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  • Accidental Innuendo
    • Mario rides right behind Peach in the Clear Pipe in the opening cutscene, therefore staring up her dress. The game makes a point of having him, Toad, and Luigi look to the side for most of the scene, though.
    • In Lava Rock Lair, activating both P-switches produces a phallic-shaped bridge.
  • Awesome Bosses: The battles against Bowser in his car bring a new style and epicness to the character seldom seen before. And especially the final battle against Meowser, the first time Bowser uses powerups to his advantage!
  • Awesome Levels:
    • "Super Bell Hill", for being the first level in the game and introducing the well-received Cat powerup.
    • "Double Cherry Pass", for introducing the Double Cherry power-up.
    • "Switch Scramble Circus" brings a setting that rarely pops up in the Mario games, the circus/funfair one (the closest precedent in the platform canon was Pinna Park in Super Mario Sunshine). The visuals are very colorful, and the music is catchy. It becomes a first sample for later levels of this style, including boss arenas and the map world that houses the Final Boss battle.
    • "Beep Block Skyway" is a fun throwback to the space-themed levels that were hallmarks in Super Mario Galaxy, and provides a more challenging take on the Double Cherry powerup.
    • "Cookie Cogworks", for its colorful and tasty layout (sweet food). And it's surprisingly tricky, too.
    • "Hands-On Hall" is an oddball level based on how people in the west often confuse Japanese and Chinese culture. Not only are its look and sound subtly hilarious, the whole level also has a dungeon-like quality to it that requires you to explore and solve puzzles to progress.
    • "Mount Must Dash" and the "Honeycomb Starway/Skyway" levels should get special mention for being sendups to other genres: "Mount Must Dash" is a level based on Mario Kart, meanwhile the "Honeycomb Skyway/Starway" levels are based off of top-down shooters. Also, Starway and Skyway use a remix of the Gusty Garden Galaxy theme.
    • The entirety of World Bowser, a massive Amusement Park of Doom dedicated entirely to the Koopa King himself. It contains some of the most challenging and engaging levels in the game, including an epic finale in the form of "The Great Tower of Bowser Land".
    • "Champion's Road", despite its insane difficulty, is one of the most ingeniously-designed and satisfying levels in the entire Mario series. It helps that its difficulty never feels unfair, and instead serves as a true, final challenge for the player's abilities. It also, very fittingly, uses a remix of the Gusty Garden Galaxy theme from Super Mario Galaxy, which makes it even better.
  • Awesome Music: Many examples. This is made even better due to Koji Kondo, along with Super Mario Galaxy series composer Mahito Yokota, returning to compose the soundtrack. And it's orchestrated, to boot.
    • Some snippets of music can be heard here, as the music staff records it live. To say the least, it is amazing.
    • The main theme, the Puffprod Peaks/peaceful music, the Double Cherry Pass theme, and Hands-on Hall's pieces really stand out.
    • The jazzy theme of Hisstocrat is another incredible piece, even appearing in one of the trailers of the game.
    • The Castle theme, which returns from Super Mario 3D Land completely remastered and rearranged with an orchestra. It is an epic foreboding theme that perfectly fits the fearful atmosphere of castle levels. It was already great in its origin game and is even better here.
    • World Bowser. Bowser means business!
    • "A Boss Approaches" is a slower, laid-back hip-hop-ish version of the World Bowser theme. It sounds just as badass as World Bowser, if not more so.
    • The music for the Boo Mansion levels is one of the loveliest pieces in the entire game, beating out the haunted music from the "Galaxy" games.
    • The music for Fort Fire Bros. is a chilling super-catchy 80's style tune (that may bring contemporary cartoons to mind) that makes excellent use of a panflute.
    • Phases 1 and 2 of the final battle.
  • Badass Decay:
    • Pom Pom. In 3D Land, she was That One Boss. Here, not only has she nixed her Retaliation Mode, but she's made it piss-easy to tell her apart from her clones.
    • Rosalina. In the Galaxy games, she was impervious to any attack. In this game, enemies like Goombas can hurt or even kill her.
  • Base-Breaking Character: Fans are divided between those that think the Sprixie Princesses are a cute addition to the game with some princesses being more popular than the others, or bland flat characters with no personality beyond being magical princesses that don't fight back.
  • Broken Base:
    • Fans were heavily divided between those who were happy with the revealed game as is and those who were disappointed and wanted a different kind of 3D Mario game like the Galaxy games. After the game's release, they're divided on whether or not the game deserves all the praise it's gotten, and whether or not it's as good as the Galaxy games. The release of Super Mario Odyssey calmed most of this divide, and fans of both sides agree that they would also love to see a new Galaxy game alongside a follow-up to this game in the future.
    • The game is clearly a Hybrid 2D/3D Mario game, but should the game count as a "real 3D Mario" title as well or not? Fans are broken heavily on whether it should count or not. It has both multiple differences and similarities from the other console games like Super Mario Sunshine or Super Mario Galaxy. Nintendo themselves consider 3D World, 3D Land, and the Galaxy games to be linear obstacle course-style games, while 64, Sunshine, and Odyssey are open sandbox experiences, and officially describe 3D World (and 3D Land) as a "Hybrid 3D game that plays like a 2D game".
  • Camera Screw: When playing with multiple players, the camera can get a bit uncooperative at times when players are scattered about. Mostly averted in single-player, with many agreeing that the series finally managed to get its camera nailed here — by the time of Galaxy the series had become somewhat notorious for excelling in every department except the camera controls — with the worst complaint generally being the camera is zoomed out a little too far in some of the Captain Toad levels.
  • Captain Obvious Reveal: To anyone who has played most of the Mario games before, it should come as no surprise that the boss of World 7 is not the final boss. The game tries to fake players out by having a castle image in place of the number 7 and giving the world a lava/castle theme that's standard for a Mario endgame, but those who know that most Mario games have eight worlds aren't likely to be fooled.
  • Catharsis Factor: Using Peach in any of the Bowser boss fights is beyond cathartic as it allows the princess to get some much-deserved payback towards the Koopa King for all the times she's been kidnapped by him, just like what happened before in Super Princess Peach.
  • Demonic Spiders: Parabones. They replace the normal Dry Bones, but they can fly, chase you down, and revive themselves if they're jumped on or swiped at.
  • Ensemble Dark Horse:
    • Plessie, due to their cute design and Yoshi-like appearance.
    • Motley Bossblob, likely due to his resemblance to the fan-favorite Koopalings, and his cool concept.
    • Pom Pom was already well-liked as a Cute Monster Girl in 3D Land, but the introduction of her now-iconic Ninja abilities here only helped her reputation.
  • Epileptic Trees: Prior to the release of the Switch port, several fans had theorized that Daisy would become the sixth playable character, primarily due to a patch of flowers appearing at the end of the Game Awards trailer and the presence of a calico cat in Bowser's Fury of all things, due to the other cats having similar schemes to the other characters’ costumes and the term "sarasa" being an alternative term for "calico" (Daisy coming from Sarasaland). The eventual release of the port quickly jossed all of these theories however, as the roster is the same as the original game and the calico kittens were simply unique kittens tied to a series of Fetch Quests.
  • Even Better Sequel: While Super Mario 3D Land was fairly well-received, there were a number of concerns about originality. 3D World solved these problems with its multitude of creative level ideas, earning universal acclaim on Metacritic (a 93 out of 100 for the Wii U version and a 89 out of 100 for its Switch port — no easy feat).
  • Fan Nickname:
  • Franchise Original Sin: This was the first game where Rosalina was given a playable role outside of a spin-off. This, along with her inclusion in Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U, turned her from an Ensemble Dark Horse to a Base-Breaking Character due to being chosen over other, older characters in the series. It didn't help that this was also where Rosalina suddenly lost her distinctive Woobie characterisation to become a generic Action Girl.
  • Game-Breaker:
    • The infinite 1-Up easter egg (up to 1,110 lives). This is done as early as Level 1-2 and it takes a minute to do. This makes multiplayer a lot less chaotic but a lot more tolerable.
    • Peach in a Tanooki Suit due to her extended floating ability.
    • It was game-breaking enough that the Statue Leaf in the previous game rendered you invulnerable and able to destroy almost anything by statue-stomping, but here, the Lucky Cat Suit one-ups it with invincibility, so unlike other statue forms in the series, the suit's golden statue form is deadly to the touch, having the same effect as the Starman. The only trade-off being that you cannot move while transformed. You also get lots of coins, and thus, lives when pounding from a high location.
    • The White Cat Suit is locked in the Cat Mario amiibo (therefore exclusive to the Switch version), but if you're able to get it, you unlock a form similar to the Cat Suit that grants you invincibility, similar to the Lucky Cat Suit mentioned above. As long as you have the Cat Mario amiibo, you're able to use it in both game modes (Bowser's Fury and the main game) as early as you get the game itself too. The powers are similar to White Tanooki Mario, which you got only after dying so many times.
    • Rosalina herself is a game breaker. Not only is her jumping height on par with Luigi, her spin attack is incredibly useful as both an attack and a second jump in numerous (usually life-saving) situations. Plus, she's able to spin in Super and Small forms, giving her a big advantage over the other characters, who have no form of offense in those forms. It's so useful, in fact, it may benefit you more to not pick up power-ups or deliberately take damage if you're already powered up to utilize the spin on occasion. Like Peach, her only weakness is her low running speed, which had been buffed in the Switch port.
    • The touch-screen integration with the Gamepad basically allows you to use the benefits of the Co-Star Mode from Super Mario Galaxy/Co-Star Luma from Super Mario Galaxy 2 in single player. You can freeze enemies, reveal hidden blocks and coins, activate Flipswitch Panels, carry baseballs and bombs to use, deflect projectiles and hit blocks, including the much more prevalent POW Blocks, by tapping or holding them. Several things can be completely invalidated just by picking this as your controller. For enemies, Snow Pokeys can be defeated by tapping their segments, Galoombas get flipped over, and you can even defeat Bullies by tapping them to knock them back. This makes the Prince Bully fights hilariously easy, as all the character needs to do is kick him when compressed, since you can squeeze him into the pipes by tapping him repeatedly. As for other things, any hazards on Flipswitch Panels can be ignored by just poking them to activate them. If a tough enemy is in your way, just lock them in place and pass them by. Enemies near a POW Block can be defeated by jabbing at the block. Though Ring Burners only appear in a few levels, you can tap them to keep them from shooting lasers.
  • Goddamned Bats:
    • The Octoombas. They've once again gotten stronger, as they now spit three cannonballs in rapid succession, and can only be defeated by a Ground Pound. They are also almost always on moving platforms, making killing them frame-perfect. In Champion's Road, they can cause more early deaths than one would imagine, either by trying to kill them or avoid them. Thankfully, they're only in a select few levels.
    • The Fire Piranha Plant in the final Captain Toad level. The level itself already requires near-perfect timing, so when something in the center is spitting fireballs at you the whole time, it can ruin your timing and even drain your gameplay timer. If you're not lucky enough to deflect its fireball back at it with the Gamepad, it's going to be a stressful time.
  • Goddamned Boss: The fight with Bowser in World Castle. Yes, it's basically the same fight as the World 1 boss, but this time you've got loads of hazards on the road, with pitfalls as a bonus. This sounds fine on paper, and the fight comes coupled with Awesome Music, but Bowser will stall his Tactical Suicide Boss traits with fireballs. It's not bad at first, but as he takes damage, he will spit out more and more fireballs before his bombs, which takes a lot of time. Oh, and every time his car jumps, his attack pattern resets. It's not a joke that there's Anti-Frustration Features in it being possible to hurt him with boomerangs.
  • I Knew It!:
    • People actually guessed a playable Rosalina after getting a look at a screenshot that showed outlines of all the possible stamps for use on Miiverse. That screenshot showed that there were five icons that resembled the player character icons used in the user interface (Player selection and life counter).
    • People also guessed Cat Bowser as the Final Boss.
    • The announcement of a Nintendo Switch port surprised no one, given that not only had it been leaked months prior, but also that essentially every Wii U game was being ported to the console. The announcement of the Switch port happened several weeks after another Wii U game was announced to be coming to the Switch, that game being Pikmin 3.
  • It's the Same, Now It Sucks!: Despite the many changes and additions, fans initially saw it as "a Nintendo 3DS game on the Wii U". While the trailer shown in the October 1st Nintendo Direct changed the minds of a lot of people by showing a lot more of the unique aspects of the game, a few still felt disappointed that the being a sequel to the 3DS game limited its scope inherently, as opposed to the larger scope the 3D Mario games on older systems like the Galaxy games had.
  • It Was His Sled:
    • Rosalina is an unlockable. Nintendo didn't even bother to keep it secret after the game had been out for a while. She was even shown in the end of a Nintendo Direct right before the game's release.
    • Bowser has a Cat transformation: Meowser. Super Mario Maker 2 doesn't even bother to hide it, using him as the main Bowser to fight in that respective game mode as opposed to the other modes which just use regular Bowsers.
  • Magnificent Bastard: In this game, Bowser conquers the Sprixie Kingdom and keeps its princesses captive, while using the full might of his forces to repel Mario and his friends when they try to save the day. Seemingly defeated near the end of the story, Bowser recaptures the princesses in a surprise attack and retreats to World Bowser, where he reveals his secret weapons: the Super Bell and Double Cherry power-ups that the heroes had been using throughout the whole game, creating an unstoppable army of agile feline Bowsers that keep Mario and co. on their toes till the last second.
  • Memetic Mutation:
    • Bowser's Cool Car approached this status in a short time.
    • "You need to watch the new/second trailer" and its variants turned into a common phrase to put forth against accusations of "It's the Same, Now It Sucks!."
    • Fresh Prince of 3D World
    • The golden coin train is often referred to as the hype train.
    • On /f/, the music for Beep Block Skyway is commonly associated with "pppu~", a NSFW flash animation depicting Peach and Rosalina plus other female characters. NSFW scenes change every three beeps.
    • Whenever a well-known Let's Player starts playing, expect the Miiverse to be full of messages cheering them on.
    • When a Miiverse user named Andrew posted "this game is fun but i hate my parents", it got frequently parroted and reworded in the Miiverse boards for this game and other Wii U games, particularly Splatoon.
  • Moe:
    • The Sprixie Princesses, especially the green one. From the opening cutscene, where she asks Mario and the others to help her and explains how Bowser's already kidnapped the rest of them, to her eventual rescue, where she happily waves a toy mallet around before opening the pipeline to World 2. Seriously, you'll wanna give her a hug.
    • Plessie, which favorably reminds players of Dorrie and Yoshi.
    • Cat Goombas. They make little "meows" and they don't even try to chase you because they are too busy playing around and having fun. It might make you feel bad for harming the little fellas.
    • The individual "bossblobs" used by Motley Bossblob to create the giant clown form. They're just little round blobs with eyes, and they're rather cute.
  • Most Wonderful Sound:
    • The little cat noises the characters make in their Cat forms.
    • The understated chime that plays to indicate that you are running at full speed.
    • The noise made when enemies are defeated.
    • Several nostalgic sound effects, such as the sounds of bouncing on the trampoline enemies and defeating Chargin' Chucks.
    • The sound made when characters walk on glass or crystal.
    • Some of the noises that the Sprixies make in certain parts of the game. Such as a slot machine mini-game, giving you a tutorial, or when you touch the Wii U Gamepad touchscreen.
    • The "Course Clear" or "Boss Clear" tune you hear after finishing a level, especially after having a hard time and losing many lives.
    • The beeping chimes that play when Touchstone platforms are activated with the touchscreen.
  • Narm Charm: Although Meowser is a formidable threat, his design and name are incredibly silly. The overly dramatic reveal of his fluffy, whiskered face shows that Nintendo was, at least, a little self-aware about it.
  • Older Than They Think: The heroes working to free the seven Sprixie Princesses from their bottle prisons is very reminiscent of the heroes working earlier to free the pixie residents of Subcon.
  • Polished Port: The Switch port, besides having the ability of portable play and the Bowser's Fury side mode, features numerous tweaks to the original game that improve upon it, such as slightly upgraded graphics, increased speed and the addition of the roll and dive moves from Super Mario Odyssey, amongst other tweaks.
  • Popular with Furries: Bowser, already quite a darling in the furry fandom, got infinitely more attention when his cat form Meowser was revealed. It helps that it barely changes his already impressive design, only adding a tiger motif.
  • Scrappy Mechanic:
    • While it was also a problem in the New Super Mario Bros. games, the added dimension makes the camera an even worse problem in this game when playing with multiple people. It also seems nearly random which player the camera decides to follow.
    • Bounce-boosting and bounce-chaining, where the player has to hold the jump button while landing on an enemy or projectile to bounce off it for height. It's very difficult to pull off in terms of making sure the bounce lands on the right spot or carries on to the next target, making the handful of platforming challenges designed around the bounce physics very frustrating.
    • On the Switch version: Touchscreen levels, for those who play in Docked Modes and use controllers that do not have motion sensors (such as the various Nintendo-licensed USB controllers). Since you cannot move the cursor at all if you don't have access to the Switch's touchscreen or have motion sensors on your controller, you'll have to switch to another controller for these levels. Even with motion-sensor controllers, the pointer controls are relatively imprecise for actions that require performing pointer input while platforming, which can disrupt the flow of the game.
  • Self-Imposed Challenge:
    • No-powerup runs and/or no-damage runs can add a bit of challenge to some of the levels.
    • It's been discovered that it's possible, albeit extraordinarily difficult, to beat the Wii U version of the game without jumping.
  • Sidetracked by the Gold Saucer: Captain Toad's levels. The Miiverse posts were filled with demands for a Captain Toad game, and Nintendo provided with Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker.
  • Special Effects Failure: The game makes use of some truly beautiful textures, filters, and special effects, as well as running at 60FPS, but it comes at the price of the draw distance. The Savannah levels, which are wide-open fields akin to the worlds from 64/Sunshine, suffer from glaringly obvious pop-in even at a short distance away from objects. It's a minor but very off-putting mistake in an otherwise flawless engine.
  • Suspiciously Similar Song:
    • The World 1 map music has been compared to an unbeat and faster Zelda's Lullaby.
    • The music played during the final part of the second phase of the Final Boss sounds a lot like the movement "Mars, The Bringer of War" from the symphony "The Planets" by Gustav Holst.
  • That One Boss: The second and third Motley Bossblob fights, due to him gaining a Shockwave Stomp attack that is difficult to dodge due to the many times he jumps. The Dual Boss fight against Hisstocrat and Queen Hisstocrat during Boss Blitz is difficult as well.
  • That One Level:
    • World Crown-Crown (Champion's Road), which definitely lives up to its name. Heck, there's a Heartbeat Soundtrack when you get near it on World Crown's map to let you know what you're in for. Made even worse if you are using Toad for this level as you are forced to have a near-perfect play.
    • Grumblump Inferno, a stage that requires you to run on crystalline blocks that are like Tox Boxes you platform on, that turn on their sides over lava. Some are rectangular, forcing you to cross to the small ends at times. Granted there is a trick to beating it (don't jump, run along it as it turns). But for first-timers or multi-players, it's an absolute nightmare.
    • Any level that solely involves riding on Plessie since she's a little hard to control.
    • Chainlink Charge, where it is very hard to get all 3 stars without falling to your death multiple times.
    • Cakewalk Flip has red and blue platforms that flip with each jump you take. In single-player that's not so hard, but in multiplayer it's impossible. Not helped by there being a Ring Burner in the way of the 3rd Green Star.
    • Broken Blue Bully Belt will make you wonder if the designers were on something when they were designing it.
    • Cosmic Cannon Cluster, due to the very difficult section of the level where you're required to bounce off cannonballs fired by a wall of cannons to reach the top. The trick is to not move left or right while jumping, and thankfully it's early in the level.
    • Piranha Creeper Creek is pretty easy, but its World Flower remake Piranha Creeper Creek After Dark makes it a dozen times harder simply by turning off the lights. Add to that the need to light every torch to get green stars, and you have yourself a real stinker of a level.
    • Boss Blitz is one level where the default 500 second time limit is incredibly stingy. The Dual Boss Histocrat section is probably the worst of the lot, given its RNG elements and forced longevity.
    • Red Hot Run is another infamous level where the player does nothing but run toward the end on a strict time limit. What makes this level so difficult is the sheer amount of obstacles and places to fall that are present to this level all while trying to make it to the end by the time limit and collect all of the Green Stars. This level is also a nightmare to play in multiplayer especially with four people.
  • That One Sidequest:
    • Getting every Green Star in the game doesn't sound too bad — up until the game starts outright hiding them behind walls, in secret passages, and throwing them into optional challenge rooms that really don't hold back later on. A few cases genuinely reach Guide Dang It! levels of "how was I supposed to guess that?" While you keep them if you die, actually getting to them is all the challenge in some levels, especially in the post-game World Crown.
    • The Five Bonus Stamps (the portraits of each playable character, including Rosalina). To unlock them, you have to clear every single level, including infamous ones like Boss Blitz and Champion's Road, with all five characters. If you're only going for one character (such as Rosalina), then it isn't so bad... but if you plan on going for all five, and don't have any friends to play with (so multiple characters can clear the levels at once), then the quest becomes a living hell. Especially with Toad.
  • They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: Though having nothing to do with the quality of the released game itself, some players didn't take kindly to this game being released instead of a new game with the Super Mario Galaxy style of gameplay and its adventurous/epic atmosphere. And others who prefer the explorational style of 64 and Sunshine weren't happy to see another console game take up the more linear style.
  • Unexpected Character:
    • Rosalina. Even when a trailer prior to the announcement told everyone that she was a character, it still took everyone by surprise.
    • While some were expecting another playable character (though more like the other five than a co-op mode), not many were expecting that character would be Bowser Jr. Likewise, his Magic Paintbrush returning after not appearing in a main series game since its debut.
  • Vindicated by History: The game arrived at a time when fans were clamoring for a new sandbox 3D adventure akin to 64, Sunshine, and the first Galaxy; they felt that the newer game felt too similar to the presentation of the 2D New Super Mario Bros. games, and thus the game's reveal garnered it some backlash as not being a "true" 3D Mario in the vein of the previous titles (while Super Mario 3D Land showed similar characteristics, it being released on a handheld system and its novel 3D effects lessened the criticism). While it managed to win people over with later previews, being released on the failing Wii U console limited its reach. This was demonstrated on its opening week in the UK, where it was handily outsold by Knack, a dueling 3D platformer that doubled as a launch title for the PlayStation 4 that had less-than-stellar reviews; resulting in much mockery online. When it was re-released on the Switch after Super Mario Odyssey, which finally filled the void of sandbox gameplay and original worlds, fans were much more receptive towards what it did provide—a surprisingly inventive campaign that offered and played with plenty of new and old ideas in its level design, game mechanics, and characters; bolstered by the addition of four player cooperative play (a rarity for the 3D platformer genre). KingK's review gives a pretty good summary of this shift in perception.
  • Visual Effects of Awesome: The game definitely takes more advantage of the Wii U's graphical capabilities than New Super Mario Bros. U, resulting in lush landscapes, detailed textures, and stunning city skylines.
  • Woobie Species: Koopa Troopas. All of the enemies simply chase you around and are stomped by Mario but Koopa Troopas are made a lot more sympathetic. When you jump on them, they slide out of their shell and then they start frantically chasing after it. If they are unfortunate enough, you can steal or destroy their shell which causes them to stop for a second and sink their head down in sorrow. And, then, the little trooper still chases after you, despite his predicament. Avoiding to jump on them would be easier if it weren’t for the fact that you can now ride inside of their shells.

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