Today is a very exciting day for one member of our family. After years of watching Mummy and
Daddy make YouTube videos, our daughter has now made one herself – with a little help, of course.
Last week, we finally beat Super Mario 3D World on the Wii U. Daddy pointed out that we should
do a review of the game because it’s topical, and Five-Year-Old Gamer thought that was a great idea.
So much so that, when she saw Daddy working at his computer on something else today, she asked if she
could make a review. So we said, sure! Here, then, is our family review
of Super Mario 3D World: The first level is really
easy once you do it a couple of times. It’s intense, but also it’s exciting.
Super Mario 3D World has been something of a welcome break from The Legend of Zelda in our
house in recent months. Last year, something clicked inside her brain, and she pivoted
from obsessing over Disney princesses to obsessing over Nintendo ones instead.
She’s made every single adult who’s visited the house try to play Wind Waker, with…mixed success.
I like fire flowers. If you hurt yourself then you die,
and if both die then you leave the course, or, you lose one of your lives.
So, we bought a cheap copy of Mario 3D World on eBay for a little variety, and it certainly
succeeded. As far as our daughter’s concerned, the game has it all: princesses! Fairies! Magic! CATS!
I like the music on the levels where you ride on a dinosaur.
It’s fun to play multiplayer, but it’s more fun to play by yourself.
3D World is not quite as deep as many Nintendo titles, even other Mario games,
but that’s not a bad thing for casual players. In fact, one of the big reasons why 3D World went
down so well with us was that even Grandma got along with it well enough to be able to keep up.
My favourite favourite part of the game is the music for the
first castle because it reminds me of Legoland. We’ve seen the first level more than any other,
largely because it’s so easy that our daughter doesn’t need to be confined by boring rules of
“intended play”. She can use the game as a digital dollhouse, playing with the characters. Our
daughter will intentionally take damage to make her a “baby”, and then she’ll go for a lovely
walk with Cat Mario, who has been renamed Jeffrey. The boss fights are really exciting. My favourite
boss fight is the first one. You fight Bowser who’s in a car – and a giant car, too!
That said, our daughter has also played to the end of the game – technically. In reality, she’s found
out that by pressing one of the trigger buttons, she can hide in a bubble, and make Daddy do all
of that tricky platforming nonsense for her. Yes, she’s only spectating, but she doesn’t
seem to mind at all. The problem for Daddy is that this means he’s essentially playing
single-player, but because of the design of the game, he can’t adjust the camera angle,
and he has to constantly try not to accidentally pop his daughter’s bubble. This does make things
a bit more frustrating for him, but it’s his own fault for buying the game in the first place.
Playing the game with Daddy is terrific, because I like watching the game being played
and also being played myself. Such is the appeal of the game that Five-Year-Old
Gamer will often condescend to allow Mummy to play with her when Daddy is not available. Until she
reaches such a point in the game that she deems it “too tricky” and that Daddy can, quote, “do it
faster and better”, and then I’m turfed off. I do rather enjoy being a cat, though. Meow.
Playing the game with Mummy is fun because I like laughing at her when she gets it wrong.
One unexpected side effect of playing the game is that its music is now the soundtrack for our daily
lives. Our daughter started humming the music to herself first, and then we all sort of joined in.
We find ourselves singing to it absent-mindedly even when we’re doing unrelated activities.
My favourite enemy in the game is Goombah. Because Goombahs are like poos, but if they’re lying on
their face they look like roasts with mushrooms. All in all, this game, unsurprisingly, gets our
stamp of approval. If there’s a small person in your life that’s obsessed with princesses,
cats, or moustaches, this might just be the game your family needs.