Super Mario 3D Word + Bowser’s Fury Review – Beyond the Limits

Unlike the Wii U ports that came before it, Super Mario 3D World is not a lost hit in need of a second chance on better hardware. A lot of people played it back in 2013! It sold 5.86 million copies, second only to Mario Kart 8 on the Wii U’s sales chart. Its success may explain why Nintendo decided to do more with this port than those that came before. To entice fans to double-dip, Nintendo added Bower’s Fury, a short-but-sweet expansion that feels like the Super Mario Odyssey DLC fans have been clamoring for. In fact, Bowser’s Fury plays more like Super Mario Odyssey than the title it’s packaged with. It features a fully open world that, while small in scope, feels like a glimpse into the future of the Mario franchise.

This article includes our reviews for both Bowser’s Fury and Super Mario 3D World. We’ll start with the new stuff and revisit the original title towards the end.

Bowser’s Bad and Metal Day

Bowser’s Fury kicks off with Mario going about his usual day in the Mushroom Kingdom. He follows a trail of black tar that sucks him into the world of Lake Lapcat, where he is immediately accosted by a rage-possessed Bowser. After gathering his first cat shine, which scares Bowser away, Mario meets Bowser Jr. The pair team up to return the Koopa King to normal, traveling from island to island collecting Cat Shines that unlock a power-up that makes Mario capable of fighting Bowser hand-to-hand.

Bowser looms over Mario’s adventure through Lake Lapcat, and he has never been more menacing. Possessed by the strange black goo, Max Fury Bowser (It should have been God Slayer Bowser!) is Gozilla-esque, and he’s bent on making Mario’s day a bad one.

Like the Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Super Mario Odyssey before it, the opening sets the tone for Bowser’s Fury throughout. It gives you a small piece of action before opening the entire world for you to play in. It’s a pretty big world too, packed with things for completionists to uncover. Each of Lake Lapcat’s primary three zones is about the size of an average Mario Odyssey kingdom.

A Taste of What is to Come

If Odyssey was the peak of Mario-level design, then Bowser’s Fury is its next step. Nintendo has continued to venture into the seamless open-world design, and that works to Bowser’s Fury’s advantage. The game flows without loading screens, making it easy to get lost in the world as you travel from island to island. 

The Switch is able to handle this load, although there are some performance differences between handheld and docked mode. Handheld mode lowers the frame rate to 30 fps; docked it runs at a smooth 60 fps with full 1080p graphics. Playing it on my 4K TV was noticeably smoother and gorgeous to see.

Bowser’s Fury features a mission structure akin to Super Mario 64. As you travel from island to island, you’ll collect red cat tokens, scale daunting obstacle courses, and reunite lost kittens with their mom. In Odyssey, moons are scattered throughout each locale. Here, each island has five cat shines. Instead of kicking you to a hub world after each shine, all you need to do is visit another island and a new challenge will load when you return.

Platforming is as smooth as ever in Bower’s Fury. I had to remind myself this is 3D World Mario, not Odyssey Mario. Triple jumps have been replaced by 3D World’s catsuit. Still, Bowser’s Fury adds a few modern amenities, eliminating lives and 1-Ups. Failing or dying is not much of a consequence. All it costs is 50 coins, and coins are very easily earned throughout your playthrough. Instead of lives, they’ll net you a random power-up once you collect 100 instead. It makes the game accessible to players of all types.

Plessie, the water dinosaur who debuted in 3D World, serves as your main transport through Lake Lapcat. Nintendo created him to be very handy. Should you be approaching any spot, be it a dock, shore, or in the middle of the lake, Plessie will pop up close to you. Riding Plessie is always fun, and he destroys everything in his path. He is a very good dino!

The levels themselves are just fantastic as usual. With three themes, lava, ice, and normal terrain, Nintendo continues to make levels that just feel right. In the ice area, one shine tasks you with climbing a tower using the propeller block. In the lava area, you have to make your way to the top of the cat volcano using seesaw platforms. While I wish there were more varied missions, it is minor when considering how everything was well created. The variety comes from Bowser himself.

Fury, Thy Name is Bowser

As you proceed through the levels, dread accompanies you. God Slayer Bowser will reawaken again after a certain amount of time, and he will do all he can to stop Mario from getting the Cat Shines. Once he’s off his shell, the sky becomes stormy, a Metal Rock song kicks into overdrive, and the levels themselves change with his fire and spikes from the sky. While you are jumping and platforming in this phase, Bowser will shoot his fire breath and do everything he can to impede your progress.

I cannot stress this enough, Fury Bowser is menacingly intimidating. I compare Bowser to Godzilla. I didn’t want to get near him, but he doesn’t care and will come directly to you. The size difference between Mario and Bowser gives their encounters a David and Goliath vibe.

Once you get a Cat Shine, you cause some damage to him and send him back for a brief respite. Collecting enough gives you access to the Giga Cat Bell. Once Bowser wakes again, the bell tolls and activates, and you can finally get some payback for the damage he’s done.

Going Even Beyond

Once you reach the Giga Cat and transform into the Giga Cat Mario, it’s time to go full-on Kaiju battle. Going to Bowser’s size recontextualizes the size and scope of the world. Giga Cat Mario is just as big as the islands he spends hours climbing.

The fight with Bowser is generally simple, following the Nintendo law of three hits to win. Still, the simplicity of the battle doesn’t take away from the spectacle of it all. Completionists will be treated to an even more exciting battle. Facing Bowser after collecting all 100 Cat Shines recolors the Koopa King in a way that screams Shin Akuma. Whether your a casual or full hardcore, Nintendo has got you covered.

A Sunny Stay In Fury’s Delight

Bowser’s Fury continues to show why no one else does it like Nintendo. From the separate, integrated deep levels of each island, the music that pulls you in, and Bowser’s fury mode, it all works so well together. I only wanted more from my stay at Lake Lapcat. While as long as a standard new Mario title, Bower’s Fury should not be missed. This is the Super Mario Odyssey DLC that many fans have yearned for. Should you get Super Mario 3D World + Bowsers Fury solely for the expansion? No. Should you get it because it is part of an already established package? Yes.

Overall, the experience is well worth it should you ever pick up Super Mario 3D World. If this is just a taste of what is to come and the future of Mario games, then I cannot wait till we get a full proper entry after Mario Odyssey. Nintendo continues to incorporate new genres with their main franchises, and Mario shines brighter for it.

Super Mario 3D World Review

When I heard Super Mario 3D World’s jazzy menu theme for the first time since I completed the game in early 2014, I felt like I was home. The game is my absolute favorite Wii U title, and playing it with my closest friends is among my most treasured gaming memories. As excited as I was for Bowser’s Fury, the original game was one I had no doubt about double-dipping for.

After replaying 3D World on Switch, my love for it has only deepened. It is one of the best Mario games ever made, and if you missed it on Wii U, now is the time to catch up.

It’s easy to view Super Mario 3D World as a relatively unambitious Mario title. Its gameplay originates from the 3DS title Super Mario 3D Land, a game in which creativity was limited by low-powered hardware. There are no crazy gravity effects, no sprawling metropolises where you can wall kick up skyscrapers, and no fundamental changes to Mario’s basic moveset. As far as new mechanics go, the catsuit and double cherry power-ups are about it.

Replacing those gimmicks is a bottomless chalice of ideas brought to life through course design. Every single stage in Super Mario 3D World presents a new idea that recontextualizes what Mario can do. The fifth world has players locating five key coins on an oceanfront, performing a trapeze act, and racing to find three green stars within a tight time limit in its first three stages. Ideas rarely repeat themselves, and when they do there’s always a new wrinkle added in. A second visit to a Japanese castle makes changes to its rooms and adds Hammer Bros. and baseballs, challenging players to use the balls to knock out enemies and earn optional green stars.

Each stage has three of those green stars, and they do far more than serving as a fun collectible for completionists; They’re another outlet for bringing bite-sized ideas to life. A Mario 64-slide homage tasks players with a series of tight optional jumps to earn one green star, while another pays tribute to Star Fox 64 by hiding behind a waterfall. One late-game level requires Mario to light torches without losing his power up to thorny piranha plants that cover the ground. It tests the player’s jumping precision and fireball accuracy, earning three very satisfying stars upon success.

Super Mario 3D World is almost worth playing twice because it’s easier to appreciate the brilliance behind every stage playing by yourself, but four-player co-op ups the fun overall. Thanks to 3D World’s extra dimension, the overcrowding that plagues the 2D New Super Mario Bros. games is nowhere to be found here. Still, those who enjoy stabbing their friends in the back can do so and be rewarded for it due to a competitive scoring mechanic that literally crowns each stage’s winner. Four different characters add to the fun because a tribal bond develops between you and your chosen hero.

Mario, Luigi, Peach, and Toad each have their own strengths that make them slightly better picks depending on the stage. You can’t go wrong with the all-around Mario, but Luigi has a leg up on his brother when climbing up vertical stages thanks to his high jump. Princess Peach turns the game’s difficulty down with her ability to float, but she can’t jump as high as the Mario Bros. Toad’s speed makes him ideal for stages with short time limits, but he jumps even lower than Peach. Rosalina, unlockable in an early bonus-world stage, can help you get past the grueling extra stages. She has an aerial attack that serves as a double-jump, and even the hardest course becomes doable because of her versatility.

All of this will be very familiar to you if you’ve played the Wii U title, but a few changes were made to the Switch port. Online multiplayer, lag-ridden though it may be, makes it possible to experience the game with friends while following social distancing guidelines, and it’s nice to see it here despite the imperfections. Green stars now stay collected if you lose a life before clearing a course or hitting a checkpoint, which is a bit of a mixed bag. It’s respectful of the player’s time, but some challenges were clearly made with losing them in mind. Nintendo also decided to up the game speed for the Switch version. I never felt like the Wii U version was slow, and I would have liked the option to revert to the original speed. Jumps feel a little less precise, and that outweighs the benefit of shorter levels.

Still, Super Mario 3D World controls excellently with every character. A stage in World 2 requires players to run across a narrow pathway at a high enough speed to dodge ostrich-like birds that slam their beaks into the ground when you walk past, and despite the lack of wiggle room it’s so easy to guide every character across while sprinting. Scaling walls with the catsuit is similarly satisfying. It changes the way you view the walls around you, and the melee swipe dependably knocks out enemies in ways the Fire Flower can’t. A practical and useful air roll has also been added to this version of the game.

If there’s an issue with movement, it’s the relative uselessness of the rest of Mario’s jumps. You can spin jump, backflip, and side flip, but none give you an extra boost when you really need them. In Mario 64, the sideslip is a great tool to initiate a wall kick, especially in tight spaces, but it doesn’t cover enough ground here. The backflip takes too long to charge and doesn’t offer enough height to compensate, and the spin jump’s extra hangtime isn’t worth the trouble of initiating the animation.

Even so, Super Mario 3D World remains a nearly unblemished classic that all Mario fans should experience. It’s great fun with friends or by yourself, features the best level design the series has ever known, and never stops surprising and delighting. Bowser’s Fury rocks, but there’s a reason it gets second billing. Super Mario 3D World is one of the best Mario games of all-time.