I was one of the people on this site who hated the E3 reveal, the nerd rage was strong with me that day; but after a few days I completely forgot about it, didn't care that much about the game to be honest. Even after when the ND back in October showed more footage for the game I was still not that excited about it, I thought it look ok but I was still in the "meh" side of things. I also didn't like Mario 3D Land, never even finished that game, and 3D World reminding me of that one didn't help at all.
I still bought the game because I knew I was gonna get it eventually and since this a Mario game, the price probably won't drop in like a year or even more (it probably won't ever drop on the Eshop, which is where I buy games), also because why the hell not.
Anyway, so I start playing the game and during the first 2 worlds I was like "is a fun game, but that's about it", but the more I keep playing the more I started to like it. By world 3 I couldn't stop playing, even after playing hours and hours I never got bored. Every level throws something new at you, every level feels unique in its own way. The artstyle is just simple amazing, everything looks so clean and polished, this is definitely what you call eye candy, even more than Wind Waker HD.
The cat suit has become my favorite Mario powerup, is just so much fun to use, and it can break the game in many ways which something I find enjoyable. Is also a great game to speedrun which is a huge plus for me (long live the fast Toad!). The music still doesn't hold to the likes of the Galaxy games, but it still very very good. 3D World has the best Boo house song ever in a Mario game and has some pretty catchy songs.
Just like other 3D Mario games, the game is just about the right difficulty for me, the first 5 worlds or so are pretty damn easy, and even though I was having fun, I still felt like some challenge was missing; but after world 6 the game started to get a little bit more challenging (especially when trying to get the 3 green stars and the stamp), when I reached the final non-extra world I was having quite a bit of trouble getting 100% on those levels, which imo is great. I still haven't completely finish the game though. I just beat the first extra world (world star I believe) so I still have plenty of levels to go, which I heard can be quite challenging so I'm really looking forward to it.
Overall this is an amazing Mario game and waaaaaaay better than 3D Land which a lot of people like to compare it to. So because this is pretty much a norm around here:
Galaxy 1 > Sunshine > 3D World > Mario 64 > Galaxy 2 >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> 3D Land
Nintendo and PC gamer
