Super Mario 3D Land

There are very few things that can make me ragequit so hard I don't want get back in and replay the game. Insane difficulty isn't that big of a deal; awkward controls can be overcome; bad camera angles can be compensated for. But I've noticed one thing that sets me off.
Collection quests, or rather, unexpectedly needing to complete a collection quest. Now, I'm not talking about the old MMORPG grind where you've got to get so many of that odd drop from a hard-to-get-to enemy; that's something different. Let me explain.
I haven't played a Mario platformer in quite a while, I'll admit. Although I do like the genre, it's not my favorite, and if I have the time to play, I'll probably pop in a JRPG instead. But since I haven't had the chance to try out many of the new games for the 3DS, I thought I'd move Super Mario 3D Land up to the top of my rental list. Now, part of this may have been the fact that you don't get the booklet with a rental; but I really didn't feel the need to search out every Star Coin on every level. And yes, I did notice that on the course select screens some of the levels required you have a certain number of the Star Coins to play them. The majority of those, however, could be skipped. I didn't, because I always had enough.
Until the end of World 5. What had been optional became mandatory, and to enter the castle -- and keep playing the game -- I would have had to go back and find 50 of the damn Star Coins. What I thought was a side quest was now the main mission; with no foreshadowing. If you would have had to collect 10 coins in each world to proceed, I wouldn't have minded. It would have even made sense in what little story there was. But to show up as a condition to continue halfway through the game was a bit more than I was willing to take.
That said, getting to most of the Star Coins is fun and challenging; though experienced platform gamers shouldn't have a problem with it. Heck, I don't play platformers that often and other than the 3D perspective being a bit tricky in places (tip: watch the shadows), I wasn't having that much difficulty with the game. But that one design choice just ticked me off to no end.
Graphics are bright and cheerful, exactly what you'd expect from a Mario game, and the classic enemy designs still translate well to 3D models. All in all, it's probably a game I would mark as a keeper, and from the Black Friday numbers, a lot of people are thinking it is a console-seller. I can't disagree: it makes use of the hardware. The 3D effects are well done but not cheesy; and there are sequences that make use of moving the 3DS to get a better view of the stage, which I assume uses the front-facing camera to track location. It's a solid title, and I think a good addition to the Mario library of games.