It’s finally time. In September of this year, Nintendo released a highly-rumored anniversary collection, Super Mario 3D All-Stars, which consists of Super Mario 64,Super Mario Sunshine,and Super Mario Galaxy.We’ve taken a look at all three of these games, how they’ve held up over the years, and what playing them might be like in 2020. Now it’s time for our most negative article yet: a review of the Super Mario 3D All-Stars collection. Not the games contained — the collection of those games.
On the whole, I think the collection is fine, but even then, I’m being a bit generous. We’re all well aware of the whole “limited-time release” controversy, and we’ll be talking about that later on. Super Mario 3D All-Stars is currently retailing for $60 – the norm for most Switch games – and we’re also going to talk about why I don’t think the price is entirely fair. We’ve got quite a bit of ground to cover, so let’s get started!
A few months back, we reviewed Super Mario Galaxy.A few weeks back, we reviewed Super Mario Sunshine. And now it’s finally time to review the final piece of the Super Mario 3D All-Starscollection: Super Mario 64! This game’s got a lot of history. It first was released in 1996 for the Nintendo 64, and set many an important milestone for 3D platformers. It’s been showing its age for a long time, though, and I personally believe the 3D All-Stars version shows said age most prominently.
Before we begin, I’d like to acknowledge Super Mario 64’s place in history. It was a huge step forward, and the developers’ innovations set the standard for decades to come. But it isn’t 1996 anymore; it’s 2020, so I have to take a look at Super Mario 64 from a 2020 perspective. And if there’s one thing we know about 2020 perspectives, it’s that they’re usually negative. No worries, though — we’re going to balance positive and negative and take a complete look at the game that started it all! (And by all, I mean “the 3D Super Mario games.)
We’ve been really busy fleshing out our amiibo training guides, so it’s been a whole month since we’ve typed up an unrelated essay! Back in September, we covered the Super Mario 3D All-Stars version of Super Mario Galaxy.Now we’re moving backward a step and covering Super Mario Sunshine on Nintendo Switch! Out of Super Mario 64, Super Mario Sunshine, and Super Mario Galaxy, Sunshine is the one I’ve personally had less experience with. I owned it as a kid on the Wii, but never made the connection that you needed a Gamecube Memory Card to save progress. As you might expect, I didn’t get very far!
You often hear about 64 and Galaxy, but you hear about Sunshine much less — in my experience, at least. Still, going into Sunshine mostly blind was really interesting. The game has sort of a bizarre essence about it, and it’s one I don’t think the Super Mario series has been able to fully capture since. Sure, smacking question mark blocks and stomping enemies is bizarre, but Sunshine’s overall aesthetic takes it to a new level.
Super Mario 3D All-Starswas recently announced and released for Nintendo Switch. It contains Super Mario 64, Super Mario Sunshine, and Super Mario Galaxy, but that’s pretty much common knowledge by now. Super Mario Galaxy was first released on the Wii in November 2007, and it made central use of the Wii Remote. You’d aim the Wii Remote to collect and shoot the newly-introduced Star Bits, and you’d have to shake the controller to perform a spin attack.
Just to clarify — I’m going to be specifically reviewing the version of Super Mario Galaxy included in Super Mario 3D All-Stars. I’m going to assume that not many of you are going to purchase a Wii and Super Mario Galaxy after reading this post, so we’ve got to keep it relevant. Even so, there are a number of differences between the two versions. Do these changes improve the overall experience or do they just make everything more difficult?
