Review Information
Game Reviewed Paper Mario 3D Land, by DJ Coco
Review Author Techokami
Created Oct 15 2014, 8:21 PM

General Commentary and Game Overview
DJ Coco is someone that has done a lot of work with regards to 3D fangaming under Game Maker. This is a field that not many people have ventured into, so to see a completed 3D fangame released is an amazing feat. However, the technical aspects should not detract from actual gameplay.
 
Pros + It's 3D, which is something you don't see every day!
+ Graphics are superb.
+ Customizable keyboard controls.
 
Cons - Level design and difficulty curves are poorly handled.
- Uncustomizable gamepad controls, with the defaults being unplayable.
 
Impressions
Gameplay
4 / 10
This, sadly, is where a lot of problems are. The controls are, in theory, fine. Mario moves around properly, you can run and jump, no bizzare physics errors. But if you want to play it on a gamepad, you need to be careful. I tried playing this game with a Dual Shock 4 controller, connected as a generic USB controller. It was detected fine, but mapped the action button to the Square button and the jump button to the Circle button! This is actually a painful configuration to use. It would have been better if their were an option to remap gamepad buttons, or if there were more than one jump/action buttons, like with the New Super Mario Bros. games, or 3D Land/3D World from which this game takes its inspiration.

Which brings me to the main issue: level design and difficulty. This game was not properly designed and balanced for its players. It starts off unusually hard and only gets harder. Enemies do an intense amount of damage compared to Mario, and there are too few places to heal. It is very difficult to deal with enemies that stick to their platform and follow Mario, if the platform is raised above the player. There should not be so many bottomless death pits in the very first stage.

The biggest problem with the level design, however, is the direction the player goes in. This game has the player going into the camera too many times, making the player unable to properly see what lies ahead. Look at how 3D Land and 3D World levels are structured: they have a generally fixed camera leading the player to the right and/or ahead into the screen. But, there are times when the player has to go in another direction, including torwards the player. When that happens, the camera angle will shift to allow the player to see the area ahead and not run into a bottomless pit or face-first into an enemy.

These might not be the friendliest words, nor may this be the friendliest score, but there are too many severe issues that impact how approachable and enjoyable this game could be. They need to be addressed in future productions.
 
Graphics
6 / 10
The graphics simultaneously mesh together well, and clash horribly. Half the graphics are low-res Paper Mario 64-styled assets, and fit the style perfectly. The other half are high-res Paper Mario TTYD-styled assets, looking nice and sharp and creating beautiful-looking levels. However, the low-res and high-res graphics do not work well together. It should have been all in on one style or the other, not a mixture of both.
 
Sound
9 / 10
Very solid. Uses existing compositions taken from official Paper Mario games. Though using 3D World music seems like kind of an odd choice, as it doesn't fit the rest of the musical score or atmosphere.
 
Replay
5 / 10
I'd be willing to give this game another try if my control issues are addressed.
 
Final Words
6 / 10
A stylish game that is marred by unfortunate problems with the fundamentals, this could have been a classic.

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