Mario works off a very solid foundation, especially in this incarnation. Super Mario 3D Land still has a good structure when it comes to level design but the real issue here is that there's nothing interesting. It's very boneless, in a sense that every particular level doesn't bring anything remotely engaging that hasn't either been done before in the series or on its own doesn't work that well to be remotely interesting. Iteration isn't by itself bad, but I struggle to find what exactly this is iterating on that is good.

It's a super stretched out easy platforming romp. It's comfy for a few hours and then overly outstays its welcome. It's ok at best but I just don't recommend playing it and go play 3D World instead.

This game is an odd one to me. I originally played this game as I played it fondly as a kid but see it for it's flaws now. The game is nothing extraordinary, especially compared to older and newer 3D Mario games. That being said, this is still a game that saved the 3DS as it began to flop in it's early years. The gameplay is obviously the meat of a Mario game and in this entry it plays fine but lacks any real excitement or precision. I often find myself wishing a move like a true version of the long jump or triple jump were in this game as along with the speed that Mario and Luigi run at makes the game slow to play. The difficulty in the gameplay is less so about actual difficulty and more so limitations that are arbitrarily put in place, such as the collectibles that make the game just that much more tedious to play as a portion of them are required. The story is incredibly lackluster and just makes you question what the point of it is but the way it's told is fairly nice. Most of the post game content is really unnecessary and just there to pad out an already short experience. This game is good if you like Galaxy or the New Super Mario Bros. series but if you are someone looking for a good 3D platformer, this is about as generic as they come.

This is a really great game. Despite being an early 3DS game, it still looks great visually, and is one of the best games on the system to take advantage of being on a 3D-focused platform. The levels are designed to all look enhanced by having the 3D turned on.

It's a shame that there aren't more games similar to it on the 3DS, because it's a great testament to the capabilities for the 3DS to have the style of 3D platforming that Super Mario 3D World would later expand upon. And speaking of 3D World, while World's levels did feel more individually extensive and the game itself longer in length (due to being on a platform with more powerful hardware), Land still has plenty of enough content to be worth a considerable amount of time.
And it also does something that I loved in 3D World, in that at first you feel like the game flew by too quickly, but then it opens up a whole bunch more levels you can do. While the first finale was somewhat rewarding, having all these new Special Worlds to visit felt like they brought the game's length up from what would feel too short to just right. And it also helps that the difficulty increases and you need to start making considerable Star Coin requirements. So the individual levels require you to sink more time in them, and you're also forced to do some backtracking if you didn't take your time before, if you want to beat the rest of the levels. It's a great way of "padding out" the game's length in a way that doesn't feel tiresome, in a way of prolonging the fun so you don't zip through it too fast. Though I do have to say, compared to how long some of the Special World 8 Levels took me, the "true finale" didn't impress me quite so much. It would've been nice to have made the last level a bit harder because it felt like I had done worse to get to that point.

While Super Mario 3D World I feel expanded upon what was established in this game, with more content and length (and IMO difficulty, at least towards the end and because you often have to deal with other players), and the ability to play with friends, Super Mario 3D Land is still a great title, especially as a 3DS showcase. It's not quite as great as other main series Mario games, but it's still really quite good. And you won't get the same hours or nearly as much replay value out of it compared to other 3DS games like Animal Crossing: New Leaf or the various Pokémon games available on the system, as it's not too hard of a game to speed through until you get to the Special Worlds, and aside from getting Star Coins, I didn't have too much of a desire to revisit old levels, but I still definitely recommend playing it.

This game feels pretty similar to New Super Mario Bros. 2 when it comes to the amount of handholding it does and because of how easy it is. I had 90 extra lives when I defeated the final boss, which is not a problem per se, but the game doesn't seem to be consistent with its own design philosophy surrounding extra lives because of the fact that it, like NSMB2, has an optional tool that helps you if you get stuck. But when you have 90 extra lives, it's gonna take a Super Meat Boy-tier level to actually get you to lose that many lives on a single level, and no such level existed. I'll admit that this game isn't really that bad, but it isn't good either. It's just mediocre to be honest. The extra dimension wasn't compensated by enough dimensions gameplay-wise.

Game 17 of Mario Marathon

3D Mario comes to handhelds and there is a ton to be impressed about. This one feels like a nice marriage between Super Mario 3 and Super Mario Galaxy 2. Is it as good as those games? Not quite. The biggest problem is that it is one of the easiest Mario games ever made. The Mario games aren't that hard to begin with if you grew up playing platformers, but this one feels like training wheels and training wheels. The biggest issue comes with the raccoon suit just makes every platforming challenge easy. The float is so forgiving that you can play through the base levels only dying maybe a handful of times. Maybe that doesn't matter that much since lives have never really been an issue in Mario games since the first one, but I feel the levels are just too compact for the raccoon suit to really feel organic to the game.

It still very impressive on it's own but compared to the Galaxy games it just comes up a little short.