Super Mario 3d World Bowsers Fury Review

Equally the math equation of a title implies, Super Mario 3D World + Bowser'southward Fury bundles two discrete video games in i package. One "one-time," one new, the pair have been loosely tied together by a shared love of cats. Yep, cats. But across that pseudo-superficial connection, the duo represents a rare fork in the road for the time to come of Nintendo's diminutive plumber.

On one path is Super Mario 3D World, a port of a little-played but lovingly reviewed Wii U game that blends together the best $.25 of 2d and 3D Mario adventures. Though technically a sequel to Super Mario 3D Land on the Nintendo 3DS, Super Mario 3D World borrows freely from the entire serial. An alternative title for Super Mario 3D World would be "Super Mario's Greatest Hits": the multiplayer of New Super Mario Bros. U, the colorful levels of Super Mario Globe, the zippy mobility of Super Mario 64.

Nintendo isn't agape to curve the Mario franchise in inventive ways; its designers never outright break the formula. As a result, if you lot know how to play ane Mario game, yous accept the tools to play every Mario game. And so, loving Mario games ways noticing the tiny details that distinguish them, like how one emphasizes money drove or another features a power-upwards inspired past a woodland creature known for its engorged (and mythically magical) testicles.

Super Mario 3D World builds upon this assumption that most players can already speak its language. Stages feel, to a longtime fan, familiar — or, to put it another mode, referential. Little is new here, except the game's fluffiest upgrade: The true cat arrange allows Mario and pals to climb walls and launch a diagonal diving attack. The game is polished within an inch of its life, even by the standards of the Mario universe, in which every enemy, cake, and bottomless pit is placed with intentionality. Only this game merely feels, I don't know, glossier? Perhaps information technology's the loftier-definition 3D grapheme designs, which expect like collectible vinyl figurines. Or maybe it's the precision of the motility, honed through decades of fine-tuning.

Danielle Riendeau neatly summed upward the magic of the game in Polygon'due south original review:

Super Mario 3D World doesn't reinvent the Mario formula. Just information technology is in every style its own game, with a bright, joyful aesthetic that's supported by inspired level design and a bandage that matters. It gets the balance correct between nostalgic touches and clever new twists, and never one time let me down with a boring boss or besides-familiar retread. In all my years of playing with the Mario gang, I've never been quite and then happy to hurl myself into the unknown, and 3D World delivers claiming, surprise, and joy in almost every moment.

Toad, wearing a cat costume, punches a goomba into oblivion. Four other goombas watch the violence, their blank faces betraying their terror.

I won't go so far equally to say Super Mario 3D Earth is my favorite entry in the storied franchise. I will say it'southward the entry I am most likely to recommend to both newcomers and lapsed fans returning to video games in machismo. The four-role player online multiplayer feature helps. And at that place's a genuine comfort to the reliability and consistency of the run a risk, similar listening to Fleetwood Mac's Greatest Hits.

To stretch out that comparison to its snapping point: While almost folks prefer the Greatest Hits anthology, the about obsessive Fleetwood Mac fans (read: me) will adopt listening to Tusk, the band's experimental album that's not 100% bangers, but radiates personality from its ambitious and sometimes misguided intent. I accept that I tin can't spend this whole review talking about Tusk, Fleetwood Mac's best and about underappreciated album, simply, patient reader, I tin tell you lot nearly Bowser'southward Fury: the Tusk of Mario games.

Bowser Jr. finishes a messy painting of his father, who has turned into a kaiju. The painting is cheap, like one of those splatter paintings that gets presented as high art at supposedly ritzy stores outside Disneyland.

Bowser's Fury, the new half of this oddball double feature, is the first fully open up-world Mario game.

The story begins with a children's volume premise: Bowser has been turned into an oily, skyscraper-sized abusive father by blackness acrylic paint (don't ask me), and Bowser Jr. needs Mario's help to return his lizard dad dorsum to his typical grumpy and incompetent self. A 2d player can command Bowser Jr., or the game'due south artificial intelligence will handle the sidekick, who floats around Mario thwacking enemies with a paintbrush and unlocking subconscious power-ups.

At offset, Bowser's Fury doesn't announced to be so different from other 3D Mario games. Mario stands on a embankment, surrounded by coins and platforming blocks and the usual baddies. Only in the far altitude sits another prepare of platforms, and farther in the distance, more platforms still. Imagine Super Mario 64, but instead of discrete stages, each location is i island in a grand archipelago.

The scope overwhelms, like to Super Mario Galaxy's stages crammed with satellite planets, in which Mario looks like a small-scale speck in an infinite void. And similar to the original Super Mario Galaxy, the scope of Bowser's Fury's open globe doesn't allow for the creative precision of other Mario games.

Mario, wearing a cat outfit, sits on a black hundreds of feet above the ocean. There appears to be nowhere for him to safely leap. Perhaps he will leave here until his time runs up.

To put it another way: If most Mario games are meticulously designed obstacle courses in which every object and piece of art is precisely where it needs to exist, Bowser'south Fury'south open world resembles a toddler's room afterward a day of playtime: color and toys and distractions everywhere. Information technology's messy and lived-in, but if y'all take a breath, you'll notice the space has its ain amuse and warmth.

The bodily playgrounds, the islands that make up each challenge, are no less fun than whatsoever other 3D Mario locales, packed with clever puzzles and some difficult-but-never-infuriating platforming paths. The tropical setting offers a surprising variety of compages, like a castle Mario must pause into, a heaven-loftier belfry he must climb above, and a beach with invisible platforms that form a maze for sweetness, confused Mario to feel his mode through. Plessie, the orange soda-colored Loch Ness monster, materializes throughout the world, eager to ferry Mario from port to port and compete in a handful of its ain aquatic challenges.

Challenges reward cat shines, which are similar to the stars in any other Mario game. But here's where things get strange, where the Mario formula bends much further than it has before, where information technology nearly breaks into something entirely new.

As Mario, you must consummate these challenges within an unspecified amount of time. If you don't hurry, the game gets more than challenging. A tempest will roll over the island, the world will go dark, and the kaiju-Bowser will appear, transforming the globe into a hellscape. Obelisks rain from the sky like onyx missiles; the pouty papa spits beams of fire; stray kittens strewn across the islands turn into demon cats.

In the foreground, Mario looks at a golden token called a

I found 3 ways to go rid of the belligerent interloper, none of them like shooting fish in a barrel: I could collect a cat shine, scaring him away. I could await out the storm, a long and unremarkably lethal prospect. Or I could plow into a behemothic cat and kick him in the tuchus.

If Mario collects enough of the sparkling cat shine tokens, he has the choice to ring a humongous bong that transforms him into an XXXXL Mario wearing a cat conform. Evenly matched against the hulking Bowser, the two battle like Godzilla versus Kitty Kong. These dominate fights are as repetitive as every Mario vs. Bowser fight, except for ane clever tweak: The islands, towers, and mountains of the open world go shields and barriers in these showdowns.

Though previous Mario games have enforced time limits on private stages, the inaugural clock has been generous and visible. The series has largely encouraged players to continue at a leisurely step, inviting them to learn the environment and so overcome its obstacles. With the looming threat of a gargantuan Bowser and his limitless projectiles, Bowser's Fury charts a course distinct from the Mario formula. Familiar spaces become unfamiliar with each new pillar driven into the surface. The game, without warning, shifts from memorization to improvisation.

A kaiju-sized Mario wears his golden cat suit in the rain. He looks sort of like he's gone Super Saiyan.

My colleague Julia Lee noted in her preview that Super Mario 3D World is "the well-nigh cluttered Mario game [she'south] always played." I concur. And I honey information technology. It's fresh and unpredictable and different from what I expect from this serial.

I initially thought the two games — Super Mario 3D World and Bowser'south Fury — made for a mismatch. But I found from bouncing between the two that their formulas complement one another. Super Mario 3D Earth'due south history-lesson-similar approach to the series acts as a control group, making Bowser'southward Fury's experimental twists all the more striking.

Is Bowser's Fury the future of Mario? I doubt it. The formula has worked too well for besides long to go also far down this antagonistic open-world path. But I hope we see like diversions from Nintendo in the future, new ways for the familiar to surprise united states of america.

Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury volition be released Feb. 12 on Nintendo Switch. The game was reviewed using a pre-release download code provided by Nintendo. Phonation Media has affiliate partnerships. These practice non influence editorial content, though Vox Media may earn commissions for products purchased via affiliate links. You tin can discover additional information about Polygon's ethics policy here .