I'm not sure for what reason I most recently picked it back up. Maybe a week ago Cory mentioned that I should finish the damned game already. I was only through the fourth world of the special section. So I did it, worked those things on out. But it was no cakewalk.
The parts that pissed me off the most, by far, were the ending sections of the special world, where difficulty started to be introduced in the form of time limits or the relentless purple Mario chasing my ass into the abyss. A lot of times it felt really stressful actually, as I struggled to grab the coins and still proceed. There were a few reasons for it, the least of which wasn't that I often either forgot or refused to backtrack to acquire powerups. Moreso than almost any Mario game before it, the powerups in this game—especially the leaf—seem to be really make-or-break affairs. Some levels that seem almost impossible as normal Mario are rendered delightful frolicks in the spring breeze with a leaf. I'm not sure that's really a new thing for a Mario game, but for some reason I just never thought to go power myself up before approaching some of these levels, and they got seriously frustrating for that reason.
But the sublime moments, when they fired like they were supposed to, were excellent. What's really interesting is to see just how the special world's levels change as compared to the initial run through the game, down to the placement of minor enemies or red coins. Certain benefits have big impacts on the levels, and it's neat to see how with just a few small tweaks the designers were able to craft an entire "second quest" for the game.
Perhaps the most notable play experience I have been having with 3D Land is now that I've already finished the game and gotten most of the coins, and am playing through the game again with Luigi to get his clears (and pick up some flagpoles while I'm at it). Where my trysts with Mario had started to become stressful as I focused on getting all the coins, my play with Luigi is downright relaxing, and dare I say Casual. His jump is higher, his colors are greener, and I don't need to focus on the coins this time, or even the flagpole most of the time. My goal has become merely "beat the level," and it's nice and relaxing, a delightful treat after some of the stresses of the Mario endgame.
Now I'm through about 75% of this last little Luigi journey here, and I can feel the home stretch of the special worlds starting to get hard. I almost put it back down again today, but something kept me going, something I guess I didn't really seem to have before. Maybe it was a sort of resolve forged by the more casual play, but I feel like it's something else too, like I'm ready to tackle those tough final levels again and prove that I've got them, that Luigi's ready to give it his go. And I feel more and more like yeah, I do want to do this again, I wanna soldier on through it and really take it out. Maybe that's kinda the brilliance of Mario games—you don't always feel like you can do it until you just do it, and here I am doin' it, and I couldn't be more pleased.