A little less than a month ago I bought Super Mario 3D Land for the Nintendo 3DS. I hadn’t (and still haven’t) really finished my playing of Zelda: Majora’s Mask 3D yet but I felt like getting another game and rest from the Zelda world for a while. So I searched around for popular and critically acclaimed 3DS games and found Super Mario 3D Land.

I liked the idea of getting a Mario title since I’ve always loved the Mario games for the NES and SNES and I’ve spent an incredible amount of time and devotion to Super Mario Land on the GameBoy. (I do not, however, like Super Mario 64 very much.) It seemed like most players and critics agreed that ”3D Land” was a better game then New Super Mario Bros. and that it used the unique features of the 3DS better.

So far I like it a lot! The levels are fun, and early on in the game they’re very easy which helped me getting into the groove. Now, as I’ve made it into the Special Worlds, the difficulty has risen quite a bit but since I’ve come this far I will not give up, even if it sometimes frustrates me to fail the same jump over and over.

Super Mario 3D Land uses the 3D effect of the 3DS in a very interesting way. The game is sort of a hybrid between a ”traditional” 2D platform Mario game and a 3D game like Mario 64. Sometimes depth-perception is really important to making a particular jump or clearing an entire course.

If you own a 3DS and like Mario games you should definitely buy Super Mario 3D Land. If you feel like it’s too easy in the beginning, stick with it! You’ll get your skills challenged as the game progresses.