‘Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury’ review: Two great, full games

It’s so strange to me that the title of Nintendo’s latest Mario game leads with the re-release.

Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury is really two full and complete games in one. But where 3D World is a reissue of an excellent game that never got the love it deserved because it was released for the ill-fated Wii U, Bowser is something wholly new. 

It’s still recognizably a Mario adventure. There are platforms to jump between, environmental puzzles, ticking clocks, power-ups, Goombas… the gang’s all here. But sitting on top of all that are two fundamental changes that completely shake up the pace and flow we’ve come to expect over almost 40 years.

The first: Bowser’s Fury is set in an open world. The story unfolds around Lake Lapcat’s enormous collection of cat-themed islands, with each island standing in for what fans would typically think of as individual Mario “worlds.” The open waters, which you navigate with help from Plessie, of 3D World fame, also hide plenty of secrets.

The physical layout of Bowser’s Fury puts more of a premium on exploration than you’d traditionally expect from the focused and discrete world design of earlier Mario games. That’s especially important because of the way this world reacts to Mario’s presence.

Bowser’s Fury opens with the titular villain consumed and corrupted by dark and evil goop, transforming him into Fury Bowser — basically, a Mariofied take on Godzilla. As you play, Fury Bowser pops into the world at random times, setting off stormy weather that makes harmless creatures temporarily evil and rains down massive, molten rocks.

You can keep trucking along through whatever puzzles you’re working on when Fury Bowser rears his big, goop-encased head. Sometimes it’s even helpful, as the hailstorm of rocks Bowser sets off creates temporary platforms that Mario can use to access hard-to-reach spots.

The idea, though, is to take Bowser on directly by channeling some real “pick on someone your own size” energy. See, the goop that’s corrupted Mario’s nemesis has also spattered across the whole land and broken every major island’s lighthouse. Solving puzzles earns you Shine stars — yes, a Super Mario Sunshine throwback! — that, over time, clear away the goop.

Fix enough lighthouses and you open up access to the Giga Bell, a gigantic power-up that turns Mario into a Fury Bowser-sized lion creature. These kaiju-inspired boss fights are appropriately epic, with the two longtime foes duking it out as they loom over the same islands where you’ve been solving puzzles as the normal-sized Mario.

These fights temporarily clear up the storm — which you can also do by grabbing a Shine or waiting it out — but they serve a larger purpose as well. Knock out the big lizard enough times, and you’ll open up access to more of Lake Lapcat’s scattered islands, with more Shines to collect and Giga Bells to unlock.

The open world’s inherent push to reward players for exploration, along with the randomness of Bowser-fueled weather events, has a dramatic impact on how this Mario game flows compared to the others. Your ability to improvise and respond to changing conditions on the fly is rewarded in ways that it hasn’t been before. It’s fresh and exciting in a way that feels distinctly Mario, but also not.

That’s where the other major Bowser’s Fury change becomes important. As you play, Mario amasses an inventory of stockpiled power-ups. You can hang on to five of each one — so five Fire Flowers, five Boomerang Flowers, five Super Bells, and so on. What’s more, equipping a power-up from your inventory automatically stores whichever other power-up you might already be using. Importantly, you can do this at any time.

Past Mario games have generally placed a premium on the availability and use of power-ups, positioning them at specific locations to make a particular level easier… provided you don’t mess up and lose the power-up along the way. But Bowser’s Fury completely rewrites that thinking. There’s a power-ups economy now. If you’re faced with a challenge that’s better for Boomerang Mario than Cat Mario, you can swap outfits secure in the knowledge that you can swap again at any point.

These pieces all come together in a Mario game that’s positioned as a bonus, an extra on top of the 3D World re-release. It makes sense to the extent that Bowser borrows heavily from its partner game in this package. The earlier Wii U release let Mario stockpile a single power-up. It also featured many of the same puzzle concepts that pop up throughout Bowser.

Playing the two games side-by-side, though, 3D World feels much more like a throwback by comparison. It’s still a tremendous Mario game that deftly marries ideas from two of the best to date: Super Mario Bros. 3 and Super Mario 64. But that discrete level design also feels inescapably constrictive by comparison.

Bowser’s Fury is something truly different, and all the more special for it. It’s a Mario that is both immediately familiar to pick up and play but also maybe a bit unapproachable and high learning curve-y at first as you work to understand how all these new concepts weave into the familiar. And it’s a full game, with all the bonuses and secrets and extras fans have come to look for.

Since the Switch launched with The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Nintendo has shown it’s willing to revisit old standards with fresh eyes. Bowser’s Fury is one more Godzilla-sized step forward in that welcome and still ongoing transformation.

Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury comes to Nintendo Switch on Feb. 11.