Many other reviews I saw for this game before getting to play it were hailing it as the best Mario game for a long time and the best Wii U game and the reson to own a Wii U. And being a long time fan of the core Nintendo games, especially Mario ones, I was quite understandably quite excited to get playing this one for myself on my shiny new Wii U console. So when I got this game as a gift, I was very excited to get into it.
And I was not disappointed. From start to finish, this game was pure enjoyment and made me feel like I was a kid again experienceing the pure joy of Mario platformers. It's pure old-school action just like Mario Galaxy, Mario 64 or Mario 3D Land. But where 3D Land was very vertical to make good use of the 3D, 3D World is much more horizontal to give huge spread out levels that can take full advantages of the Wii U's power now that we can finally see Mario and friends in proper 3D.
Many old power ups turn up like the fire flower, ice flower, giant Mario and boomerang Mario. But as always, there are some new ones to mix in. The main new ones are multiple Marios. Collecting cherries will make clones of Mario and you can end up having several of them all running around the screen at once. They all respond to your controls in the same way so getting them all to line up and behave at once. The other main new power is the widely publicised Cat Mario where you don a cat suit. This give you the ability to do scratch attacks, lung attacks, float in the air and most importantly, run up vertical surfaces using your claws. This greatly expands the areas that you can reach and really adds a lot to each level giving you lots of new ways to attack challenges and power through levels. I found this cat power up to be far and away my favourite power up in the whole game, but it does tend to make most things a lot easier and sadly, the power up was very scarce in the later portions of the game probably for that exact reason. Cat Mario can also ascend the flagpole at the end of each level always netting you a 1-UP which is a good bonus if you can hang on to it.
The layout of the game is a familiar map world system which has been in most Mario games since Super Mario Bros. 3. However in this one, instead of just being routes that you follow, you are free to walk all over the map and explore. It doesn't add a lot because you still have to go to the levels in the end, but there are small hidden bonuses hidden around world maps that you can find if you explore. There are the usual mix of normal levels, ghost houses, castles, toad houses and moving tank/train levels a la Super Mario Bros. 3's tank levels. There is one new addition to the level type though in the form of the Captain Toad levels. In these, you take command of Captain toad and must walk around 3D isometric cube levels to find stars. As Captain Toad, you cannot jump, so you must use the layout of the terrain and viewpoints to navigate around. These are very different to the normal platforming action and are much more puzzle based, but are a lot of fun nonetheless and I think Nintendo could easily make a whole new game out of these kind of levels.
The mighty Captain Toad in action
There are also a number of other variety and themed levels including ones where you ride a giant dinosaur down a flume, a Mario Kart themed level where you run across booster pads to go at the speed of a kart, theme park levels and many many more. Up to 4 players are also supported through various multitudes of controllers. I have yet to experience this madness myself, but it looks like a lot of fun.
I could go on and on about how great this game is, but I'm sure you get the point by now. I can scarcely think of one negative thing about this game and needless to say, if you own a Wii U and haven't played it, go get it and play it. And if you don't have a Wii U, go get one and this game and play it. Now.
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