After playing only as Mario through the first three worlds of Super Mario 3D World, I decided to try out the other characters in World 4. I started out World 4-1 as Luigi.
Luigi has the ability to jump higher than Mario, but that makes him have a bit of a floaty feel that I don’t particularly care for. I’ve never been fond of playing as Luigi in Mario games for that reason. After one level of that, I switched to Princess Peach for World 4-2.
Peach has the ability to briefly hover in mid-air, much like she did in Super Mario Bros. 2. I found this to be very helpful, especially in levels that involve a lot of platform-hopping. Unlike Luigi’s jump, this feels easier to control. I stuck with the Princess for most of World 4. Her hover jump is a life-saver in World 4-3: Beep Block Skyway, where blocks appear and disappear at regular intervals. When pink blocks disappear, blue blocks appear, and vice versa.
I then gave Toad a try for World 4-5: Spike’s Lost City. Toad moves around quick, but he doesn’t jump very high at all. He might be okay for relatively flat levels, but you don’t want to use him for levels that have a lot of jumping.
After that, I switched back to Peach for the rest of World 4. Going forward, I think I’m only going to be using Mario and Peach for the rest of the game. World 4 was fun, but it wasn’t quite the ball of excitement that World 3 was. It also wasn’t very challenging at all. But next time, I’ll head into World 5, which appears to be a water level. See you then!