Okay, I’m just going to be totally upfront about this – I haven’t played a Super Mario game since Super Mario 3. I was a kid at the time, obviously, and I remember the game fondly, much as it absolutely hated me and my complete lack of hand-eye coordination. So I didn’t play Super Mario 3D World when it first launched on the Wii U in 2013, and I also haven’t played Super Mario Galaxy or any of the other ones in between. Not even Mario Kart. I know, I know, I know. I suck and should do better, so this right here – gesticulates to rest of the review – is me making up for that.
As a guy who got into Mario when it was a 2D game, migrating to a 3D world did present a few issues for me that were never a problem before. Moving at high speed and trying to nail a pin-point jump with a third movement axis to now have to consider is harder than I’d expected, for example, but after a couple of hours, as with any new mechanic, the brain adjusts, and life continues to find a way. Something kid-me would’ve loved in Super Mario 3 that’s actually in Super Mario 3D World, though, is the local and online co-op multiplayer, because having to hot-swap a gross sweaty controller with your friends was just the worst. Playing through these vibrant, colourful levels with up to four friends instead of having to take turns, that’s a real win, but at the same time it dials the chaos up to 11 and compounds it with each person added to the mix. You also share the available lives which can deplete pretty quickly when you won’t stop tossing your mates over the ledge for lolz.
The levels themselves aren’t particularly long, complicated, or difficult, with each world introducing its own new hooks and tricks to the various levels and making each one unique… for an hour or two. However, once you get over the initial waves of nostalgic glee, the game’s repetitive design starts to show, with later stages ranging from “kind of” to “very, extremely” more of the same. Super Mario 3D World even goes as far as to throw the same bosses at you on several occasions – the digital déjà vu I didn’t know I didn’t want.
Super Mario 3D World gives you some bonus extras to help you out, though, including a selection of four characters to play with right from the beginning, each with their own unique perks to keep things interesting. Mario, Luigi, Toad, and Princess Peach are on the selection bench from the get-go, with one more that can be unlocked in-game. Toad can run fast, but has a terrible jump height, Luigi has a high jump but grinds to a near complete halt when he hits the ground again, and Peach can float at the end of her jump. There are also occasional environmental elements that can be manipulated with the Switch’s touchscreen controls, a potentially cool mechanic that I feel is too finicky and under-used.
One thing that hasn’t changed at all since Super Mario 3? The game is positively riddled with secrets to uncover, and this alone had me replaying several stages a bunch of times. I stumbled into some of them by accident, but I loved hunting those ones I knew were there but couldn’t immediately find.
Bowser’s Fury, on the other hand, was more of a mixed bag. It’s a totally new expansion to the game on Switch, and switches (get it) things up by removing all the other characters you can play with in Super Mario 3D World except Mario, and replacing them with Bowser Jr. It plays out quite differently from the base game too, featuring an open world with various islands you need to visit, and cat lighthouses you need to cleanse with collectible “Cat Shines” (much like the stars in other Mario games) while avoiding the cat plants, cat missiles, and actual groups of over-friendly cats.
Every few minutes a gigantic, Godzilla-like Bowser busts out to interrupt things, at which point you have two options – run and hide until it’s over (this is what you’ll be doing most of the time), or find enough Cat Shines to unlock a Cat Shrine that gives you a giant cat bell that turns you into a giant cat that can confront Bowser directly. See the theme here? Good, because that’s about as deep as that point goes. Everything is cat-themed for no reason besides “because cats”. Don’t get me wrong, I love cats, I have four of them, but I just don’t get the theme in this context.
