He runs, jumps, spits fire AT you in Super Mario 3D Land

It’s impossible to give a full and fair accounting of SUPER MARIO 3D LAND which dropped for the 3DS on Sunday, without explaining something that Nintendo had encouraged reviewers to keep a secret.

What we’re meant to tell you, I suppose, is that 3D LAND is business as usual for Mario, which is absolutely true and in no way a slight. You run, jump, collect power-ups and fight Bowser again and again and again, just as you have for the last two-and-a-half decades, and that all feels as lively and responsive on the 3DS as it has on any other piece of Nintendo hardware.

We’re also meant to say that the stereoscopic 3-D is put to good and surprisingly essential use, and that’s also true. If you, like me, have intentionally disabled the 3-D effect for every other piece of 3DS software you’ve tried, know that it’s more than a distraction here. Nintendo has implemented 3-D to tasteful and impressive effect in 3D LAND, helping you to gauge jump distances and pluck collectibles from the middle of three-dimensional space. You have to see it to believe it.

We’re likely supposed to mention the reintroduction of the beloved Tanooki suit power-up, if its promotional prominence is any indication. For those who joined the franchise after 1990′s SUPER MARIO BROS. 3, imagine a brown Snuggie with fox-like ears and a fox-like tail. The tanooki suit allows you to make longer and more precise jumps, it’s been largely absent for the last 20 years, and it is adorable.

But now that the game’s been out for the better part of a week, and given that nearly every writer in the business has spilled the beans already, I think it’s safe to tell you this:

If you’re bent on rushing through 3D LAND as quickly and joylessly as possible, you probably can breeze past the core game in about as much time as it would take you to watch the extended cut of any of the “Lord of the Rings” movies. (Or to watch “Drive” three times, back-to-back, which you really ought to have done by now.)

I took my time with 3D LAND, clocking just under five hours and collecting most of the star coins scattered throughout the game’s eight worlds. But that’s not all there is to it.

After the final confrontation with Bowser and a Tanooki-ridden credits sequence, you’re dumped back to the main menu, whereupon you can try “special” variations of the game’s few-dozen levels. These include significantly tricker layouts, star coin locations and placement of enemies and hazards. The special levels add other wrinkles, too, including an evil clone who pursues you for the entirety of a course and a 30-second timer that you can replenish only in bits and pieces.

I’m not sure why all of this was to be kept under wraps. Every Mario game in recent memory has featured some sort of substantial post-game component, not least of which was the hunt for 120 green stars in last year’s “Super Mario Galaxy 2.”

But there you have it. The game is twice as long as advertised, and you can unlock Luigi after the first five or so special levels. Spoilers.

The levels themselves are a straightforward joy, capitalizing perfectly on the display technology and the stop-and-go nature of a portable platform. You run left to right, bottom to top and into or away from the screen as the situation prescribes, often doing all of those things in rapid-fire sequence.

The controls in these 3-D gauntlets almost never let you down, matching and often besting the fidelity offered by their console cousins. There will be a few moments when your spatial reasoning betrays you, sending you careening over a platform or plummeting tail-first into a lava pit, but your failures will be largely your own.

And considering the ease of the core eight worlds (in which the greatest punishment is not the loss of lives, which are abundant, but the loss of Tanooki suits, with which you’ll become almost spiritually linked after a few hours), the game allots itself a margin for error. It isn’t until the special levels, which eliminate several crutches that earlier had propped up dumber players (like yours truly), that you might wish you were holding a proper controller.

Even so, 3D LAND is a treat. It looks, sounds and feels terrific, and when you consider the breadth and caliber of content offered by the special levels, the game easily justifies its $40 price tag. If you’ve been looking for a novel platforming experience, a reason to buy a 3DS or a low-grade opiate to treat your SKYRIM addiction, you owe it to yourself to try this game. (In 3-D.)