Super Mario 3D World: Bowser’s Fury — CATastrophic

Disclaimer: This originally started as a blog post, but somehow transformed into a review along the way. It shows.

I hadn’t read a damned thing about Bowser’s Fury prior to playing it. The extent to what I knew going in was that it was a separate little quest attached to the Switch port of Super Mario 3D World, a potential prototype for a future Mario adventure. It was, to be cynical, an easier way for Nintendo to resell a Wii U game from 2013 on Switch for full price. Going into it largely blind worked out for the better: What I received was a solid 3D platforming experience nearly on par with several older games in the genre (though not necessarily Mario games) in terms of content. It was crafted in a way that makes it feel like a fulfilling experience, and calling it a bonus mode does it a disservice despite it still qualifying as such.

True to its nature as a bonus experience and Super Mario video game, there’s little story. It begins with Bowser Jr. informing Mario that Bowser is extremely angry — furious even — and is letting loose across a series of small islands.

I initially groaned upon realizing this was the game’s way of siding Mario with Bowser Jr., the latter of whom follows the player around for the entire experience, as someone who prefers exploration in Mario platforming experiences to be a solo affair. But I eventually appreciated his prevalence. He seldom interrupts the player, and the temptation of sending him to defeat projectile-using enemies by tapping their positions on the Switch’s touchscreen is perpetually strong. (Or using the icon and gyro controls on while docked, a lame solution.) He even uses the same brush as Mario did in Super Mario Sunshine, one of many references to that game here.

Bowser’s Fury’s small world is split into a series of islands, all of which come with challenges and Cat Shines. It retains the cat motif from SM3DW by having Mario’s Cat transformation being one of the central powers, and adorable cats being everywhere. The cat powers are useful here, but the game’s island and challenges are designed in ways for Mario to take advantage of all the powers (the Tanooki suit, the boomerang suit, etc.), with basic platforming remaining tough-but-viable for most of them. This is in addition to the several other Cat Shines available for completing other challenges, of which there are a total of 100.

Approaching the cats while wearing the catsuit results in one of the most adorable animations I’ve ever seen in a video game, by the way. I couldn’t stop watching it upon accidentally stumbling upon it.

Obtaining the Shines available following the early ones can be challenging enough alone, but this gets trickier when Bowser unleashes his fury and starts firing blasts and dropping hot fire on Mario regardless of where he is, at seemingly random times. This resulted in “are you kidding? NOW!?” reactions whenever I got near obtaining some tougher late-game Shines, but it was never frustrating thanks to how this never makes the challenges impossible to complete. It merely increases their difficulty, some to considerable levels; but it forced me to get a good grip on the controls and platforming faster. Relearning to play a 3D Mario game is a whole different ball game compared to doing so for 2D and 2D-ish games, but this game has a way of easing the player in.

Bowser’s Fury gives Plessie a better role, in guiding Mario from one island to another and for the eventual battles with Bowser. The dinosaur actually useful here, contrary to the main 3D World game, where the controls were the handling were awkward enough that I wish it could just tumble off the side of a waterfall at times.

We’re talking about a Nintendo game from the Mario team here, so I shouldn’t be as surprised at the attention to detail this ostensibly small experience received. Consideration was made to all the enemy placements on the islands and bonus levels, including those that receive changes depending on the challenge Mario has to complete for a Cat Shine.

The team did a good job making the overall experience feel larger than it actually is, but there are parts they could have only gotten away with in a smaller experience. The enemy variety is low, with models unsurprisingly taken right out of 3D World (and perhaps other recent 3D Mario games). The variety of challenges is similarly low, though the challenges themselves don’t get boring thanks to all the islands having different designs and gimmicks. But I never found any of this to be a problem per se as I was playing through it. Knowing that this was a bonus mode beforehand worked as a way to adjust expectations.

I was far from the only person who played and remembered games like Super Mario 64 and Super Mario Sunshine (particularly the latter given all the references) and wondered what they would resemble if their entire worlds were seamlessly connected. This logic gave birth to Bowser’s Fury, one likely to be applied to a new game considering how this title is testing the waters for where the team would like to take 3D Mario games. The next title won’t be exactly like this, given the new gimmicks Nintendo likes to add for every new 3D game. But this has established a worthwhile template.

We’re in for something special for the next big 3D effort if the team put this much effort into something planned to be a bonus mode. There’s a part of me hoping it won’t take long until this fuller game arrives, though there’s an open question as to whether it’s planned for the Switch or its successor. The other part of me realizes that I shouldn’t be asking this, as someone who’s still yet to play the Super Mario Galaxy games or Odyssey. I should have them finished by the time the next one arrives.