We have been looking forward to the Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury release ever since it was announced as part of Mario’s 35th anniversary. We missed the original game’s release on the Wii U, but we are big fans of 3D Mario games. Plus, the new addition of Bowser’s Fury made the game that much more enticing.

The game released back in February, but we are only now getting around to our review of it (sorry!). We’ve had so much fun playing it together, though, that we couldn’t not share it here. 

Super Mario 3D World…Again!

While Super Mario 3D World released for the Wii U in 2013, the Wii U’s failure hampered the game’s success. Critics enjoyed the game, as did anybody who bought it at the time. But it didn’t get the audience it deserved.

That’s why Nintendo re-released it on Switch, as Nintendo does with all of its Wii U hits. They’ve made some improvements to the speed and fluidity of the game, but it’s basically the same thing except portable now!

In the game, Bowser has kidnapped some fairies from…some other kingdom? It’s not totally clear, but who cares? Bowser’s up to something, and Mario and the gang can’t let that stand. So they chase Bowser down and rescue the fairies.

Like Super Mario 3D Land on the 3DS, 3D World blends classic 2D Mario design ideas (a starting point and an end goal with lots of platforming in between) with the visuals and certain gameplay mechanics from the 3D games. The levels are beautifully built and never repeat too much. Each level brings something unique to the table, so you always have something new to look forward to.

Super Mario 3D World builds on the foundation that 3D Land established but adds a lot of fun twists. First, Mario’s new cat suit allows him to climb walls and perform special attacks. This cat suit is crazy fun to play with, and it’s probably our favorite power up in the whole game. 

In addition to the new power up, there are several levels where you get to ride Plessy, a super cute, aquatic dinosaur thing. And in each level, there are three hidden stars and a hidden stamp for you to collect.

And if that weren’t enough, there are several new levels where you play as Captain Toad. He can’t jump, so he has to puzzle-solve his way through some tricky situations to claim all five stars in a given level. These side levels were so cute and so much fun that we actually went and bought Captain Toad Treasure Tracker, which is a game that Nintendo later put out that is based on these levels, so we could play more of them.  All of these additions keep the gameplay fresh and interesting throughout the whole game.

One last note that I couldn’t really stick anywhere else: the music for this game is stellar. I have had the music for World Bowser stuck in my head for days now, and I don’t mind one bit. That sassy, jazzy tune is one of the most thematically appropriate pieces of video game music I’ve ever heard. It’s perfect. (You can listen to it here if you’re curious.)

Multiplayer Mayhem

Perhaps most important for our enjoyment, Super Mario 3D World has a multiplayer option. We have played the entire time as a dynamic duo whose skills are unrivaled.

Okay, maybe not. That video is of us near the beginning of our journey. It was the first time we’d played one of those cloud levels, and I had no idea how the boosters worked. So I died very quickly, and Michela was totally unsure what was going on…so that didn’t work out too well. (I’m glad you can’t hear us screeching on the screen capture…)

We got better eventually (though…not by much), but we always had a blast playing together. The multiplayer is really tight, and each character controls slightly differently. My only qualm is that if one of you gets ahead, the other “bubbles” over, and sometimes it’s hard to keep track of each other. So you do need to be in constant communication while you’re playing. But that only contributes to the fun!

About That Bowser’s Fury

And who could forget the main addition for the Switch version: Bowser’s Fury? Bowser’s Fury is a new adventure somewhat in the style of Super Mario Odyssey, but with the mechanics and power ups of 3D World.

Mario ends up at Lake Lapcat, where Bowser Jr. explains that his dad has taken up a new hobby: becoming a giant, fire-breathing tar beast. This isn’t fun, apparently, so Jr. requests Mario’s help in cleaning up Bowser’s mess and restoring his dad to normal.

You go around a vast, open setting collecting hidden cat shines on various island littered across the lake. As you collect more shines, more of the map opens up.

But GigaTar Bowser will show up sometimes to ruin the fun. When he does, a storm kicks up, and he blows fire everywhere and hurls giant rocks at you. (Rude.) The only way to get him to go away is to wait out his storm, find a cat shine, or ring one of the cat bells. After you collect a certain number of cat shines, you can ring the cat bell to become a gigantic cat-Mario with anime hair.

In this form, you can fight GigaTar Bowser (I’m sure that’s not his canonical name, but it’s what I call him) and clear up the area. You have to do this several times, and once you collect fifty shines you have a final showdown with GigaTar Bowser. These fights are pretty fun, but they do take a bit of getting used to.

Overall, Bowser’s Fury is a fun side mission that adds several hours of life to the game. So I do recommend it, but I have a few small complaints to register, in the spirit of total honesty.

The Multiplayer

Bowser’s Fury features a two-player mode where one of you can play as Bowser Jr. The problem: this doesn’t work very well. If you’re Bowser Jr., you can’t do anything except bash enemies and paint stuff. You can’t even see half the time because Mario’s camera is freestyle, so player one is likely trying to see what the heck they’re doing. It’s not a great experience to play two-player, even if it is fun to watch each other play and find the shines together.

Bowser’s Fury

While I applaud Nintendo for doing something unique here, the constant interruptions from Bowser to my platforming fun weren’t always welcome.  And, though the clashing of titans could be enjoyable, sometimes I really just wanted to bounce around. I am therefore a bit lukewarm on the namesake for this new content. 

The Repetition

I found several things about Bowser’s Fury a bit repetitive for my taste. Each little island has 5 shines to find, and they’re all good fun. But the same basic shines kept showing up on each island—one for collecting the shine shards, one for the blue coins, one for getting a key and bringing it to the cage where the shine was sitting. Whenever there was a unique shine, it did tend to be actually different from all of the others in the area. And I must note that even the repeated themes (blue coin, get the key, etc.) presented special challenges for each unique area. Each island is actually varied enough that even the repeated shines don’t grate on me too much.

But I think I expected a more Odyssey-style exploration. In Super Mario Odyssey, moons are littered everywhere, and you just grab them and go. No real need to reset anything or reload. They repeat, but there are so many of them that it didn’t really matter. And you could find plenty of surprise moons all over the place, so you just kept getting this huge jolt of excitement when you’d uncover one you weren’t expecting to see.

Bowser’s Fury isn’t quite like that. You can grab maybe two shines at a time on a given island, but then you have to leave the shores of the island to load up the next one. It’s a bit tedious if you’re really enjoying an island’s unique platforming challenges and mechanics to need to leave and come back between shines. It’s not a huge inconvenience, but it highlights the repetitive nature of the shines more than in Odyssey. You leave the island just to come back and find another blue coin challenge or another key to hunt down. It just gets a bit old after a while.

The Limited Movements

This is probably too whiny, but I found the limited movements in Bowser’s Fury to be a bit off-putting. Don’t get me wrong: all of the powerups from 3D World are present and accounted for. But some of Mario’s traditional 3D movements aren’t, like the triple jump for example.

While the lack of some of Mario’s moves make sense for the base game, especially with the super cool power ups available in the game, the open world aspect of Bowser’s Fury suggests that more movement freedom would be better. Maybe I’m just pining for all of the intricate, bonkers movements from Odyssey, or even the super unique mechanics of something like Super Mario Sunshine. Maybe that’s not quite fair because the cat and tanooki suits cover a wide range of motion in this game, meaning that you don’t need crazy complex platforming options.  I just thought the more limited movement arsenal of 3D World was not quite what I was hoping for in a wide-open environment. It was still good, but it made me miss Odyssey just a little bit.

But it’s still fun, so don’t worry!

In spite of these few (very nit picky and minor) gripes, Bowser’s Fury is a really fun addition to the Mario universe. The platforming challenges are unique and enjoyable, the islands and setting are super fun, and the titan fights did grow on me by the end. The final fight was fun and unique, and I really enjoyed it.

After you collect 50 shines and beat Bowser, you can go back to Lake Lapcat to uncover 50 more shines. That means there are tons of cat shines to find and oodles to do in Lake Lapcat. And you can even repeat the final boss fight whenever you want, which is a nice touch. I haven’t got all the shines yet, but I hear you get to keep the anime hair when playing as cat Mario once you do.

Who to Play With

You can play Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury with the whole family. Geekling loves playing with us via his disconnected blue GameCube controller, and he wasn’t even bothered by GigaTar Bowser. Mario games are always clean and refreshing fun for everyone, and this one is no different.

You can grab a copy of the game or even your own Nintendo Switch Console over on Amazon.

Have you played Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury? What did you think? Let us know in the comments!

And if you’re looking for more Mario fun, check out our review of Super Mario 3D All-Stars or our reviews on Paper Mario games to play with your family.