I imagine the pre-production on Super Mario 3D Land was some kind of Frankenstein experiment, where a group of developers in full-on white lab coats picked apart previous Super Mario titles for their choicest features to create Super Mario 3D Land. It's really an amalgamation of previous efforts, though it doesn't deter the game from establishing an identity of its own.
http://www.joystiq.com/2011/10/08/su...ew-new-tricks/
