The Wii U is a bit of a weird thing. It sold like crap but it had several games that sold extremely well considering the low amount of units out there. Super Mario 3D World is one of those examples, with 5.86 million copies sold, which is impressive considering only 13 million Wii U units were even sold.

At this point the Switch has basically every noteworthy Wii U game ported to it and outselling their Wii U counterparts easily (~8 million Mario Kart 8 copies on Wii U compared to over 33 million on the Switch, for example), so it was only a matter of time before 3D World made its way to the platform. That way people might actually be able to play this game, since so few even had the console to do so in the first place.

What I wasn’t expecting was that it would have actual noteworthy new content. Mario Kart had the DLC and a battle mode no one cared about, Tropical Freeze had Funky Mode, Pikmin 3 had the DLC and the Piklopedia, Hyrule Warriors had the DLC, Pokken had characters that were previously only in the arcade version… It was basically nothing major, or new. Mario 3D World though? It gets a whole new GAME. That’s pretty meaningful.

So let’s go and see if this is a package worth getting!

Developer and Publisher: Nintendo
Release date: February 12th 2021
Platforms: Switch
Genre: 3D platformer

Bowser’s Fury

I do think I have to start with the new game here. Like I noted, Wii U ports on the Switch didn’t tend to offer MUCH new compared to the Wii U version. Mostly just DLC that existed already. Bowser’s Fury is different.

It does take on the controls and overall gameplay of 3D World. So the jumping and power-ups and physics are what you know from 3D World. I think all the enemies are also from 3D World and function the same. How those are used though, are completely different. Bowser’s Fury is an open-world collect-a-thon platformer. Level design is less linear, though each island has some elements of linearity. Sometimes levels will include fast travel options, sometimes not. There’s an overall fast-travel for the entire world map, but you only unlock it in the post-game.

The way it functions is pretty unique. Some of it isn’t, but it has some interesting elements. At first only a small part of the world with 3 islands is available. Each island has a set of 5 Cat Shines to find (with other Cat Shines hidden outside the islands). Getting enough cat shines unlocks the Giga Bell, but that’s for later. The functionality of each island is a bit weird at first. Basically you get the cat shine, leave the island manually, and when you come back you have another cat shine to get. Some of the cat shines you can get at any time like blasting the fury blocks and getting the 5 cat coins, but a few are only available after you do earlier shines. Also some shines remove some of Bowser’s… dark gunky oil stuff from the world. This will allow you to explore more of the ocean and get to new islands as you progress. You navigate the ocean using Plessie from 3D World, though her controls are a bit improved so you can more easily go in directions that aren’t just forward.

So what about Bowser? He is in the title, after all. He plays a BIG role in this game. Bowser Jr asks for Mario’s help because Bowser got really mad and is going absolutely crazy. He’s all dark and fiery and giant and stuff, making him the second coolest version of Bowser after Megadragon Bowser from Mario+Rabbids. Over time, you may see him wake up in the background, as his shell starts floating up and spinning in the air. Eventually the wind will blow, signaling that he’s waking up. Bowser will then attack. Some new platforms may appear, he’ll rain fireballs on you, and do a godzilla-style fire blast. You have 2 ways to stop his attack: Get a cat shine, or use the Giga Bell. Getting the cat shine will make Bowser run away and go to sleep until he attacks again, and also cause minor damage to his life bar. The Giga Bell transforms Mario into his cat form, but BIG. The Giga Bell becomes available if you have enough Cat Shines. There you can try to attack Bowser with the scratch attack, but avoiding Bowser’s attacks (or throwing blocks at him) will eventually lead to him falling on his back, giving a good chance for a ground pound, which deals the most damage. If you defeat Bowser, this unlocks the next part of the game (and increases the number of cat shines you need to unlock the Giga Bell again, and makes further versions of the boss battle a bit stronger).

The game ends at 50 Cat Shines (once you get close to that Bowser no longer runs away when you get Cat Shines), but if you go back into the game after that there’s 50 more. A bit easier because the map will note where these are and you get access to a proper fast-travel system, but it’s nice to get a pile more content. And yes you have to beat Bowser again. Unfortunately there’s no real bonus/better ending for doing this. You get a thank you drawing from Bowser Jr.

I guess I didn’t really mention Bowser Jr yet, but there’s a reason for that… he’s basically irrelevant. You can get him to help more, less or not at all. He basically occasionally kills enemies, and you can get him to paint on walls to get power-ups… On that note power-ups are a bit interesting here. Instead of just storing one power-up like in the main game, here you can store up to 5 of each different power-up type. This is very helpful and makes some parts a bit easy, but it lets you be whatever you want whenever which is very useful.

Bowser’s Fury is SUPER fun. It’s a bit on the short side, maybe around 6 hours to 100% (probably less if you don’t miss the most obvious cat coin ever), but it’s definitely worth playing. Also it’s very pretty to look at. I would be really interested in Nintendo expanding on the ideas here for a whole new bigger game. Not necessarily keeping the “Bowser waking up every 5 minutes” thing, but the idea of a big single level that opens up as you progress and find secrets in is quite fun. Make it bigger, add more power-ups, more shines, more shine variety… you know the stuff.

Super Mario 3D World

I don’t particularly need to review this so I’ll keep this part very simple. Super Mario 3D World is a known quantity and basically nothing has changed

It still runs at 60fps (compared to Bowser’s Fury running at 30, FYI), it has a higher resolution, and that’s about it. Nothing I really noticed changed other than the touch screen and microphone features changing a bit. You press R to get a pointer which you can move around to affect certain objects and stun enemies. That’s it. The microphone feature is gone, replacing the platforms that would move from you blowing into the Wii U controller into automatically-moving platforms. The only sizeable change to the gameplay is that all the characters run faster than they did in the original game. It doesn’t seem to change anything like platform positioning you just tend to move faster, I doubt there’s much changed to actual jump arcs and such. I did notice with Toad that I was missing jumps more because of how fast he moves, but that may have been just me sucking. I don’t remember if I did this in the original game too. Oh, and you can skip cutscenes now. Yay.

3D World is a mix of 2D and 3D Mario, using lots of 2D level design tricks but applying depth to the levels, and it does so beautifully. Being 3D can lead to more options to deal with different obstacles, as well as more possibilities for exploration and hiding secrets and level design elements you can’t do in 2D. This game is really well designed. The new cat power up isn’t the best Mario power-up, but it does have some really fun things that truly complement the level design like letting you climb up walls, which is rarely required but adds more options to traverse levels. And I like that there’s 5 playable characters and that they’re all very different, so you’ll find someone that has a play style you like. A bit unfortunate that Rosalina is a post-game unlock.

A noteworthy thing is how you 100% the game. Each level has 3 hidden green stars. These are fun to find and some are pretty cleverly hidden. Each level also has a stamp. Usually way more hidden than the stars. At the end of every level is a flagpole and for the level to be “complete” you need to hit the very top of the flagpole (which is free if you’re a cat, harder if you’re not) which makes the flag gold. Some levels are locked behind needing a certain number of green stars. The post game needs even more green stars, and it features super-hard versions of previous levels. The biggest challenge in the game (and one of the toughest Mario levels overall) is Champion Road. To unlock it, you need to get all the stars, stamps and gold flags in every previous level. Once you complete Champion Road, that’s not all. Because to truly 100% the game, you need to finish every level with every character (which is faster if you’re doing multiplayer). At that point you get… stars on your save file. Yay? Yeah I wouldn’t recommend 100%ing the game.

If I have any actual complaints, I did see the framerate being a bit unstable in a few specific levels. Bowser’s Fury is fine framerate-wise even though it’s 30 instead of 60, but I did notice actual slowdown rather than framerate drop… kinda hard to describe the difference, but it’s not quite the same. It only happened a few times in a few specific areas/circumstances, so it’s not too bad. Also Bowser’s Fury does have lots of pop-in, but it’s not too bad as it’s usually stuff fairly far away from you that will pop in anyways.

Overall

Yeah this is obviously worth getting. Super Mario 3D World is a game that a very small amount of people had access to in the first place, now it’s hitting a way bigger market. Literally over 85% of Switch owners have not played this game, so it’s a new game for most people, and it’s really worth playing.

Bowser’s Fury is the most unique Mario experience in a long time and a blast to play. 3D World is many peoples’ favorite Mario game for very good reasons (it’s not mine but it’s very good). There’s really not much to complain about here. It’s definitely the most interesting Wii U port on Switch.

If you’re one of the 5 people who had a Wii U, this is still worth getting for Bowser’s Fury. If you’re not, obviously this is a must-get game. 3D World is very good and so is Bowser’s Fury. Either way, I recommend this game.