... And 3D Land. Both as christmas presents. Althought, I was expecting Ocarina of Time 3D but we couldn't find the game in specifics stores, so I had to go with 3D Land (I was between that or Pokemon Y). I'll try to get it tomorrow, and for later FE Awakening. Well, anyway.

First off, 3D Land is a very good portable game. In fact, it must be one if not the best portable Mario ever (SMB3 port for GBA doesn't count). The mechanics, artstyle, music and powerups fits as a very good portable experience. My only complain is the bad overworld design, thankfully 3DFlop fixed that. Right now I'm in the 7th Special World and difficulty is increasing. From the past 8 normal worlds and 6 Special ones I have all the comet coins but not all the gold flags. I can understand now how this game is popular on 3ds as the 3D use is excellent.

Now, in regards of 3DFlop, I'm at Mushroom world, just one stage left to complete. I leave behind only one green star and around 3-4 gold flags, all at the star world. Now, unlike 3D Land, I find this game to be more enjoyable as a multiplayer party experience than a single player platformer. At co-op my sister and me have a counter of 405 deaths with countless game overs and only finished the "story" part.

First off, this game doesn't feel like the past 3D Marios, but more like a direct sequel to SMB3 in a 3D space. Yes, all the time I can't stop feeling I was playing finally a good SMB3 (best 2D Mario) sequel. And not only because the obvious tunes and artstyle somehow reminded me the game, but also the terrible movement of Mario.

Aside from running, at which I need to press a button, everything else feels archaic, primitive and old. I'm using a control stick but only moving in 8 directions. My long jumps and achrobatics skills are a joke compared to SM64 and Sunshine. And the timer. Oh the timer. Who thought it was a good idea? I found me sometimes running out of time because I was exploring the few 3D spaces the game offers me. And even a couple of times that translated in deaths.

On top of that, I can understand the design for 3D Land as 3D is basic to enjoy the game, but in 3DWorld I simply don't have that option, so I have to guess the dimensions, and, well, that means more deaths. And that's not my failure, but a design that doesn't let me explore at my leisure because I have a timer pushing me. Thankfully I played 3DLand before, so I can understand the concept, but for example, my sister jumps off frecuently and it eats the few extra lifes I had.

About the stages, some are very good and brilliant, but others just feels like a Copy paste from 3D Land. Overall, graphics are very good, but that lack of imagination in few stages left me believing I was playing an up-ported stage from the portable version.

Finally, the camera. Good sometimes, terrible at others. Oh, the bonus stages, some are good but the "remixes" are lame. At least it's better than those green stars in the Galaxy expansion.

Leaving behind all of that, I enjoyed the game more than NSMBU and I'll complete, or at least try to do that. I guess it was incorrect to compare to SM64/Sunshine/Galaxy and it's a good game in its own.

But If I had to rank, I'll go like this:

Galaxy>SM64>Sunshine>3DWorld>Galaxy2

That being said I think you were a bit too tough/extreme with your opinion but in general you have a point, and it only hurts because I'm a Nintendo fanboy haha.

3D Land is a product of Iwata's Nintendo, which is a Nintendo that likes to port successful handheld games to their consoles to save on cost and time. Everything about modern Nintendo is about saving on costs and time. Before design, concept, gameplay and anything else, comes cost. Everything MUST be done as cheaply as possible before it's even considered. That's why the Wii was a Gamecube with a new controller and the Wii-U is a 360 with a new controller. It's why the 3DS and Wii-U doesn't have capacitive screens. It's why 3D Land exists instead of a modern Mario64 ( a game that DWARFS 3D Land in ambition). It's why none of their games have extremely deep online gameplay. It's why it took so many years for them to finally start using real music instead of midi. It's why they STILL refuse to start using full voice acting and cutscenes.

People want to believe them when they say they have a reason for excluding this or that, but it comes down to Iwata and his business sense. He is all about investors and profit margins. He will not green light big projects if there is even a moderate risk of not creating a huge bottom line. Sometimes it's paid off, other times, it hasn't. I think going forward, he's going to have to get with the times and spend some of that capital. Nintendo's console games are starting to become love letters to an era that doesn't exist anymore.

Like sports, you can only compare games of different eras against the time that they were in. Mario 64 actually changed the entire industry. It invented the wheel so to speak. If SMB is the template in which all 2D games would follow, Mario 64 is the game ALL 3D games would soon try to mimic.

Galaxy was an amazing game but it didn't have 100th of the impact on the industry that Mario 64 had. Without Mario 64, there wouldn't BE a Galaxy. So if they're to be ranked, that has to be taken into consideration.

I'd rank 3D Mario games as Mario 64,Galaxy,Sunshine and then Galaxy 2 because it's a sequel. 3D World isn't a 3D Mario, so it wouldn't be considered. Even if it was, 3D Land should be before it since it gave birth to it.