The Shrine

Yesterday or Friday, I just got a notification that over 50 billion coins had been collected worldwide (almost 51 billion actually). Not a bad accomplishment for a game that just came out a month ago in Japan, and a week ago everywhere else in the world. I myself have added just over 30,000 coins to that number.

The standard game is fairly easy, and also fairly unremarkable; it reminds me a lot of a slightly more advanced Super Mario World without the Yoshis; so mostly unmemorable levels with a handful of memorable ones (mostly the Ghost Houses, which each have something interesting about them). The most disappointing part is that while the Koopalings were brought back into the mix - they are no where near as difficult as they were in Super Mario Brothers 3. It doesn't feel like nearly as much of an accomplishment to move through these levels.

On the other-hand, more than half of the levels are unlockable. In typical 2D Super Mario style since Super Mario World; the best levels by far are the unlockable ones - and the unlockable levels certainly are a lot more fun to play than the standard path levels. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that these levels up the difficulty, and have a lot more cool stuff going on in them. For example, there is a level which has Mario transform into mini-Mario, and you can run along the surface of the water, and glide through the air collecting a ton of coins in the process; and everything is auto-scrolling too with fish jumping at you from various directions, so you'll be on your toes for the duration of the level. Some of the auto-scrolling levels are so fast that you literally have to be running the entire time - these are among my favourite levels in the game because you can't screw up (or you die), and when completing these levels there's a bit of a "holy-****" feeling that I haven't really felt playing a Mario game outside of Mario Galaxy 2 and Super Mario 3. I've unlocked 3 full worlds of secret levels, along with many unlockable levels scattered throughout the existing worlds.

Also back are the giant golden coins, three of them are available per level; these are either in hidden areas, or in areas that require advanced platforming skill (or both).

Two other features: 2 player Co-op, and coin rush.

Coin Rush is essentially this; you're given 3 levels, and have 100 seconds to rush through them grabbing as many coins as possible; some of these levels will have time-up bonuses giving you some additional time to complete the task; there are also multipliers available throughout which allow you to boost the total number of coins you have - these are the key to getting the high scores in the thousands. There is a Street Pass Mini-game which is somewhat related to what was put into the Mario Kart 7 Time Trial mode.

The game is available both at retail, and for download on the 3DS E-Shop.

Some more thoughts, since now I have finished every level in the game. I have more complete thoughts now.

I'll start with the cons, since some of the pros respond to these:

Cons:
Adventure Elements are lacking - If you play Super Mario 3, Mario World, Mario Galaxy 2, you will know what I mean - those games all feel very adventurous; like you are progressing through a great adventure. Super Mario 64, Super Mario Sunshine, and NSMB 1 & 2 seem to lack these elements - and I think all of these games suffer from it. Everyone's played Mario world, and traveling to distant realms on the same map, and discovering the Forest of Illusions, or stumbling upon a new secret path to bypass the entire underground world; or being on a level in Super Mario Bros 3, where everything is somewhat like a surreal version of world 1, including finding the invincible boot which can even walk on piranha plants... On a journey to get to the mysterious tower, and finding out that it leads to the Sky World (I was probably 8 or something when I played this, and it is a moment which really stuck with me).

Challenge - This game is easy enough that I doubt it will call me back for more single player. That is one thing that Super Mario 3, and even the Galaxy games have that this game doesn't - the difficulty is enough that replays will always have challenge to offer. Ultimately, it is the challenge (without getting stupid like Zelda 1) of classic games like Castlevania 3, Super Mario 3, and others that keep me coming back.

Uniqueness- There is a lot of diversity in this game, but a lot of it is more or less just something similar to something else in the game; there's nothing like the dfiversity of Mario 3: I already mentioned the boot, but then there is the angry sun which appears in World 2, and the bridges that open and close on world 3, the giant sized enemies of World 4, etc.... Mario 3 was just crazy awesome when it came to diversity, not just in elements, but in platforming level design. There were maybe 2 or 3 levels that were kind of unique feeling in the entire game; and all of the worlds were the same thing with different skins. It wasn't like Mario Bros 3 or Mario Galaxy 2 where pretty much every different level seemed to be its own unique thing; where every level was memorable.


Pros:

Diversity - This is somewhat a continuation of the "Uniqueness" section above; while there are not a lot of unique elements on various levels, things that make levels and worlds unique and special - there IS a lot of diversity, it is just that the elements are re-used fairly often once they are introduced - such as the Giant Big Boo - once you encounter it for the first time on the second world Ghost House, it will be back for segments on most other Ghost Houses. The tiny mushroom level which you encounter for the first time on the 3rd world, will be back in later worlds and secret worlds. Though overall, if you are looking for a diverse Mario experience, this game has a lot of it.

Secrets - In the single player, the main driving force, I found, was NOT actually collecting as many coins as possible, but digging through the levels to find all of the secrets, because there might be hundreds of them in this game. Some of the levels are very tall, so there is a lot more ground to cover than the typical left to right directional scrolling (there's a lot of stuff up and a lot of stuff down too). This is, in my opinion, the strongest element of the single player; but unfortunately, this aspect doesn't shine particularly brightly due to challenge - once the secret or possibility of a secret is found, there is no challenge in doing what needs to be done to get it - Mario Galaxy 2, for example, has a lot of secrets to discover, but you might die 25 times attempting to get it rather than going the conventional route.

Multi-Player - The one great thing is that while the single player suffers much from the above elements I described; this game is actually a fairly fun multi-player game - it is sort of a competitive co-op mode, which many people might be familiar with when playing Mario Kart - particularly the first one where a human player has to place in the top 3, or you have to repeat the race - but at the same time you may be competing with who you're playing with. This is the aspect that makes the coin-gathering fun.

Coin Rush Mode - Essentially, it is the same as time trial mode in Mario Kart. You streetpass someone, get their time trials, and defeat them. Except this time you have 3 worlds, only 1 life, and you have to collect as many coins on those 3 worlds as possible - and due to time constraints (you start with 100 seconds per level, with a few locations with bonus time), you pretty much have to run through the levels quickly and adjust your routes and platforming to increase the efficiency of your run through the level. There are multipliers which can really help your coin totals, and also certain power-ups (particularly the golden flower, you get one for your inventory after completing the single player game) which can help you gain a lot of coins; 1Up Mushrooms will give you 100 free coins; so it is possible to get up over 6000 coins in a matter of 3 levels. Although, this is only fun when you have other players competing - when you don't get anyone to challenge, there's really nothing to do except top your own scores.


So overall? I think this game got a lot of the pieces right, but others leave a lot to be desired by longtime fans of the Mario series, like myself. I think the game is WAY better than the first New Super Mario Bros, but when compared to the Galaxy games, Mario Land 3D, and even New Super Mario Brothers Wii, it comes off as being somewhat disappointing. All of the good elements are brought down quite a bit by the lack of challenge, lack of adventure, and lack of elements unique to the various worlds and levels.

This is probably a good game for players who are not very experienced at platformers; but in reality, if I was to recommend a game for that - there's already Kirby's Epic Yarn which is both fun for experienced players, but also probably peerless as a title to get a non-2D platformer player into the genre.