Super Mario 3D World - Champion’s Road
Don’t let 3D World’s cheery demeanour, gentle start and adorable kitty costumes deceive you. This multiplayer Mario title started out easy, but that didn’t stop Nintendo from including a devilishly tough challenge towards its end. Champion’s Road was heavy on all sorts of fiendish traps, while unhelpfully light on checkpoints. That is to say, there are none. To best this course you had to overcome sinking platforms, swinging spikes, time-synced block flips, an auto-scrolling water segment and, well, the list goes on.
We don’t know what level of coordination Nintendo thinks we have with our friends, but considering how tough the regular 3D World levels were when playing together, we clearly fall short of their expectations. Champions Road is a tough level to complete alone, so as far as we’re concerned, anyone who can beat it in a group of four is a literal wizard.
Super Mario World - Tubular
One of the strangest Mario levels ever conceived, Tubular was an empty void in the skies, with the only stable ground provided by the occasional pipe or block. If you weren’t lucky enough to have Yoshi or a cape on hand, Mario could only progress by inflating himself up like a balloon, gliding between enemies as you desperately tried to collect enough P-power to keep afloat. Hit a single enemy or run out of juice and you’d quickly find yourself falling to a swift death at the bottom of the screen. There’s never been anything quite like this in any Mario title since, making Tubular entirely unique in its challenge.
