Super Mario 3D Land and Zelda: A Link Between Worlds

Double video game post! I've had Zelda: A Link Between Worlds for a little while now, but just hadn't had the time to play it. I actually got it for my birthday in the summer! Super Mario 3D Land I recieved as a gift for Christmas. I've played pretty much all the Super Mario games for all the systems and this is the first one I didn't pounce on the day it came out. After hearing lots of great things about it I asked for it for Christmas and the things I heard were correct! I got some other games for Christmas as well, but I'll talk about these two games today.

Sometimes Nintendo does something so cutesy and seemingly gimmicky it makes me doubt whether it works or not. I wasn't really sold on Cat suit power-ups when I first saw them, but once I used them and saw the characters prance around on all fours I couldn't help but smile. They looked sort of doofy, but are cute and fun. Being able to climb up walls is a fun mechanic as well.

They look ridiculous - ridiculously cute!

There's some great levels across the various worlds. Any level featuring Plessie the adorable Plesiosaur has me grinning, but I think one of my favourite levels has got to be the SNES Mariokart inspired one. The level is in World 3-6 and it's called "Mount Must Dash." The music gets me everytime.

It's a mad dash to the finish line!

Here's World 1-4, "Plessie's Plunging Falls."

Plessie even waves to you after the ride :)

Next up I'll talk about Zelda: A Link Between Worlds. As soon as I saw the in-game map I recognized some striking similarities between this version and the SNES A Link to the Past version. I had no idea the new 3DS game was based in the same world. Having just beaten the SNES version for the first time only a month or so ago I felt right at home in this similar, yet different, world. It's been a blast too. I've had a lot of fun exploring and using the new 2D painting Link mechanic to move around the environment. The dungeons are similar yet entirely different and are a lot of fun to solve. Below is the SNES map on the left and the 3DS map on the right.

It was another great game! It looks great, sounds great, and plays great! I'm super excited for the Wii U Zelda they're working on at the moment, but this was the perfect game to tide me over. :D