Super Mario 3D All Stars Is A Power Down From A Poison Mushroom

When Nintendo announced that a collection of the best Mario 3D platformers would arrive on Nintendo Switch, I was excited. That is, until I found out that it would be an extremely limited run. It boggles my mind that Nintendo decided to do this for Super Mario 3D All Stars because after March, there will not be a way to get a copy, or download this game.

Super Mario 3D All Stars consists of Super Mario 64, Super Mario Sunshine, Super Mario Galaxy, and the official soundrtack for all three titles. What is great, is that you can play these as you remembered them when you were younger. But that comes with a cost. More specifically, Super Mario Galaxy.

Galaxy’s original release was on Nintendo Wii in 2007. At that time, motion controls was the standard and it is required for some of the controls of Super Mario Galaxy. You can play it with your joycons as if you played it on your Wii.

But if you use your Pro Controller, the gyro motion will distract you from playing the game.When the pointer is out of focus, you will have to press the R trigger button to center it. It gets really annoying when you have to do that every few seconds especially when you are on a boss battle.

Super Mario 64 plays the same exact way as I played it on the Nintendo 64. The controls felt very respinsive as I was playing. It seems like this version of Super Mario 64 is the version that patched all of the glitches from the original version.

I am fine with that since I am not a speedrunner. I only care to finish the game with 120 stars. Something that I wish that was supported for this version, is for full screen support. This was possible on the Wii Virtual Console port of the game, but not here. I still love Super Mario 64!

The last game of the collection is Super Mario Sunshine. For some reason, this version of Sunshine kept all of the glitches that were found on the original Gamecube release. You would think that Nintendo would patch all of these issues, but they did not do that. Another problem I had with Sunshine, is the clunky controls, and the upscaled brightness that will make your eyes burn like you are taking a look at the flash from Men In Black. There are also textures that I noticed that are in the wrong place when I am using FLUUD. If you want your ears to bleed too, it will pick up most of the sounds at the wrong time.

Whoever was in charge of porting these three games into one package, needs to get their license for porting video games revoked. This is Mario’s 35th anniversary and there should have been more effort to making this collection mean somethimng. Don’t get me wrong, I love all three of those games when they were first released, but the technical issues outweigh over what was supposed to be a celebration.

The lack of Super Mario Galaxy 2 in this collection is also puzzeling since that is the sequel to the first title.Mario’s party for Super Mario 3D All Stars has finished faster than a mini game on Mario Party. And Luigi did not have to do anything to win this time.

But when you take those negatives out, you can play this collection and it is for all ages whether if you are a veteran, or a newcommer. What the Mario franchise has done to bring generations together for many years will continue for years to come. Let’s hope when the 40th anniversary comes up in five years, their next celebration collection will be better than this collection.

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