Sandwiched between the sublime planet hopping of Super Mario Galaxy and the absurdist delights of Super Mario Odyssey, Mario’s Wii U outings are very much the black sheep – or perhaps more appropriately, the colourful cats – of the franchise. They’re getting another shot, however. First, New Super Mario Bros. U returned in a deluxe 2019 re-release, and now it’s Super Mario 3D World’s turn. And better still, the already decent-sized Wii U adventure is bolstered by an entirely new outing: Bowser’s Fury.
Both parts of the package certainly have their moments – and Bowser’s Fury in particular has a pretty interesting central hook – but by the time I was finished I still had an itch that Mario’s cat suit didn’t quite scratch.
The Spice of Life
Back in 2013, IGN’s reviewer praised Super Mario 3D World for being a joy to play, both in single player and with friends. Many of the points made in that review very much still stand, in particular the entertainment value from the fact that each level is typically built around a unique gameplay twist.
Much like the Galaxy games, this has allowed Nintendo’s designers to flit nimbly from idea to idea. In one level platforms appear and disappear in time to music. In another, players use the gyro functionality to activate blocks themselves. There are levels with all sorts of fun concepts – playing in silhouette, walking on invisible tiles, steering through mazes of Futurama-style pipes, and navigating paths with panels that flip each time you jump. There’s even a level that pays homage to Super Mario Kart, complete with music straight from the SNES classic.[poilib element="quoteBox" parameters="excerpt=Nintendo%E2%80%99s%20designers%20flit%20nimbly%20from%20idea%20to%20idea...%20There%E2%80%99s%20even%20a%20level%20that%20pays%20homage%20to%20Super%20Mario%20Kart%2C%20complete%20with%20music%20straight%20from%20the%20SNES%20classic."]
Power-ups add to the variety, giving Mario a cannon on his head, or allowing him to be cloned and tasking players with wrangling several of the portly plumber at once. Levels generally contain standalone micro-challenges too – short, single room set pieces that are one and done. And as is so often the way, Super Mario 3D World’s true scope - its full set of Worlds - doesn’t become apparent until well after you’ve “beaten” the game.
The visual design is also still a highlight. The environments are wonderfully vibrant, from the way shrubs and flowers bop along to the jaunty melodies that are apparently piped into each area, through to the impressive amount of variety between worlds. The suite of cat suit animations are also just so lovingly composed. Mario doesn’t need to wiggle his bum before he pounces, for instance, but the move is so much the better for that small detail, and that's just one of many.
Schrödinger's Cat
That said, playing Super Mario 3D World again now, the gameplay actually feels like a bit of an awkward fit for the presentation. Levels are viewed from fixed perspectives (that can often be shifted left or right) and generally have limited depth, giving you a path to follow but only so much room to move within it. This has a few unfortunate knock-on effects.
Despite sharing some design principles with Super Mario Galaxy, for instance, 3D World feels a lot more staid. Of course, there’s a pretty big difference between Mario running all the way around planetoids and the levels here, in which he’s basically trapped in a set perspective diorama, but 3D World’s presentation means that even transitions lack the dynamism and excitement that naturally come hand in hand with galaxy-hopping. To get from one playspace to another in the Galaxy games, for instance, you literally rocket off the surface of the world you’re on and zoom through space, spinning and twirling and collecting Star Bits as you go. In 3D World you, erm, go into a box… and then come out of a box in a different place. At best you fly slowly through a glass pipe. It just doesn't feel as effervescent as Mario's most freewheeling outings.
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Of course, the designers have tried to think outside the presentational box in a few different ways. The introduction of the cat suit is perhaps the most notable, as it lets players scale walls, reinventing the playspace and revealing secrets or unseen paths that were previously out of sight. Heck, you can even run right up the flagpole at the end of each course. It’s a liberating inclusion, expanding your possibilities in ways that throwing fireballs and boomerangs or swiping enemies with your tanooki tail doesn’t. Other power-ups also transform traversal, whether you’re soaring up into the sky using a Propeller Box or stomping through the scenery after chomping down on a Mega Mushroom.
Even so, I just don’t enjoy Super Mario 3D World’s gameplay as much as other entries in the series, and I think that has a lot to do with this game’s heritage. The foundation of this design was born in Super Mario 3D Land for 3DS, after all, and in that context it excelled. The constrained scope of levels suited handheld play and the limits of the hardware well, while the set perspective and movement restrictions gave Nintendo’s designers the perfect diorama-like design to showcase the system’s 3D screen. It worked wonderfully.
On console, it’s a rather different story. Without the depth perception enabled by a 3D screen, the forced viewpoint makes spatial awareness harder to judge than it would be in a purely 2D design or in a 3D game with full camera control. As such, 3D World doesn’t feel as intuitively precise as other Mario games.
Co-Op Catfight
This feeling is compounded when you throw additional players into the mix. Yes, just like the New Super Mario Bros. games for Wii, Wii U, and Switch, up to four people can quest together – in this case choosing from Mario, Luigi, Princess Peach, Toad and eventually, Rosalina. The result is chaotic and fun, but also haphazard; some levels and challenges simply don’t work that well with four people running around in them.
Multiplayer is a mixed bag in other ways, too. The core of the experience is meant to be a push and pull between cooperation and competition. On one hand you’re working together to get to the end of the stage but, on the other, you’re also fighting to get the most points and win the crown… that you then get to wear in the next level. This tension can be fantastic – one minute I’d leave a power-up for a friend to help them out, the next I’d pick them up and try to toss them off the map.[poilib element="quoteBox" parameters="excerpt=Multiplayer%20is%20chaotic%20and%20fun%2C%20but%20also%20haphazard%3B%20some%20levels%20and%20challenges%20simply%20don%E2%80%99t%20work%20that%20well%20with%20four%20people%20running%20around%20in%20them."]
One of the places where it fails, however, is when the shared pool of lives runs out and prematurely ends the fun. Why have lives at all? As long as one player remains on solid ground then why can’t we keep trying to bumble our way through a level? That would suit the random, anarchic-feeling gameplay a whole lot more, and it would also mean that less experienced players aren’t punishing the whole team if they die over and over.
The differences between playable characters is more of a negative than a positive, too. It’s rare that you’d want to use Toad, for instance, who is fast but can't jump very high. Luigi, too, can be tricky if there’s a lot going on, as you need to judge both his larger jump and the fact that he skids to a stop. Rosalina, on the other hand, is just broadly better. Not only does she have a spin attack out of the gate, but she can basically double jump. Yes, she’s the slowest and yes, she’s the only character to lose her core abilities when she’s wearing a suit, but still, she’s always the first draft pick.
The solution to this would be to simply let multiple people use the same character and then put them in different colours, but that’s not an option. Of course, the deeper solution is to have levels designed specifically for multiplayer outside the main storyline. That’s perhaps too much to ask for a re-release like this, but it’s disappointing no improvements were made at all. Even the scoring system, in which whoever gets to the top of the flagpole basically insta-wins, is unchanged.
Instead, the main change to multiplayer is the introduction of online play, which I wasn’t able to test ahead of release. And to be honest, if I was going to play this again with other people, I’d want to be in the same room, anyway.
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Nein, Lives
Playing with friends is still fun for a change of pace, but 3D World’s levels feel much more appropriate for one – or possibly two – players. I mostly played it solo and for the most part stuck with Ol’ Reliable, Mario, then Rosalina once I’d unlocked her. There isn’t a great deal of impetus to use the other characters beyond curiosity and obtaining the occasional character-specific stamp.