Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury: A must-have for Switch owners

Bowser’s Fury is a very unique change to the traditional Mario formula. Mario finds a bunch of paint slapped all over the place, sort of like in Mario Sunshine before finding a big M that transports him into a new world. This new world has gone overboard with catness. The trees have cat ears, the flowers, the enemies — everything is cat-like. Everything has gone haywire and you immediately get an ominous feeling.

As you make your way through the intro portion of the stage, Bowser rises in the distance — impossibly tall like some sort of kaiju. As he awakens, burning blocks fall from the sky and occasionally he blasts powerful jets of flame at you that destroy everything in its path.

Eventually, you make your way to a Mario Sunshine-like “shine star” that also has cat ears and its energy powers a lighthouse that hurts Bowser and makes him slink away. This is just the intro.

Shortly afterward, you find Bowser Jr. who begs you to help his dad. Together, you and the strange Koopa Kid journey into adventure together.

What makes Bowser’s Fury unique is the fact that it’s a fairly open-world game. Instead of set stages, it’s a decent-sized open world that’s slightly bigger than a single planet in Mario Odyssey. As you stroll through the world you collect shines and other things that help restore the lighthouses and the island area that, in turn, weakens Bowser until you can make your way to the game’s absolutely insane conclusion (which I won’t spoil but…what?).

This game is also different in that it doesn’t have the multiplayer of Super Mario 3D World. A second player can take control of Bowser Jr and fight enemies alongside you but the camera focuses on Mario the whole time so it can be somewhat jarring if you’re not in control of the plumber himself.

Also, as you explore the world, it will start to rain and the weather will get progressively worse until Bowser wakes up. He’ll attack and destroy things until you find a shine and knock him back to sleep again. It’s honestly the most ominous feeling I’ve ever felt in a Mario game, knowing that big dude was about to wake up any second as I was approaching a tricky bit of platforming.

All in all, Bowser’s Fury is a fantastic single-player addition that, honestly, Nintendo didn’t have to add to get people to buy a Super Mario 3D World re-release. So it’s a wonderful bonus that really changes the game up for the plumber.

A copy of this game was provided to App Trigger for the purpose of this review. All scores are ranked out of 10, with .5 increments. Click here to learn more about our Review Policy.