September 13, 2020 was a milestone date for the entire video game industry. The chubby mustachioed Italian plumber in the red cap, the childhood hero of many gamers around the world, turned 35 years old. I'm talking about Mario, of course. Over the years, he's become a true phenomenon, and still tops the list of the most popular video game characters. And in honor of this milestone, Friv2Online Studio decided to please all fans of their favorite mascot by releasing a collection of remasters of 3D platformers starring Mario. Our impressions are in this review.
Mario's popularity is undeniable - everyone remembers the great Super Mario Bros. 1985, which we played on the unforgettable Dendy, a hardware clone of the Japanese NES. But after it, the mustachioed guy in the red cap was forgotten for a long time in the post-Soviet space - at the turn of the millennium Nintendo consoles (and console gaming in general) were not very popular, and it was in those years that Russia finally became a "PC-country" in terms of gaming.
However, the rest of the world enjoyed playing the new adventures of Mario, in accordance with the trends of the time stepped into three-dimensionality. And the 3D All-Stars compilation I'm going to tell you about in this review includes remasters of three iconic 3D Mario platformers: Super Mario 64 from the Nintendo 64, Super Mario Sunshine from the GameCube, and Super Mario Galaxy from the Wii.
Now, with the growing popularity of Switch, our gamers have a great opportunity to get their hands on the classics in an updated format. It's worth noting that the compilation will only be available until March 31, 2021 - if you're a Mario fan, you should hurry.
Of course, Mario has long since settled into a portable format. But this compilation is characterized by the fact that the games in it were never originally intended for the handheld. It was all the more interesting to see how good the adaptation would turn out and what Nintendo could do.
Unlike the Borderlands and BioShock collections, where each friv game was launched individually directly from the console's home screen, Super Mario 3D All-Stars is launched in its entirety. In the main menu, we are presented with a "micro-launcher", where we can select one of the three games of the collection, read a little about it or listen to the soundtrack of any of the three games.
Everything looks very nice and loads quickly. When selecting each friv game, we can read a brief historical information about it, and by pressing "-" on the left joycon we can choose one of the supported languages. There are a total of 5 for 64, 7 for Sunshine and 10 for Galaxy. There is no Russian in any of these lists, but in general it is not so important. It's easy to figure everything out - Mario games are probably the most vivid illustration of Nintendo's eternal principle that games should be accessible to everyone.
The plot in Mario games has always been secondary. We all remember the phrase "princess in another castle" at the meme level, but few people can remember the plot of Super Mario Bros. in detail.
We won't elaborate on the plot either. Mario comes to visit Peach or goes on vacation with her, but in the end he runs into harsh difficulties created by Bowser or someone else, and under the control of the player courageously overcomes them. It's all rather banal, but that's not why we love Mario.
But we can dwell a little more on the setting.
If Super Mario 64 was, in fact, a simple transfer of the worlds of the old Mario games into 3D, then the tropical island of Delfino in Sunshine (in the form of the eponymous marine mammal) is unlike any other plumber's adventure and became a real revolution in the platformer genre. Few places back in the day had all levels united by the same theme.
Moreover, this beautiful tropical island unobtrusively encourages you to explore every corner of it. And if you want, you can not go through the main plot at all, and just enjoy the beautiful views and swim in the sea.
Galaxy's setting is also quite remarkable. Here Mario goes into space, travels through miniature planets with platforming puzzles, and in breaks rests on a huge hub ship, new locations of which are revealed with each passed galaxy and found star.
Super Mario 64 will "go", perhaps, only true connoisseurs and old Mario fans. Low-polygon models and simple environment do not spoil the gameplay, as before saturated with interesting mechanics (combinations of jumping and sliding give almost a dozen types of various movements), but it is not as pleasant for the eyes as in 1997. Besides, even the screen proportions have not been adjusted - there is an empty black space around the good old 4:3.
Sunshine is perhaps one of the most unique Mario games out there. And not only because of the resort-tropical setting, where you want to live yourself. On a beautiful island inspired by Hawaii, we'll find interesting and rather challenging platforming, a variety of different locations and activities, as well as boat rides and horseback riding. A great way to have a personal summer in these dank autumn days.
Of the entire collection, Super Mario Galaxy is the one I enjoyed the most. If it wasn't for the explicit mention that it was released in 2007, I might have mistaken it for a natively released friv game on Switch - it's so well polished.
The setting also plays its part - the small planets and various objects floating in outer space are very interesting to explore, and all of them in themselves are colorful and interesting puzzles that require not just manual dexterity and reaction speed, but also spatial reasoning. Perhaps, it is here that the potential of three-dimensionality is revealed in full.
And of course, as in any Mario friv game, we can't fail to mention the music. The soundtrack is as always on top, and in Galaxy it is almost as good as the recent Origami King, with all the various rhythms, melodies and instruments. As mentioned, you can listen to it separately.
Let's not forget that the collection is still a remaster, not a remake, so we shouldn't expect any technical heights from these games, the newest of which is 13 years old, even with the relatively weak Switch hardware. Nevertheless, the textures have been reworked for the new resolution. I haven't seen the originals, so I can't evaluate in dynamics. On the one hand, everything looks pretty nice. On the other - the age of the games is noticeable and obvious.
There was already information in the network that all games of the collection are launched through emulators. In my opinion, it is not so important - the developers have the right to dispose of their works as they see fit and achieve the set goal by any means. Here the goal is definitely achieved - everything works perfectly and has received the most possible and necessary updates.
The controls are worth mentioning separately. Nintendo claims that the controls have been optimized for joycons, but in the first two games in the collection, this only translates into a slight tweak to the button layout and vibration support. Galaxy, on the other hand, is brilliantly executed. It's understandable - the friv game was originally released on the Wii, and it wasn't hard to transfer the existing motion controls to the new version.
In the dock, you have to wield the joycons very skillfully. But fans of the handheld mode (and Switch Lite owners) haven't been left out either. In addition to the obvious option of putting the screen on a stand and still playing with the joycons, the friv game has alternative options for performing all motion-controlled actions. What's even better is that they involve a touchscreen.
Admittedly, not everything is perfect with the touchscreen. I noticed a frustrating bug - shooting and selecting "star shards" that we can shoot are tied to touching the screen. You have to touch either where we're shooting or where the shard you want to pick up is located. Unfortunately, Mario shoots at any screen touch, so the picked up shard just makes up for the one you just wasted.
The beginning of the three-dimensional Mario era, as mentioned, has passed us by a bit. But now, thanks to a decent remaster, there's a chance to fill that gap. Unfortunately, one of the negative factors is the high price of the collection. 3D All-Stars is sold for a full "full price", which caused quite a serious dissatisfaction among gamers - after all, three old games for the price of a novelty.
But this is definitely a product for connoisseurs. So if you are a longtime fan of Mario or just good platformers and want to play all the games with the popular hero, you will definitely like this collection. Everyone else is very likely to like only Galaxy. It might make sense to buy a physical copy or wait for discounts if there are any, but remember - the sale is open for a limited time.
