Bowser’s Fury is a fun experiment. Its bitesize islands are perfect for constantly throwing new mechanics and enemies at the player, Bowser frequently interrupting gameplay is a clever idea without being so invasive that his interruptions feel like a chore and the areas evolving as you revisit them make treading old ground not feel tedious. Yes boss fights with Bowser and the challenges to get the cat shines are repetitive and there is scope for improvements with the water sections, but Bowser’s Fury is still a blast and its shorter length means that the concepts which could grow tedious in a full length Mario game do not overstay their welcome here.

2021 Ranked

Finally got around to playing this and it’s pretty fun. Almost worth the $60 price tag on its own which is good because I don’t want to play through 3D world again. I’m having a good time playing it with my wife even though co-op kinda sucks in this. Bowser Jr. seems really not fun to control. Gonna keep playing this one until we get all the shines or we don’t. My score might go up later but for now I’m feeling a decent to a light to a strong 3 and a half on this one. Oh also they really didn’t need to turn Plessie into a cat. There are some creatures in this world that do not need to also look like cats. That thing is an insult to god.

The game that is most out of context. Why is Bowser big/scary? Where are you? Why is everything a cat? And why is this game so good? That's right. This is a good game, despite nothing making sense.

The premise is to collect Cat Shines (wtf are them) so that they light up cat lighthouses and activate a giant cat bell so you can absorb its power and defeat the apparently angry Bowser. Nothing makes sense and it is a blast.

The world is a giant sandbox that you can traverse and platform in. The traversal method is insanely fun, with your permanent dino mount. The challenges and rewarding and are paced/spaced really well. The whole game is a polished Mario experience in bite sized format, and very few can say no to that.

It's just, so detached from reality, even more so than a regular Mario game. If they would have given the premise just a smidge more context, I feel like this game would have been a better experience.

An interesting experiment in introducing an unsegmented open-world format to the series, but doesn’t indicate any ease in being able to reproduce itself in a wider-scale entry. The presence of Fury Bowser, at least in its concept, hints towards a successful method in amplifying the tension of platforming as that the player is forced to, for example, speed up their movement in order to escape Bowser’s flame. Yet, the movement mechanics don’t fully support such a goal with the long jump’s physics being strikingly reduced to a short bunny hop and the lack of a backwards hop. The ambitions for Bowser, then, turn into a more trivial task of seeking out cover and waiting for his “fury” phase to recede.

This issue is somewhat mitigated in the presence of fury blocks that are meant to unlock shines since the player is forced to risk being damaged in order to gain access to locked areas. Yet, this introduces a bigger problem to the series in that the natural environmental curiosity that its antecedents encourage the player to capitalize on, both in the 2D and 3D formats, is damaged with the presence of a time-gated unlock system. To frame this issue directly, the player is forced to ask themself: “Do I want to explore another area? Or should I wait out for Bowser so I can gain access to a shrine where I am at now so I don’t miss out on it?” This situation introduces an unnatural structure to the series where the player, instead of finding possibilities with each open pathway or hidden corner, is forced to potentially avoid acting on their curiosity after calculating a risk-reward ratio.

Bowser’s fury phase is an admirable attempt to make the 3D Mario platformer even more open-ended via introducing uncertainty to completing levels “as-is”. However, any mechanic which discourages natural curiosity in environmental exploration is against what makes up the core of the Mario platformer (found even in its most linear entries via the presence of pipes, for example). If this were to be viewed as a prototype for a future 3D Mario, work is required to introduce uncertainty in another method while not forgoing the joy of continual discovery that is necessary for the series to function.

Other than ToTK, it's been a while since I've played a first party, main-line Nintendo game and nearly forgot how insanely polished and refined the gameplay can be. Despite the vast ocean area, it's nigh on impossible to find yourself lost. Despite it being fairly easy to fall back down to ocean-level while climbing the islands, you will always land next to something that will pick the gameplay right back up. Mainline Marios are magically crafted, and I really do mean that. They are Disney movies in game form (in the best way possible).

That being said, there are some points of failure that drag the gameplay. Bowser always seemed to spawn at the worst times for me, and I started to wonder if there really is a good time for Bowser to spawn. At any given moment, I'd be part-way into a Cat Shine mission, and I would just feel annoyed that Bowser was going to interrupt the fun challenge with his shitstorm making bullshit flying everywhere. Alternatively, I'd be moments away from collecting the Cat Shine and he'd just turn around and leave just as soon as he walked in. To add onto this pain, when I actually did want him to spawn so I could destroy some blocks, I'd find myself sitting on my hands, too afraid that if I started wandering off, I'd get distracted with another Cat Shine mission and leave the vicinity of the blocks. Just like the Blood Moons in BotW/TotK, they never happen at the right time and just feel like a needless interruption. I'm not a fan of either mechanic.

One silver lining to this is towards the end of your run to 50 shines, Bowser is suddenly undeterred by any additional shines and won't leave until you fight him in super bell mode. It was a pleasant surprise when I realized I was going to have to collect more shines during Bowser's shitstorm whether I liked it or not. It was no longer an interruption, it was a hard-mode-esque challenge, and I very quickly went from "oh, great" to "oh... great!!".

It is very silly to package a game as wonderful as this in a bundle with a game most Nintendo fans have already relatively recently played. It is silly to force some of 3D world's otherwise sensible mechanics into an open-world Mario game (one-hit kills like lava are no fun at all). However, this game is still sheer joy and despite everything, I found myself lost in the world of Nintendo's iconic charm.

This compact Mario adventure was just the thing that pushed me over the edge to re-purchase Super Mario 3D World on Switch. The platforming and obstacle-based challenges scattered across the archipelago are bite-sized enough for younger players to enjoy, while veterans will have a blast finding the bountiful secrets hiding around every corner. While some overarching elements of its design wear thin by the end, the brief runtime contributes to an “all killer, no filler” fun factor.

Full Review: https://neoncloudff.wordpress.com/2021/02/27/now-playing-february-2021-edition/

Replayed this in anticipation of Wonder. Like 3D World, the first time I played Bowser’s Fury I was pretty cool on it. I found at the time that it felt like a weird, barebones, frustrating prototype.

Going back to Bowser’s Fury was a more positive experience. Mario platforming in an open world structure is a treat — those individual levels make me feel like I’m on a jungle gym at the playground or something. Nessie likewise reached her (his?) final Fun Form here. I also liked the Bowser stuff where the world turns into the last level of a Katamari game, though the idea feels a bit exhausted by the end of the 3-4 hour runtime.

The biggest weakness here is the lack of checkpoints…more than once I got frustrated because I fell off a level for a dumb reason or failed a challenge and had to backtrack to restart. A checkpoint flag would make a big difference. I also don’t think this exact structure would suit a $60 Mario game — I think it works far better as a smaller format. Maybe a Donkey Kong game or a slightly different franchise could do the jungle gym setup for a full runtime.

Either way, fun time!