As usual, I feel the need to note that I rate on a system where 5 is average, not 7 or anything stupid like that. (Random math-nerd fact: if you take Elfscores as a fraction out of 10, and square root them, you get a score which is roughly how I'd probably score them if I rated using gaming journalism's stupid scale. The more you know.)
15. Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels (NES, Nintendo, 1986)
I'm a big Mario fan, but I'd never gotten around to finishing this one, despite first playing it over 20 years ago. There's a reason for that: the game is one of the laziest, most unpolished sequels I've ever seen. I'd always known this, but playing it years later as an adult confirmed it. It recycles everything from 100% of the soundtrack to "the princess is in another castle" messages.
The original Super Mario Bros. is a classic, of course, and a very important game, but it was one with flaws, such as dated physics and a bunch of glitches, and Lost Levels fixes none of this, and actually makes several of the bugs more relevant, like the limitation of one "item" on-screen at once, or the fact that you can go past the flagpole and have to wait until you die due to a time-out. The less professional feel coupled with the near total lack of actual new content besides the stages themselves makes this feel more like a romhack than a professionally-developped game.
It's not all bad, mind, since the game does have some pretty cool stage design at points (although it unfortunately brings back maze stages, which were never SMB1's finest feature), and the decision to greatly increase Mario's bounce height after jumping off an enemy is a good one which became a permanent series fixture for a reason. The game does have a few other new features, which vary from pointless/stupid (poison mushrooms, and springboards which send you several screen heights high) to kinda interesting/terrifying (wind, mobile hammer brothers). But really, most of the game's redeeming features come from the fact that SMB1 is, at its core, a good game to crib off of, and if you're like me and enjoy challenge, well, this is certainly the hardest game in the series. So there's that.
At the end of the day the game is an interesting experiment with what a game sequel could be, but a failed one.
Rating: 3/10
14. The Legend of Legacy (Nintendo 3DS, Furyu, 2015)
It's a game pretty obviously trying to recapture the magic Saga Frontier, and other games of that type. However, it turns out that Saga Frontier was always very close to being a mediocre game; it had just enough good points to offset its flaws and stand as an intriguing experience. Legend of Legacy isn't as intriguing, and isn't as good.
It's got a decent enough turn-based battle system, if you're into those. (I generally am.) It's pretty standard stuff except there's this whole mechanic of elemental control (you need to control an elemeent to cast spells of it) and an elemental field which the game doesn't explain that well but is neat once you figure out how it works. Unfortunately there aren't really many great battle designs to go with this neat idea, and in all other ways the battle system feels like a step down from Saga Frontier: there are only three party members, they're all "humans" (in the Saga sense; design-wise one is a talking frog so that's a bonus), the stat growth system is less interesting, and the game paces your learning of abilities rather poorly... in particular, the section of the game where you have nothing but basic attacks is too long, and super-boring.
As for writing, well, the game barely has it. I learned reading up on the game that I had chosen the main character who results in the largest amount of writing. There's a laughably small amount of it overall though, which leads to the game being pretty boring, since the game tries to survive on gameplay alone and isn't really capable of doing so. Games which try to make lore stand in a vacuum never work for me, I totally failed to care about the final boss (literally the only named boss you ever fight) and that's not good.
Oh yeah and the game is too long. Seems odd to say about a 25-hour RPG, but when you've got no plot and the point of comparison is a fast-paced game with seven separate 5-10 hour plotlines, it's true.
That battle system is (kinda) interesting though. And it actually creates new content and has some new ideas, so that's good enough to avoid being ranked last this year.
Rating: 3/10
13. DuckTales: Remastered (Xbox 360, Capcom/WayForward, 2013)
You could replace this game with the Moon theme on loop, and I'd probably still rate it above the previous two games. Now there's a piece of music which totally lived up to the hype, good stuff.
Past that it's a recreation of the NES platformer, which I haven't played (and thus won't comment on further). It's a lot like Mega Man, in that you can choose the order you do the stages in... but there's no weapons gained between them so this is pretty pointless. Actually, in general, "a lot like Mega Man, but with weapons stripped out" isn't a bad description for this game, despite the differences in combat. Unfortunately ripping out the heart of Mega Man doesn't really result in a particularly compelling game.
It's still a decent one though. The game does pretty well by its pogo mechanic, which does sometimes make for some interesting platforming choices. (Though since it renders you completely invincible to spikes and anything else you jump on, there are also times where it feels like it trivialises things... not always, though.) And the boss design is generally pretty good. Not up to the standards of the best Mega Man games, but worth the price of admission, certainly.
Oh yeah and the writing is great. I haven't watched DuckTales in over two decades so the game wasn't really capable of coasting on nostalgia for me, but it was fun. Scrooge in particular is a great character, a lovable old curmudgeon, and he makes every scene better. (Also his voice actor is 93 freaking years old, badass.) The game ends up playing out like a (thoroughly enjoyable) episode of a cartoon, and there are worse places to take video game writing, especially for a quick and fluffy game like this one.
Rating: 5.5/10
12. Pokémon Alpha Sapphire (Nintendo 3DS, Nintendo/Game Freak, 2014)
My two favourite Pokémon games are Emerald (which this game is to some extent a remake of) and X/Y (which this game shares mechanics with). So I really expected to like this game more than I did. Instead it ends up a pretty average game in the series, which is a bit of a disappointment.
The short explanation I have for this is that somehow this game inherited its boss quality from X/Y (or perhaps the games it is actually a remake of, Ruby/Sapphire, though I haven't played those) and its random trainer quality from Emerald, which is the exact reverse of what the game should have done. As such the game generally failed to engage me in battles outside a select few. And that's with running a full team and turning off the Exp Share, for the record!
Is the game still fun? Well, yeah. Pokémon is inherently a great formula; it doesn't actually need challenge to be enjoyable (though it's a help). The battle system is still pretty cool and does periodically throw out some interesting fights to navigate through. Raising pokemon and choosing their movesets remains enjoyable, and I do like the infinite-use TMs. The game doesn't do anything overtly wrong, either, compared to some games in the series; the game isn't bogged down by sluggishness like Diamond/Pearl, nor does it have a lengthy arc of badly underlevelled foes like Heart Gold/Soul Silver.
It's a decent pokemon game, with all the strengths and weaknesses that entails, but I was hoping for a bit more.
Rating: 6/10
11. Code Name: S.T.E.A.M. (Nintendo 3DS, Nintendo/Intelligent Systems, 2015)
It's XCOM made by the Fire Emblem team which is somehow less like Fire Emblem than XCOM is at base. That's how I chose to sum up the game when I first played it, and nothing has really happened to change my assessment.
It takes after XCOM in that it's a strategy game in which you command a small squad against aliens, who act alternatingly in a phase-based system. In both systems, overwatch counters are a big deal (can't say I'm really a huge fan in either system, incidentally). The biggest difference is that in STEAM, your information is limited by what your characters can see in a rather direct way: you can swap between them for viewpoints, but you can only see what they can see (using a third-person shooter camera). The result is a game where you feel out knowledge of maps and enemy placements just as your characters would, which is kinda neat. You can take back movements until you either attack or you trigger an enemy overwatch attack. And finally, everything you do: your movements, your attacks, your overwatch counters - are all tied into a stamina-like "steam" mechanic, where you regenerate a certain amount at the start of the round.
Like many games of its type (in particular, XCOM and FE themselves) it's a bit vulnerable to being cheesed out by going "too slowly", although the game does provide some extrinsic incentives for completing maps more quickly and some maps outright force it, so there's that.
There's a lot to like about the game: its PC cast is diverse (you choose four, there's no levelling system for them to get underlevelled), as are its map ideas. The game makes it possible to replay maps aiming for metrics such as speed, survival, and getting all the collectables. Honestly I feel that with all the game has going for it, I should probably like it more than I do.
The game does have some weaknesses, certainly. Its campy story about random fictional figures led by Abraham Lincoln in a crazy steampunk setting feels like it should work better than it does; it's not really humourous enough to pull off what it's going for, and its serious plot (which is sometimes taken just a bit too seriously) is pretty bad, and not really in an amusing way. For such a gameplay-focused game this isn't the end of the world, but still disappointing.
And the game does feel a bit shaky on polish issues; the system of enemy sight lines often fails to make much sense, you get no clues about a map before you have to choose your team, things like that. The system of limited shots of multitarget revival feels like a band-aid for tricky maps and an unsatisfying one. For reasons like this I feel like I enjoyed the game less than I should. I want to replay it, to get more out of its map design and its PC diversity, but I can't really muster up the willpower to do so.
Rating: 6.5/10
10. Celestian Tales: Old North (PC, Ekuator, 2015)
I have almost nothing bad to say about this game. 10th isn't terribly high on this list, sure, but I think it's a game that almost everyone here should play. It's a JRPG with a solid combat system and some very interesting writing, kinda like the spiritual successor to Suikoden if Suikoden traded its heaps and heaps of characters for good combat (which is a winning trade as far as I'm concerned).
On the gameplay front, the game features six playable characters each of whom have very distinct skillsets and roles. Skills are well-documented and you're expected to use them effectively to win. The game doesn't have MP, and HP is recovered after fights (a decision which always earns my approval), and the core of the combat system is the stamina system: characters gain 1 point for attacking and 2 for defending, and use them to power their skills, which include anything from AoE attacks to healing to status (which nothing immunes) to aggression-drawing. Battle design is pretty good, both for randoms and bosses, and the system is a lot of fun in practice. Oh, and everyone gains full Exp so you can switch between characters based on what you feel best suits you in a fight.
Writing-wise, again, it's well-done. In the game's short running time it nevertheless manages to effectively develop its setting, a conservative, theocratic medieval nation living in isolation from the outside world. The six main characters (you choose which one to follow, and can replay the game for other's paths) are all pretty well-developed and add something to the party dynamic. The party is a group of squires who aren't (at least yet) in any position to save the world, just trying to do their part to help in a war, though each has their own reasons for wanting to be a knight and playing each path reveals there's often a lot going on under the surface for each one. The result is a down-to-earth, heavilly enjoyable story which feels much more grounded in reality than most RPGs.
The artwork is quite pretty and the expressive character portraits certainly help communicate the story; the music is fine for what it is, too.
So why not score the game higher? Well... it's fundamentally part 1 of a bigger story. It's very short (expect 4-8 hours for a playthrough), and the story is by nature incomplete. So while I have generally nothing but praise for what we've seen, it's entirely possible that the story doesn't pan out. The game ends on a bit of a cliffhanger with some key revelations which are only partially explained, so even for this game, my opinion of the story is inherently tied with where they go from here.
Oh yeah and no sceneskip is a downer; the game has some huge cutscenes, including before some of its trickier boss fights. If there's one thing they fix in the sequels, I hope it's that.
But more than that, I really, really just hope that the sequels exist. If they do, and every game matches what we've seen so far in quality, and the story lives up to its promise, this could be one of the games of the decade for me. For now...
Provisiional rating: 6.5/10
The caveat is that this is a "assuming the sequels are either bad or never exist" rating. If they exist and are good, this could end up much higher.
9. Long Live the Queen (PC, Hanako, 2012)
I don't always play visual novels, but when I do they're ones in which I play as a teen girl and dress up in lots of different outfits.
That or they're Ace Attorney games.
Anyway, aside from the outfits (which do have a gameplay purpose!), Long Live the Queen is a surprisingly fun game where you play as a princess trying to survive to her coronation. "Survive" is the key word because, if you don't play things right, you'll probably die. A lot. So right away you get this juxtaposition between the game's cute, almost anime dressup aesthetic and the rather grim political Game of Thrones-esque setting.
Gameplay's actually pretty fun for what it is. Sure, a lot of it is trial and error, but there's actually a sufficiently interesting skill system where you need to choose activities to control your mood, use your mood to influence what skills you can gain, and then work on learning all sorts of various skills to help you navigate the various political, emotional, physical, and even magical conflicts you can get into. Time's an issue, as events in the game move forward regardless of what you do (although your actions can influence which later events occur in many logical cases). While just trying to survive isn't that hard (if you fail a skill check, the game always at least lets you know what skill you needed more of, so it's easy to fix by reloading an old save or replaying from the start), getting some of the more difficult-to-get optional scenarios and scenes (and the associated achivements) certainly can be.
Within the context of the game there's a surprising amount of stuff to do, and it's pretty enjoyable to try them out. Apart from just surviving, there's a mix of stuff you can do within the 40 weeks the game takes place in, and stuff that happens in the ending as a result of your actions. You can make all the right choices to ensure that your nation is in awesome hands when the epilogue rolls. You can discover the truth behind your mother's death. Or you can order a human sacrifice (for a worthy cause), save the world through music, and/or indulge in lesbian sexy-times; I'm not judging you either way. (Of course, the correct choice is to do everything.)
Could it be better? Sure. I would certainly hestitate to say the game is as well-written, as, say, the best Ace Attorney games, hence the lower score. But the writing isn't bad by any means. And for what it is, it succeeds admirably. A cute, enjoyable little game that I regard with a tremendous amount of fondness.
Rating: 7/10
8. Nier (Xbox 360, Square Enix/Cavia, 2010)
Nier is a fascinating game.
Gameplaywise it's pretty darn mediocre. This is the game's biggest flaw by far. It plays like a 3D hack-and-slash game, but at everything from enemy design to balancing the options on the PC side to the physics it is boring at best and clunky at worst. About the only really interesting idea in the gameplay is the slow-moving bullet-hell that same enemies create, which is kinda cool and it doesn't matter because you can block through any such sequences really easily anyway.
Despite this the game is absolutely worth playing, because its writing is really interesting. It's difficult to go into how and why it works in a quick review, but those who've played the game probably know. The game has an interesting setting (an Earth future with civilization in retreat), and a core cast of excellent, memorable characters. It manages to balance a depressing setting and core plot ideas with hope and indeed a celebration of the good of humanity. It features a second "playthrough" (really only the last third of the game) which adds a tremendous deal by letting you see through the eyes of a second character, and also reveals more about the game's conflict than you knew at first, turning a lot of what you assumed on its head. It's good.
I kinda want to put the game higher. Like, I'm pretty cool with saying that this is on a short list of games to play or experience from the underwhelming XBox 360/PS3 generation. But while the writing does some really cool things, it definitely isn't always firing on all cylinders, and it certainly has its share of boring parts (in particular, most stuff before Kaine or Emil are around). And its gameplay just isn't good. So while it's original and creative and well-written, in the end I enjoyed it less than Suikoden V, whose political story and large cast of compelling players is more my style than the setting strangeness that Nier revels in.
Oh yeah and the game has legitimately outstanding music; I don't even like vocals in my game music much on average and this bias totally doesn't matter because Nier's soundtrack is that good. It's not my favourite game soundtrack of all time but it's pretty high up there.
Rating: 7/10
7. Final Fantasy Dimensions (iOS, Square Enix, 2012)
FFD is like the opposite of Nier (except that DJ is a big fanboy of both). Its writing is poop. Fortunately the gameplay is great.
This is my RPG of the year, which makes it the second straight year I've given that title to a game which shamelessly modelled itself after Final Fantasy 5. Unshockingly, FF5 makes good source material, so this isn't a complaint. Being a Final Fantasy in name (as opposed to all but name), FFD carves itself even closer to FF5 than BD did, in that it's an ATB game. It's a good, well-polished ATB at that, putting features like charge times and recharge times to good use, as well as having a meaningful speed curve. The battle system is certainly pleasant, and there's no shortage of good battles; the game is certainly tougher than FF5 was and there are plenty of epic boss throw-downs. Randoms are good too, but be warned the "tougher" design for them means that they don't explode when looked at and can certainly wear you down if you don't approach them well... and since there's no encounter control until the back quarter of the game (the Moogle Charm makes its return), you do have to enjoy battling or the game will probably feel like a slog. Good thing I do!
Of course, the class system is the game's real draw. Like FF5, you can spend time in one job, learn skills from it, and port those over to other jobs. Unlike FF5, and like almost all of its imitators, you can move more than one skill over; the amount depend on the level of the job you're in, so you're incentivised to stick with certain jobs and "level them up" as such. This results in a lot of potential cool skill combinations you can pull off. I strangely don't have too much more to say about the system; it's a well-done job system, and those are always fun.
The main thing that needs to be mentioned about the game otherwise, and this is arguably one of its weaknesses, is the fact that for most of the game you keep flipping between two different parties. In some ways, this is neat. Each party gets a few jobs which the other doesn't, so this creates some meaningful difference between the two paths, and also means that, when the parties join up, you have a really interesting time trying to decide which five character builds you want to pull from the two parties of four. The downside of the split party, though, is that, especially early when they have the same set of base jobs, it feels like you're largely repeating content because of the identical class system. This can be kinda frustrating.
The other downside of the split path is that it's a reminder: split paths are an extremely useful narrative tool to cover more events, or to have different points of view on the same events (see Suikoden III's masterful use of them). This only has value if the plot is actually good, and FFD's sucks. It fits right in with pre-6 Final Fantasies, except it's longer and with more dialog. The translation also feels strangely bad, like something from the late PSX era. It's rarely technically incorrect, but it does feel clunky. The one upside to the writing is that it has Alba, who breaks the fourth wall at every opportunity and is a lot of fun.
Otherwise, the sprite art's pretty good for what it is, and the soundtrack is quite solid and does a good job of capturing that SNES FF feel. Good times.
Rating: 7/10
6. Shantae and the Pirate's Curse (Wii U, WayForward, 2014)
I think Metroidvanias are inherently a pretty cool genre. Platformers that integrate exploration, a concept I normally don't care about that much in a vacuum, with the gameplay directly, making it actually kinda cool. And I've always had a soft spot for slowly picking up an arsenal of tools which helps you get to more and more different places, while also making you more of a combat badass.
Still I play a lot of platformers, and there's no getting around the fact that a lot of Metroidvanias (especially the Castlevania ones) just aren't as fun a platforming experience as they could be, especially compared to the likes of Mario or Mega Man. Does Shantae address this? Yeah, somewhat. It's not the best ever, certainly, but it still avoids a lot of the pitfalls of the genre. It's fast-moving, and has some solid boss design. The new powerups extend your platforming abilities in ways which are appealing and certainly give you some fun new options.
But really, what this game really brings to the genre is a sense of fun. Castlevania tries to have plot, but it's consistently dull at best and stupid at worst. Mega Man, Donkey Kong, and (platformer) Mario have less plot which is a net positive, but they fare no better. Metroid succeeds the best of the bunch at writing, mostly at creating a good atmosphere. So for me, playing Shantae was a bit of a breath of fresh air. Here was a game which had a bit of a plot, and had a lot of fun with it, creating a cast of memorable characters and using them well. It adds significantly to the enjoyability of the whole experience.
There are (spoilers) several better platformers I played this year, but Shantae was still a great time: good, if not amazing, at everything it set out to do, and what it set out to do is definitely up my alley.
Rating: 7.5/10
5. Theatrhythm Final Fantasy: Curtain Call (Nintendo 3DS, Square Enix, 2014)
I don't have too much to say about this one. It's more Theatrhythm, this is good. Still a thoroughly enjoyable rhythm game with an excellent soundtrack and overflowing levels of cuteness.
Strictly speaking it's a better game than the original. Certainly now that it exists, there's no reason to play the original any more, as Curtain Call has every character and song from the first game (I think?), including all the first game's DLC now included, along with a whole bunch more content. The biggest addition is that there are now a bunch of non-Final Fantasy soundtracks represented... all Square Enix, but yeah this includes such stalwarts as Chrono Trigger, Xenogears, Bravely Default, and Nier. Good stuff.
But beyond that it's pretty similar. It's easier to unlock new characters now, in various ways, which is both good and bad. The good is obvious, the "bad" is mostly that the party composition concerns in the original game (using the skill system to opimise item drops) are no longer really a concern. The RPG elements are downplayed, as such, and it's more of a pure fanservice rhythm game. And there isn't anything necessarily wrong with that.
So yeah, it's a better game than the original, but because it's also pretty much more of the same, I probably ended up playing it less, and arguably "got into it" less. So in practice I rate the two games around the same.
Rating: 7.5/10
4. Bayonetta 2 (Wii U, Nintendo/Platinum, 2014)
Like Curtain Call, Bayonetta 2 is pretty much just more of a good thing. Consider it a tiebreaker that by nature, "more Bayonetta" means more meaningful new content than "more Theatrhythm".
The original Bayonetta was an outstanding 3D action game, probably the best of the past console generation to my knowledge. So getting more of that was obviously going to be something I enjoy. Enemy and boss design is something that game does well, and there is a whole new set of them to enjoy. While I don't find any of the randoms as individually memorable as Graces/Glories and Joys from the first game, they still do a pretty good job with providing a new set of enemies to learn and then pit you in different environments and against different combinations of 'em.
Bosses... well. The first game had the Jeanne fights, which were outstanding duels against a similar opponent (a genre trope), possibly one of the best incarnations of that idea ever. The second game doesn't disappoint in following this up, as the Masked Lumen fights are a joy both gameplaywise and aesthetically. Other boss fights don't really measure up to that, but there are certainly a few other good ones.
The writing is still crazy and over-the-top as always. I will say that the new cast isn't very impressive, though; the game relies pretty strongly on the original cast for its good moments. The new main villain is particularly boring, and also makes for a rather boring final boss fight gameplay, which is one of the relative low points of the game. It's not that bad or anything, though.
I was conflicted about this back when I played the original, these days I tend to have a much more unapologetically positive view of Bayonetta and her hypersexualisation, so that helped my enjoyment of this game compared to my first playthrough of the previous.
So yeah, more Bayonetta is good times. I don't think it's quite as good as the original (my replay of the first game later in the year kinda confirmed this) but in its defence I will note that it did fix arguably Bayonetta's most nagging flaw, by having fewer, shorter weird gimmick stages. Given how good Bayonetta's core gameplay is and that any alternate gameplay modes, even when they're good, take you away from this, I have to consider this a positive. But in most other ways, the original is the slightly more compelling game.
Rating: 7.5/10
3. Shovel Knight (Wii U, Yacht Club, 2014)
It's Mega Man, Zelda 2, DuckTales, and Castlevania in a blender, among others. I was pretty much destined to enjoy it. But it's not merely an homage to NES classics; it's a damn good game in its own right.
The core physics of the game are solid enough, you can slash with your shovel or you can jump/bounce off enemies with a downthrust/pogo-like attack. As you move through the game you get various special weapons which cost MP (which recharges like Castlevania) which can be used simultaneously with your basic moves, and are pretty varied. They're not as interesting as the best sets of Mega Man weapons, but they're pretty good, and pretty similar in concept (though you either find them in stages, or can buy them at a slightly higher cost after missing them).
Otherwise its stage design also feels like Mega Man: an introduction stage, then eight stages each themes after their respective bosses, then a final set of stages. Stage design is good and makes good use of Shovel Knight's jumping and bouncing physics, and each stage is very individually memorable. The bosses themselves are also pretty good, there's generally one at the end of each stage and they're tricky enough to be respectable.
I don't have too many complaints about the game! About the only thing I'll mention is a direct comparison to Shantae; the game's plot takes itself too seriously and is pretty damn disappointing; there is one notable female character and you have to save her. (I should mention that the more comedic Plague of Shadows mode has notably better writing, though worse gameplay.)
The game also has pretty rockin' music for a NES game, which is nice. It's not winning soundtrack of the year when Nier exists, but it's a worthy runner-up.
I actually kinda feel I should like the game more than I do. It's pretty good at everything, but not really exceptional enough at any one thing to compare favourably to my favourite platformers like the high-tier Mega Mans or Order of Ecclesia, etc. But yeah I still like it a lot of course.
Rating: 8/10
2. Rayman Legends (Wii U, Ubisoft, 2013)
Last year Rayman Origins, a game I picked up at random after hearing some good things, turned out to be my favourite platformer of the year. This year its sequel... can't manage to repeat that, but only because I played loads of good platformers this year.
Still, Legends is pretty much every bit as good as Origins. It has its ups and downs, of course: the main down is probably the gimmick Murfy stages, which are both less fan than the shooting stages they replace, and also more numerous, unfortunately. But they're not that bad. The major improvements include boss fights that are actually fun (Origins had some of the worst in the genre), and the various daily/weekly challenges which can extend the gameplay some.
But mostly it's just more Rayman, and if anyone likes platformers and hasn't checked these games out, I highly recommend doing so. The physics feel wonderful, the game has a delightful (if drug-induced) aesthetic sense, and some excellent stage design which is tough but always fair. While it's neat to see retro games like Shovel Knight and charming lower-budget games like Shantae, it's also wonderful to see a successful and thoroughly modern platformer put out by a major studio. Bonus points if that studio isn't Nintendo.
Rating: 8/10
1. Super Mario 3D World (Wii U, Nintendo, 2013)
Pretty easy choice. It's fitting that a year dominated by platformers would lead to a Mario as game of the year.
That said, this isn't just another Mario game. I feel rather unambiguously that this is the best Mario platformer released in over two decades. It's the sequel to Super Mario 3D Land, which crafted the formula this game perfects: a 3D Mario that very much draws inspiration from the 2D games for tighter stage design. Perhaps even more than 3D Land, the stage design is relatively linear, but this really fits Mario better, as stages end up feeling like a challenging obstacle course much of the time.
Having said that, the stage design is really, really good. I've only played this game once thus far (something I really need to remedy) but there are loads of stages I remember really well. They're unique; they make good use of moving platforms, vanishing platforms, and the like; they make good use of the game's powerups (racoon suit returns, joined by the wall-climbing catsuit and the conceptually neat double cherry, which creates duplicates of your character); and they make great use of aesthetics to stick in your mind.
Also returning is the ability to choose which character you control. This feature has been basically absent since Super Mario Bros. 2, but has always been something I've badly wanted to return. Now it finally does, and it's glorious; before each stage you can choose which character you want to use, and they have quite different stats in terms of jumping and running ability. In fact, compared to Mario 2, the choices are overall better balanced, and if anything more pronounced. In the lengthy aftergame you get a fifth character who also plays quite differently due to having a unique attack/platforming technique.
Oh and let's not overlook the fact that one of those choosable characters is Peach means that you don't have to rescue her for the umpteenth time, and thank fucking goodness for that.
I have nothing bad to say about this game. Character choice! Great stage design. Good physics. Multiplayer Mario as an option (although the game does seem less suited to it than the NSMB games). Solidly-executed Mario aesthetics. A lengthy and challenging aftergame. Bowser driving a weaponized pimpmobile. This game has it all, and is easily one of the best entries to a great series.
Rating: 9.5/10
