 Today is a very exciting day for one member of our family. After years of watching Mummy and Daddy make YouTube videos, our daughter has now made one herself, with a little help of course. Last week we finally beat Super Mario 3D World on the Wii U. Daddy pointed out that we should do a review of the game because it's topical, and five year old gamer thought that was a great idea. So much so that when she saw Daddy working at his computer on something else today, she asked if she could make a review. So we said, sure, here then is our family review of Super Mario 3D World. The first level is really easy once you do it a couple of times. It's intense, but it's also exciting. Super Mario 3D World has been something of a welcome break from the legend of Zelda in our house in recent months. Last year something clicked inside her brain, and five year old gamer pivoted from obsessing over Disney princesses to obsessing over Nintendo ones instead. She's made everyone in the house try and play Wind Waker with mixed success. I like flower flowers. If you hurt yourself then you die, and if both die then you leave of course or you lose one of your lives. So we bought a cheap copy of Super Mario 3D World on eBay for a little variety, and it certainly succeeded. As far as our daughter's concerned, the game has it all. Princesses, fairies, magic, cats. I like the music on the levels where you ride on a dinosaur. It's fun to play as multiplayer, but it's more fun to play by yourself. 3D World is not quite as deep as many Nintendo titles, even other Mario games, but that's not a bad thing for casual players. In fact, one of the big reasons why 3D World went down so well with us was that even Grandma got along with it well enough to be able to keep up. My favourite part of the game is the music for the first castle because it reminds me of Lego Land. We've seen the first level more than any other, largely because it's so easy that our daughter doesn't need to be confined by boring rules of intended play. She can use the game as a digital dollhouse, playing with the characters. Our daughter will intentionally take damage to make her a baby, and then she'll go for a lovely walk with Cat Mario, who has been renamed Geoffrey. The boss fights are really exciting. My favourite boss fight is the first one. You fight Bowser who's in a car and a giant car too. That said, our daughter has also played to the end of the game, technically. In reality, she's found out that by pressing one of the trigger buttons, she can hide in a bubble and make Daddy do all of that tricky platforming nonsense for her. Yes, she's only spectating, but she doesn't seem to mind at all. The problem for Daddy is that this means he's essentially playing single player, but because of the design of the game, he can't adjust the camera angle and he has to constantly try not to accidentally pop his daughter's bubble. This does make things a bit more frustrating for him, but it's his own fault for buying the game in the first place. Playing the game with Daddy is terrific because I like watching the game being played and also I like being played by myself. Such is the appeal of the game that five-year-old gamer will often condescend to allow Mummy to play with her when Daddy's not available, until she reaches such a point in the game that she deems it too tricky and Daddy can quote, do it faster and better and then I'm turfed off. I do rather enjoy being a cat though. Meow. Playing the game with Mummy is fun because I like laughing at her when she gets it wrong. One unexpected side effect of playing the game is that its music is now the soundtrack for our daily lives. Our daughter started humming the music to herself first, and then we all sort of joined in. We find ourselves singing to it absentmindedly, even when we're doing unrelated activities. My favourite enemy in the game is Goomba, because Goombas are like poos, but if they're lying on their face, they look like ghosts with mushrooms. All in all, this game, unsurprisingly, gets our stamp of approval. If there's a small person in your life that's obsessed with princesses, cats or moustaches, this just might be the game your family needs.