most emulators or at least the footage you're watching now cannot do and only feels so much more perfect when you are playing it on a 3D console if you're playing it on a 2DS I don't want to be the one to tell you but you're a sucker I'll give it to to the circle pad it's a decent control scheme way better than this I've heard a lot of reports that Mario's movement is eight directional and I couldn't find anything official so that's either true and they do a very good job hiding it or false and they do a very bad job fighting it because Mario feels epic in this game he's precise he's tight whether you're running jumping climbing swimming bouncing the first level gives you a chance to try it all and by the later levels you realize they wouldn't have been able to get away with these courses if he controlled any worse but they can expect 3D to carry this whole game on its own right every other game has a central gimmick like flood or planetoids or capturing that actually changes the gameplay physically and not just visually all right so Tanuki Leaf no way tanuk Leaf doesn't come out for another 3 months never underestimate she grew me a moto the big PowerUp they teased alongside the game was the Tanuki Leaf a bit of a callback from Super Mario 3D Land to Super Mario Bros 3 which was the only other game it ever appeared in at the time and that's great in everything but it's just now it is incredibly helpful with just a little bit of Glide time to correct a landing if you need to but the bad news is you can't use it to fly which is fine cuz the levels would never give you the space to do that anyway speaking of the levels it's pretty tough to replicate what makes a 3D Mario level feel special but It ultimately comes down to detail and nonlinearity choosing an objective you get a title maybe a small movie and the rest is up to you your goal may be physically apparent but what you need to do is not which leads to complex but fun tasks platforming racing talking to folks a boss battle and so many secrets in fact I'm convinced that some people only remember these so well because of vague missions and hidden stuff that could take literally hours to figure out it's brute forced into memory but those elements of Discovery are what make it such a good time and then Mario Galaxy happened and the levels still had lots to them but really push larity in favor of more courses they became smaller and less multi-purpose but since there were so many the gameplay and objective in each varied a lot the game could pull out a special Galaxy just for racing or boss battles or whatever you call this since 3D Land also opts to use many small levels rather than a few massive ones this is where the 2D Mario and 3D aspect comes along the stages while still very enjoyable always have Direction and generally only one means of approach where the goal is always a flag pole yes the post game spices things up a bit but those are mostly rehash levels they even brought over the timer from 2D Mario like they're trying to make sure you don't spend any longer in a level than you need to which is kind of shitty when you want to do that fun exploring if I missed a star medal which I'll talk about in a sec I'd rather go back in the same level to find it but via timers and random cutoff points you aren't always able to do that the game would rather have you replay the entire level evidenced by the fact that when you get Luigi it's mandatory that you do it all over for 100% % now star medals which are the extras of this game there are three of these in each usually involving a puzzle or some risky Endeavor I got to be real with you they're boring as hell they're used to help progress the game and unlock hidden levels but a lot of them are just so stupid easy or outline that you'll never really need to go back and collect them just playing the game front to back this is when I began to notice the huge separation between 3D Land and the titles before it it's very difficult for this game to establish any atmosphere and if it does it's over so quick the worlds of 3D Mario are just that worlds they have unique features and set pieces that pertain to their own environment some even have NPCs because they're made to feel lived in why are there hour-long videos of Mario 64 Ambiance on YouTube cuz it's immersive as hell literally even 2D Mario has at least some kind of Overworld across varying terrain or biomes but for all the diversity 3D Land levels have the worlds themselves aren't really anything but a measure measurement for example most people will recall that this game has 16 worlds which is really cool but no context which one is this ah dog how can you not remember world five you know the one with the um the the the checkers and uh world seven the the one you know where Mario jumps the game has the most plain application of Mario assets that it feels almost like okay let's retitle the video and if you need evidence of just how much this type of thing can sway people then allow me to fast forward to the next part of the video Super Mario 3D just 2 years after 3D Land was its console sequel Mario 3D World this game is done in the exact same style where it's courses and flag Poes but with a big shakeup called four players and what a plot twist people love it could it be because the game actually uses a traversible Overworld to characterize the stages rather than a basic Cor select maybe it's because the stages have real names like they'd actually want to be talked about after the game is over like get this they'd want to be remembered and not just referred to as 24 63 L lle but the belief that 3D world is the superior experience is also a very big piece of why 3D Land's identity has faded it's a common belief that 3D world is not only the better game but overshadows 3D Land as if it's some sort of enhanced port or remake that renders the original useless and that well that that's a bunch of baloney but is 3D World actually the better game not always my goal here is not to completely tear down 3D world because 3D world is still a great game and it might even be a better game depending on who you are I know for me it's got a lot of great memories and I may sometimes love it more than 3D Land cuz in 2013 I was instantly Blown Away by the better graphics the redone soundtrack The multiplayer and the inclusion of a realized Overworld and when I think about the peak 2D Mario and 3D experience 3D World drained every single thing that I could have ever learned from 3D Land but upon finally replaying it years after I've realized that these are two very different games with two very different goals even if they're built within the same concept the main thing I found that sets back 3D world is the same thing people love about it multiplayer after all this is the key feature that prevented it from just being 3D Land 2 when you have four people it's lovable chaos and still to this day the only real four player 3D Mario even with two players the only one to put them on equal footing but as a result of Designing the game around this style of multiplayer the level design in 3D world is open and grounded it makes sense if there are four people by yourself It's oddly roomy and huge the camera is always so zoomed out I could quickly tell the difference when repl playing 3D Land because the levels are significantly more sharp reactive and willing to put Faith in the skill of the sole player the flip panels were one of my favorite mechanics to be introduced in this game because how small of time they offer you to run or jump and yet they did not return in 3D world because it would have made multiplayer miserable another example is of the beat block levels which originally come from Galaxy 2 in 3D Land There are three colors of beat blocks with more jumps placed in between but in 3D world there's only two colors and with a lot of solid bridge-like passes there are more examples of mechanics that have been ton down to accommodate multiplayer but the best examples will always be the last few special worlds in Mario 3D Land due to their brutal difficulty of course 3D World will have improved on a lot of 3D Land's faults it came 2 years later and as the console entry that also helped with the Wii U's failing status so it's common to accept and cheer it on as being the superior game if I have my buds around it is with the ultimate conclusion being that as a single player experience 3D Land is going to be the much more fast-paced and smooth game that most Mario enjoyers are looking to enjoy the 3D world has rosalenas so I mean the makeup of the game can be designed in a totally Bland way completely forfeiting its unique aesthetic identity it can be linear and have a timer to hurry you along discouraging exploration outside of some very easy bonuses in the process being not really as memorable but it can still be fun and challenging and try new things and 3D Lands levels do that but the bosses at the end of the first world we get treated to the first of many boss battles this one against Bowser and it happens to be an anchor point in the bad era of Bowser boss battles I like fighting Bowser I do not like Bowser as an obstacle we got over that after the first Mario game part of what makes 3D Mario so nice is that you are not just avoiding Bowser to press a button on the level but instead throwing down hand to hand minus the one time you confronted him in a Jacuzzi but from like new Super Mario Bros weish era to just before Odyssey every single Bowser fight was just running from him while you did the level it wasn't very exciting and it's it's actually why I like Mario 3D world's first boss more than the last plus that game has a whole extra slew of fun bosses 3D Lands bosses are just not it's the kids it's jumping on the head jumping on the switch they changed the floor more than they do the boss G voy why do people forget this and remember this just cancel the whole video the gritty gamer truth is that 3D land in Parts was just designed to be forgotten it has no real gimmick no deep atmosphere nothing worth keeping stored in your brain 5 seconds after it happens it's extremely plain and forgettable and worst of all it's safe yeah cuz if you haven't figured it out yet challenge is memorable subverting expectations of traditional gameplay is the bread and butter of the very company when it comes to 3D Land people all seem to collectively enjoy the second half of the game or the post game depending on what you want to call it where the harder levels are introduced dare I say the final level is one of the hardest in the series and therefore momentous but when I call this game safe I don't just mean in format I mean this game literally introduced The Gold Leaf losing a level five times gives you the ability to be mostly Invincible you become a white Tanuki and you are really only prone to Falls in one corner I support this because 3D Mario has always been about branching paths and not being forced to do levels sequentially that way if you're stuck literally go somewhere else since 3D Land puts you on a line and does exactly not that if you do get stuck this is Handy considering a lot of growing gamers are in the audience it also helps with accessibility but it kind of ruins the challenge if you are struggling knowing you can just trade five lives to have such a wide Advantage I think I'd rather just lose over and over again till I get it because call me crazy but the BS difficulty is what makes a game a collective shared experience it's why so many people talk about and remember the sandb bird from Mario sunshine or the ball level in Mario Galaxy kids these days will never know what it was like to hop in a canon in Mario 64 and just pray having an option to make something so easy is great because it's an option but it makes me want to be reasonable and use it so I stop wasting so much time in a video n maybe I am insane to put it firmly it's not about what Mario 3D Land is but what it isn't when you remember 3D Mario games you remember what it first felt like to control Mario in a full XYZ Dimension or you remember how it felt to take that same movement into space the atmosphere and story that came with it or maybe you remember the totally unbalanced levels of Mario Sunshine and how its tropical resort themed settings completely clash with its brutal difficulty or maybe the voice acting that's kind of rough these days but even stuff like that contributes to the game's personality they did something different introduced you to something warm took risks brought new systems and catered to imagination whether they tried to do that actively in gameplay or passively with plot music and atmosphere or maybe even both it doesn't matter as long as it's bold Mario 3D Lands biggest shakeup had to be borrowed from a game that came 20 years before it its gimmick is a gravestone of an early 2010's Trend its bosses are generic its environment is boring its plot is jpegs it's too afraid to make the player do hard work so it offers them a handicap and saves the actual difficult levels for the postgame and I still love it it's an extremely good time just maybe not one that leaves a lasting impression and I suppose the question on top of that is does it need to can a game be both fun and forgettable I think so I mean I play a bunch of Smash Bros matches and forget about them not even an hour later but I always come back to the game cuz it's fun and if given the chance I think fans of 3D Mario would have appreciated a return to 3D Land even more than they would have known its Legacy is going to be buried as the game that paved the way for 3D world but it's so much more than that a frisbee wooo n

Channel: voyan

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Keywords: super mario 3d land, 3ds gems, forgotten 3ds games, forgotten mario, mario 3d land, 3d land, mario 3d land retrospective, mario 3d land analysis, mario 3d land vs mario 3d world, 3d land vs 3d world, mario 3ds, mario 3d land switch, mario 3d all-stars, mario galaxy 2, mario odyssey, mario sunshine, mario 64, nsmbification, lol like that's gonna be a tag get real, mario retrospective, forgotten mario games, super mario 3ds, e3 2010, e3 2011, 3ds launch games, zumiez, hahaha

Id: Z6u1AL3u5WU

Length: 19min 9sec (1149 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 29 2024