NYCC 2013: Super Mario 3D World

For four days, people came to the Javits Center in New York City to experience one of the largest conventions on the east coast: New York Comic Con 2013!  Fans of comics, movies, television shows, and toys came together to revel in their hobbies, and with them came video game companies to show off their wares for the upcoming holiday season and beyond.  We here at 3RM attended a few of those days, and we have impressions and video to provide from our experience!

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Alex:
Nintendo had a large booth at this year's New York Comic Con, full of games already out and what is about to release.  Of the games shown, the game with the biggest presence was their next major release on the Wii U, Super Mario 3D World.  I already had the chance to play this particular demo back in June, but having a second time to try the game out, my interest in it has only grown.

Super Mario 3D World is the console sequel to 2011's Super Mario 3D Land for the Nintendo 3DS.  In this game, Mario, Luigi, Princess Peach, and Toad encounter a pipe into the Sprixie Kingdom, but it turns out that Bowser has already invaded the kingdom and kidnapped its princesses!  Now it is up to all four from the Mushroom Kingdom to save another kingdom from the mighty King of Koopas himself.

Super Mario 3D World is a 3D platforming adventure that combines elements from older Mario games such as Super Mario Brothers 3 and newer games such as Super Mario Galaxy.  The point of each stage is to reach the flagpole at the end of each level, but to get there, players have to venture across a number of obstacles and defeat a number of enemies in the way.  What makes 3D World so unique is that, unlike its predecessor, it allows for up to four players to cooperate together at the same time in-game, similar to the side-scrolling cooperative play in the New Super Mario Brothers series.  However, each character has their own different abilities that make them stand out.  Mario is all-around good, Luigi jumps higher, Peach hovers in mid-air, and Toad can dash the fastest.  When playing single-player, this allows for strategic character choices, but when multiplayer is involved, cooperation becomes even more paramount to ensure everyone makes it through unscathed.

When I first played the game in June, I was left with concerns with cooperative play, as I was continually left behind while other players took initiative, dashing forward without any concern to explore or let other people catch up.  Thankfully, this time I had a bit more control in where the group traveled, and with only three team members in my playtime, there was a little less action to distract and confuse.  As everyone kept exploring and playing around with the game mechanics, there was less catching up and, with that, more time to experience and enjoy the level design.  The issue of cooperation versus competition will always be present when it comes to this game, but hopefully when I get to play the final version, that will not be too much of an problem.

The demo I played introduced the newest power-up to the Mario franchise (and the most noteworthy addition to the game mechanics): Cat Power-Ups.  As a cat, the heroes can dash quickly on all-fours, perform pouncing attacks, and climb up walls with relative ease.  In the demo, everyone in my team of three got to try out this power up, and it is quite entertaining to use.  Suddenly walls were no match for Cat Mario, and slashing and diving at enemies felt just that much more precise, although attacking the enemies with a simple jump sufficed, too.  It was great to explore the world in a way not done before, and that makes me wonder just what secrets they could hide in this game, accessible only to a bit of feline-powered research.

Graphically, the game looks pretty much like a high definition version of Super Mario 3D Land.  The models are more akin to Super Mario Galaxy with a touch more smoothing in the models.  The animations were smooth and fast to fit the pace of the gameplay, and the environments were colorful and bright.  The textures could have been a little higher resolution, but the game did not look bad by any stretch.  On the GamePad, the game looked just as fine, so off-TV play for single-player should not be a problem.

Super Mario 3D World felt as quick and fun as its predecessor, but the addition of HD graphics, multiplayer cooperative play, and the cat power up give promise that the game could end up even better than its 3DS counterpart.  Super Mario 3D World releases later this month exclusively on the Wii U.

NYCC 2011: Super Mario 3D Land

Our adventure into this year's New York Comic Con was not exactly as peachy as we would have liked, but when is a convention not stressful? We were only able to attend the Thursday and Friday events for both economical and physical reasons, but we got a handful of videos and impressions to make for you all.

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Mario is a character who is recognized greatly, regardless of the dimension of game he is in, whether 2D or 3D. Well, his upcoming adventure, Super Mario 3D Land, looks to try and combine the level elements of 2D Mario games while melding in a unique control and graphical element portrayed by his 3D adventures. This game also brings about a unique situation for our powerful plumber: this time Bowser has his Princess AND his power-ups!

Small Mario? Time Limits? This is sounding like old-school Mario to me!

From my short playtime at this year's New York Comic Con, this adventure felt pretty good, although I initially had a couple qualms about the controls. I got to play the underground stage and Boom Boom Airship levels out of the four available levels.

Graphically, Super Mario 3D Land is astonishing. The game looks like a Wii game, partly like the Super Mario Galaxy adventures. There is a solid framerate, and while it has no bloom effects and the like, the game moves fluidly and is top-tier for the handheld, thus far. As for the 3D depth, it can get extremely intense, and when I got into the sweet spot, 3D Land looked like I was looking into a small block world, with Mario inside it. On occasion, though, the camera felt a little too close to Mario; it should have panned out a little, in my opinion. The 3D effect really helped the platforming, regardless; with it off, making jumps felt harder for me to accomplish.

The music is close to some music from Super Mario Galaxy, with new instruments here and there. The game lacks orchestration, but the tunes are basic Mario tunes through and through. This game will not win any awards for its music this time around, though. It will be an acceptable Mario soundtrack, at best, from what I have heard thus far.

The depth helps, especially when it comes to the inevitably difficult areas ahead.

As for the actual gameplay elements, the game controls much like Galaxy, except you have to use the run button to move fast and can only move in eight directions. These might have been to make the game closer to old-school Mario platformers, but movement still feels a bit odd considering the analog input. I especially had trouble doing a backflip; I had performed something like it once and was unable to do it anymore, despite many attempts afterward. Hopefully the controls become less of a problem the more you play it.

Throughout my little excursion, I got the fire flower and leaf powerups, the latter of which even the enemies make use! This game felt like it was pulling a lot from the older games, so much that I feel this game is more like a 3D Super Mario Bros. 3 rather than a new Super Mario Galaxy. Instead of the stars, we see flagpoles. Instead of star bits, there are lots of ? blocks to hit with Mario's iron fist. Oh, yes, this is old-school Mario in 3D. The more I played it, the more I wanted to keep playing it.

Yeah, he's probably not going to get that 1UP.

From the few levels I played, the game is certainly another good Mario game, but whether it sits among the near-perfect Wii adventures will have to wait until I get my hands on the full version. Here's a clip of Super Mario 3D Land, filmed by Jennifer Ivins from FantasyFaction.com.

Super Mario 3D Land emerges November 13th.