> me 6yo at a party with my parents
> there's this annoying kid 6yo around me
> yes I was 6yo and found other kids annoying already
> he asked me to play on my gameboy
> i was like "OK but only when I lose"
> you never lose on Warioland 2.
> fuck off kid.

I have nothing much to say about the design, history, artistic merit, thematic resonance, or any plumbable topic of depth with which a person trying to conceive of something meritorious inherent to Mario, Bowser’s Fury specifically but the general statement stands, which may be drawn on for fuelant to inspire criticism. 3D Mario games generally, with the elsewise brand expressions being as a whole still encompassed but to a lesser degree, move me not at all to thrill or agonise; they do not deposit me to a prolonged convalescence from rapture nor a disappearing into mist that arises some self doubt; the antics in do not put before me a self which I can see as bettered or worsened. I can think of nothing in myself to pull from play to paper other than surmising that games, with their inset holding of many excellent offerings of Mario, which are so consistently fruitful and nutritious, showing in their prodigious production no sign of overflowing the cellar nor going bad in storage, are still in a period (which they may never leave from either external pressures or internal transfigurations) of such infancy that there manages a dominant hold of an entire orbiting shape of their format, medium, expressionistic vocabulary - however else expressed - which is composed of an idea which is sterile, contained, utterable only in relation to itself, and which controls the traffic of anything which has sprung up in the ecosystem it has hardened to externalities but softened to itself.

In the wake of the Mario movie’s enormous success, dwarfing likely any other single Mario property’s profits by a daily increasing margin, the comparative draw on the dire shape of film audience ability to be met en masse and the enormous accessibility of games to the PC game demographic has, for me, been recast. Whereas The Mario movie has now made more money than the entire filmographies of some of the greatest filmmakers (possibly even more than the entire film industry in some directors’ countries of origin), the film industry, with all its structural and cultural issues, has been able to establish the bedrock for possibility and what contrasting heights and lows are possible outside of any singular name or film; the Mario movie dwarfing in recognition Jonas Mekas by a margin of ∞:1 is not offerable as any miniscule shred of proof as being superior or in anyway equally significant to the artistry possible within the medium. In games, that may never be possible. To talk about the entire etymology of not just the verb titles, but the actions possible in describing those verbs outside of the magic circle, cannot be divorced from the IP which dominates its form’s facade.

Good or bad, Mario is Coca-Cola, Kleenex, Band-Aid, and Kraft Dinner.

This is pretty much pure, basic, unfiltered Kirby. There's little bells and whistles to the formula. It won't bring in anyone not a fan of Kirby and won't turn anyone away who is a fan.

There are the ultra powers, or whatever they're called. Supped up copy abilities that can be found in specific stages and essentially exist just to smash everything on screen for 3 minutes and unlock a secret portal to an auto-scrolling platform challenge, followed by a fight with a mini-boss for two of this games obligatory collectibles.

These power moments provide some brief fun, but like the mega mushrooms in New Super Mario Bros. there's only so much you can do with a gimmick whose entire thing is hulk smashing everything.

The mini-game compilation is pretty fun. Of course the real draw of the mode is multiplayer, but they provide lots of encouragement for solo players to try it out, with a challenge list and unlockable cosmetics + items to use in the main game.

What I didn't quite get was why the entire mini-game catalogue opened up straight after beating level 2, then one of the bonuses for collecting the previously mentioned collectibles was unlocking mini-games in the games hub area. I can only assume this was a leftover from the original game where mini-games had to be slowly unlocked?

As a Kirby game you can expect it to be short and easy, but as usual post-game provides both a little longevity and a lot of challenge for 100%. There's "extra" mode, which is literally just the whole game again but basically hard mode. I'm not a big fan of difficulty options that are disguised as unlockables, especially when there's no option to select default difficulty in the first place.

Magolor's Epilogue provides a pretty cool alternate-gameplay journey. Being very combo and upgrade focused as opposed to Kirby's switch-and-swap abilities

And of course you've got your boss rush mode.

All in all, it's Kirby.