Very much feels like a product of the overly sanitized era Mario found himself in during the early to mid 2010s. This game doesn't have even a speck of its own identity, building itself exclusively on Mario 3 references rather than contributing anything to call its own. Level themes are almost always typical Mario fare (aside from the clock tower levels and some other exceptions which are cool) with no cohesion within worlds, and the boss battles don't even register. You want to be challenged? Pffft... who's ever heard of difficulty? And the game's big claim to fame, molding 2D and 3D platforming experiences into one, was already done by Crash Bandicoot and a gazillion other platformers before this one. This game is bland, it's soulless, and it has very few innovations to speak of. If you've played any other Mario game before, this one won't offer any surprises.

Even still... dammit, this game is a great showcase for how Nintendo just knows what makes games fun. 3D Land just has that Secret Sauce™. The controls are perfect. This game's iteration of the Tanooki suit is one of the most fun power-ups to use in the series. I love how many of the levels have shortcuts; you can skip chunks of levels with a long jump or with the Tanooki flutter and it feels very intentional. Some levels have really interesting open field sections, calling back to the style of the older 3D Mario games. The game also has the most worlds of any level-based Mario game, at 16, so even though the 8 special worlds are mostly just remixes of the game's earlier levels, there's tons of content to sink your teeth into and get addicted. My only real complaint about the gameplay itself, aside from the lack of difficulty outside of the special worlds, is the poor depth perception throughout. I played the entire game with the 3D slider on and it does not help with the depth perception at all.

You are not missing out on anything if you've skipped on it, but this is a really good, fundamentally solid game. Almost certainly the weakest 3D Mario, but if this is the weakest, then that sure is a damn fine track record.