picked this up again at the beginning of last month and have been pretty casually playing through it since. fr me this is clearly the best mario game, and as a heavy contender for my favourite game of all time. i’ll keep this brief as even though this is historically one of the lesser heralded mario games i'm sure everyone has already played it, but the movement in this game is simply unparalleled, the way that mario just flows through the environment is so (pardon the pun) fluid. once you get a master on using backflips, wall kicks, spin jumps, dives and slides mixed with the use of the FLUDD device it’s like a whole new world opens up for you filled with seemingly infinite possibilities. for me there’s really nothing more fun than just bounding around delfino plaza, spraying forward and then diving into the water on the ground to catch speed, jumping out of the slide onto an awning and bounding up onto a roof before back flipping into a hover to cut across the street and onto another roof, not even mario 64 or odyssey can make the player feel like that.
the game also just feels so lush, this world is divorced from a lot of the mario standards with few goombas, koopas, and bowser not even showing up until the very end, but these new environments just feel so well thought out and meticulous designed. unlike mario 64’s more abstract platforming challenges, each level here feels very specific with a real sense of place and understanding on how the people who inhabit it can actually use everything in it. this then makes the “secret” FLUDD-less stages stand out all the more, tough abstract gauntlets that rip the hover safety net away and leaving the player’s skill as the only thing stopping them from reaching their goal. overall the majority of the levels here are really well crafted and fun, with a couple exceptions (if i never have to play “secret of the village underside” again it’ll be too soon). while i love 64 and odyssey, and have a lot of fun with galaxy and 3d world, this will forever be the pinnacle of 3d platforming to me, nothing comes close to the sense of freedom you get with the tools at your disposal
the game also just feels so lush, this world is divorced from a lot of the mario standards with few goombas, koopas, and bowser not even showing up until the very end, but these new environments just feel so well thought out and meticulous designed. unlike mario 64’s more abstract platforming challenges, each level here feels very specific with a real sense of place and understanding on how the people who inhabit it can actually use everything in it. this then makes the “secret” FLUDD-less stages stand out all the more, tough abstract gauntlets that rip the hover safety net away and leaving the player’s skill as the only thing stopping them from reaching their goal. overall the majority of the levels here are really well crafted and fun, with a couple exceptions (if i never have to play “secret of the village underside” again it’ll be too soon). while i love 64 and odyssey, and have a lot of fun with galaxy and 3d world, this will forever be the pinnacle of 3d platforming to me, nothing comes close to the sense of freedom you get with the tools at your disposal