Bowser's Fury

Last Week for Catrena’s birthday we decided to FINALLY go to Universal Studios Hollywood to see the now 2-years-old Super Nintendo World! As a Nintendo person, it was very cool and the interactivity and games available to play with the band were very fun (the ride is another story, surprisingly). Since then I’d been itching for some mario game action and with a cold winter day after a week of rainy work, today felt like the perfect day to indulge. It turns out I’ve got quite the backlog of Mario games! I recently unearthed my copy of Mario 3D World so I decided to tackle Bowser’s Fury!

Right away it’s clear that this isn’t exactly following the formula of the 3D mario game. It’s changing things up a little by giving you a glimpse at what a true, open world Mario game could look like. At one point I realized that it has a bit of that Breath of the Wild magic to it. You climb up a lighthouse and you can look off around the sea to investigate what else is out there. You see an island in the distance and can just go there if you want! Mario finds himself in a sea of islands, each having a name a set number of Cat Shine Sprites to find. You can leave the islands at any time but when you set foot on that land, it will pop up and tell you the clue name of the next sprite to find.

Along with the openness, another thing that feels like BotW to me is the titular mechanic, Bowser’s Fury! He rises up out of the murky depths and is so angry, he’s furious! He’s throwing rocks and breathing fire, he’s mad! It can add a great deal of tension to an otherwise straight forward run at a cat shine shard. It reminds me of the Blood Moon cycle. My problem with this comes later in the experience when the frequency ramps up and you don’t have a moments peace. I know what it’s doing, it’s pushing you to go to the Giant Cat Bells which brings me to the best part… GIANT CAT MARIO KAIJU BATTLES!

I don’t know if it’s happened before now, but has Nintendo ever made a kaiju game before? I’m not going to look this up right now and just assume this is a first for them, and honestly it’s such a great fit. Giant Bowser stomping around this land that looks just like a little Katamari level and huge Neko-Mario using a small but effective bag of tricks to stomp his ass back into the sludge from whence he came. It’s really quite fun and I’m surprised they used this mechanic for this small game! I have a feeling that the next 3d mario game will borrow heavily from some of what is going on here.

After the credits rolled today I was greeted with this: 50/100 Cat Shine Sprites found. Only half! I was surprised that it was that low. At a certain point Bowser never settles back down so you sort of HAVE to go after him, which finishes the game. I am going to go back in and try to get more sprites, though, I want to see what some of the tougher challenges are.

Feb 9, 2025

… And that’s a wrap on Bowser’s Fury! Honestly this could be one of my favorite 3D mario games I’ve played and yes the fact that everything is cat themed has something to do with it. The world they’ve built, the islands that transform for one challenge to the next are an excellent evolution of the 3D Mario Series. Instead of restarting the levels or returning to a hub area after you collect your prize, the game just plops you down where you finished for you to do whatever you’d like next. You could jump out to sea where Plessie is most likely waiting for you (if not they likely aren’t too far) or head to the start and see what the island has in store for you next.

My biggest complaint is that towards the end, Bowser is just constantly pursuing you. If you’ve cleared the credits once then Bowser will sink back into the water if you grab a sprite or die. It can make some of the harder cat shines even more difficult to grab. The last 20 or so challenges were a good mix between difficult Mario platforming and clever puzzles. One island has you skating an obstacle course in an ice skate. It took me 50 tries to get this stupid shine, I could not control that damned ice skate. Bowser’s freaking out every third run or so prolonged my success as well.

Conclusion

I think a lot of people maybe overlooked this game, after all it was a pack-in with a re-released Wii U that had already sold well. I know I didn’t really give it a second look. I hope that this lack of chatter does not affect Nintendo from pursuing this as a full fledged 3D Mario game. Now that I’ve written that sentence, it doesn’t really make sense because this WAS a full fledged 3D Mario game. Just because I ploughed through the thing in 2 days doesn’t mean this wasn’t a complete experience. Could there have been more islands? Sure. Could there have been extra cat sprites? Of course, but 100 challenges spread across 1/2 dozen full islands plus countless little ones was actually very satisfying. Plus, it’s all cat themed! And we love cats here.

UPDATE

February 13 2025

HEY WAIT ONE HOT MINUTE. WHY THE CRAP WAS BOWSER SO ANGRY! I really thought there was going to be a reveal where he had eaten something really spicy (fire flower) and that all the black sludge we were cleaning up due to a stomach ache. There was a moment where we saw his aching, glowing belly and he definitely puked out that black sludge a few times. But there was no reveal! No conclusion. Come on Nintendo, where are my big story elements?!