Ok, so Nintendo. There are things that I enjoy, and there are things that I hate.

This is not going to be a review of Super Mario 3D Land. The Main Page already did that, and did it well. This is going to talk about something that is annoying me!!!

Taking a classic game like Super Mario 3, Mario Galaxy, Super Mario Land, New Super Mario Land, and combining them all = LOVE. Taking away specific abilities that Mario used to have when navigating these fantastic games = FRUSTRATION.

Picking up this new Mario game last night (damn Nintendo releasing on Sundays and Amazon not being able to offer release date delivery), and I was like a little kid on Christmas. My 3DS has been dying for a NEW game to play. See, I say new, because the last 2 games I played were 3D rehashes. (I'm looking at you Zelda and Star Fox). Now those were great, but this isn't what this is about!

I quickly (or as quickly as I could) peeled...peeled...ripped...grabbed...TORE the plastic off my shiny new white 3DS case (why isn't this red???) and ripped open my case. Grabbed my game, jammed it into my 3DS and hit the power button. Then I hit the power button. Then I hit the power button, IT TURNS ON!. Anyone else notice that? Maybe I'm just dumb. So I boot up my 3DS and go to play NEW MARIO!!!!!!!! System update. Okay. I log into club.nintendo.com and add my PIN and say how much I love Mario and get some coins. Still updating my system. So I order myself that pair of Mario Shoelaces with my coins HORRAY!. System restarts and I can play Mario!

Close my case and put it away with all my other cases, who needs to read an instruction booklet, IT'S MARIO! We all know how he walks, runs, jumps, double jumps, triple jumps, butt-stomps, backflips, somersaults, long jumps, wall jumps, ducks, crawls, swings his new TANOOKI TAILS. But wait. If you read that list you would realize just as quickly as I did... NOT ALL OF THOSE THINGS EXIST. Now WHY NOT?!?! This is what has been annoying me the most about this new Mario game. I CAN'T BACKFLIP OR DOUBLE/TRIPLE JUMP!!!!!!!! These things were CRUCIAL to navigating any other Mario game. Now I understand not allowing EVERYTHING that there used to be. For example, Tanooki now floats instead of flies, and you can't become an awesome indestructable statue (but we all knew this before the game came out). But to not allow a backflip??? I mean come on!!! I push L and Mario ducks. Then I hit jump... and he doesn't backflip. This is SOOO AGGREVATING.


Good-Bye Old Friend...

You know what else sucks? His wall-jumping abilities. Sure it's still a piece of cake to do. But unless you are MEANT to wall-jump in a specific spot (you can tell because there are walls close on each side of you), then it's really useless. What happened to the Mario we love? Where you can get to a destination 1 of 5 ways. You can go the way you are supposed to, or you can run away from a wall, do a somersault, wall-jump, hold a direction, wall-jump again, and then make it to the top. This Mario can wall-jump, and hold the direction, but he goes to the same spot you started with. You can't even save yourself if you miss a jump and are falling towards lava. I used to wall-jump myself to safety constantly when I was rushing through stages. This became SUPER noticeable when I was in World 1, and I tried to wall jump between 2 thwomps. I knew there was a 1-up up there, my Mario playing gut was telling me to climb that wall. I didn't want to go BEHIND the 2nd thwomp and wall-jump there, that's not my style. I wanted to wall-jump from one thwomp to another thwomp and back while they rose and fell, because that is MORE FUN. But I couldn't. They just stayed in the air, and I just jumped back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, never gaining any height.

So yes. Mario, I love you. Super Mario 3D Land, I love you. But you ARE SO ANNOYING SOMETIMES. Maybe I can overlook your flaws as I play you some more, but right now, I'm going to miss your old abilities. Why would Nintendo try to take the best of all these games, but take out functionality? It's not like there are missing buttons, he can do this stuff, they just chose not to let him.

So Back-flip, double-jump, I will miss you. Please come back soon.

p.s. Anyone else find the fact that he does a little fancy footwork before running kind of annoying? You need to actually have a running start in this game to do certain jumps.

p.p.s. I don't have my fancy graphic design programs on this computer, so I can't make fun little images to go with my CBlogs right now. Maybe when I'm at home and writing them I can make them more eye-pleasing. For now, bare with my wall-of-text rantings.