Jeff's Gaming Blog

I resumed playing Super Mario 3D World in World 6, the cloud world. It starts off with World 6-1: Clear Pipe Cruise. The level has a lot of clear pipes which you must navigate through. Often, there will be enemies moving through the pipes also, so you’ll have to make sure your timing is good. The level is a bit easy and plain, but it’s not a bad start to the world.

Things get more exciting in World 6-2: Spooky Seasick Wreck. The level takes place on a haunted airship that constantly sways from side to side. Part of the level takes place inside the ship. where there are some flooded cabins and some ghosts. But most of the action takes place on the outside of the ship, where “bullies” will charge at you and try to knock you off the ship. You’ll have to give them a taste of their own medicine.

World 6-4: Deep Jungle Drift is one of those levels where you’re on a log raft that flows through the poisonous waters of the jungle. The raft keeps moving constantly, so you can’t be too slow overcoming the obstacles in the stage or else you’ll be left behind. I found myself switching the camera angle a lot in this level. Some parts are easier with the side view, but you don’t get to see what’s coming up next if you use it for too long. This was not one of my favorite levels.

World 6-5: Ty-Foo Flurries has some ice-skating areas where you can again stomp a Goomba to take its ice skate. I like to call it Kuribo’s ice skate. Using those things is just pure fun, although there’s only a (relatively) small area of ice to use it on. But the “star” of this level has to be the enemy known as Ty-Foo. These overgrown clouds with sinister eyes and soft-serve heads will blow strong gusts of wind. They can easily blow you off of whatever platform you were standing on, so you have to be extremely careful around these airheads.

In World 6-6: Bullet Bill Base, you’ll be climbing a tower as Bullet Bills shoot out from almost everywhere you look. There are floating clouds and other platforms you can use to climb up, but the cat suit (with its climbing ability) is particularly helpful here.

World 6-7: Fuzzy Time Mine has you rushing up through a mine shaft as a horde of fuzzies chases after you. The scrolling is forced, which emphasizes the need to hurry your butt up.

After a regular boss fight in World 6-Tank, there’s another boss fight looming in World 6-C. This time you’re fighting Motley Bossblob, a court jester who becomes huge before breaking into dozens of blobs of liquid metal.

Overall, World 6 was enjoyable, but it wasn’t my favorite world. Next time, I’ll be heading off to the seventh world, which is actually called World Castle instead of World 7. It looks to be a hot and fiery place.

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I got back to playing some Super Mario 3D World, and I resumed my game at World 5. This world starts off with a tropical beach level called Sunshine Seaside. For some reason, a bunch of Chargin’ Chucks are in a huddle in front of a Bowser sand sculpture. Fortunately, I found a cool boomerang suit to help me fight them.

After collecting five key icons, I was able to open up the way to the second part of the level. Here, you ride Plessie the dinosaur down a thin strip of water seemingly hovering in space. There are some enemies to avoid and obstacles to overcome, but Plessie’s ability to jump is very helpful. World 5-1 is a fun level and an impressive start to the world.

World 5-Toad is another of the puzzle-oriented levels in which you must play as Toad. Toad can’t jump in these levels, so you have to use ramps and doorways to ascend the structure as you seek five green stars. There are also some blocks that can function as elevators by using the touch screen on the Wii U gamepad. These levels are a nice change of pace and they’re pretty fun.

World 5-2: Tricky Trapeze Theater is the most challenging level in this world. It definitely lives up to its name, as you must jump from tilting platforms (with spiky traps that roll from end to end) as well as swinging trapezes. I lost a number of lives in this stage. It is a colorful and visually appealing level, however.

In World 5-4: Sprawling Savanna, you are shot through a series of cannons up a tall structure (Donkey Kong Country style) and then to a floating island of sorts. The island appears to be small at first, but as you fly through the air towards it, you find that it’s actually huge. There aren’t many enemies here, so it’s fun to just run around in a cat suit or tanooki suit. There some bunny rabbits to catch, so I had fun chasing them down.

World 5-6: Cakewalk Flip is another interesting level. There are outlines showing where red and blue squares are, but only one color will be solid at a time. Every time Mario jumps, the squares flip over from red to blue or vice versa. There may be piranha plants on the underside of squares that you don’t see until you jump to flip them over. It reminds me a bit of the blocks in World 4-3: Beep Block Skyway, but those were on a timer. Here, you can control the flipping yourself by planning your jumps carefully. It’s actually not as difficult as it sounds, fortunately.

I found a bonus level where there was a train of solid gold, just littered with coins. But the scrolling is forced and I didn’t hop on the train quick enough, so I barely caught a glimpse of the stunning train. I just hope I’ll have another chance to find a similar bonus level later in the game, because I definitely wasted my opportunity this time.

World 5 is quite an enjoyable collection of levels, and it’s one of my favorite worlds so far. But that’s all I have for this time. Next time, I’ll be heading off to World 6, which appears to be a sky/cloud world.

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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!