Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury

Genre: Compilation / 3D Platformer / Open-World

Players: 1-4 Co-Op (Local, Online)

The Nintendo Switch 2 Difference

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Review:

Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury, released on the Nintendo Switch in 2021, is a Compilation of two family-friendly 3D Platformers. Super Mario 3D World was originally released on the Wii U in 2013, and for a long while many saw it as inevitable that the game would end up being ported to Nintendo Switch. However, what no one predicted was that the game would be packaged in with Bowser’s Fury, a new self-contained game made specifically for this package. Each of the two games is separately selectable on the main menu screen, and players looking to skip straight to one game or the other can do so if they wish.

Both of these games make use of the same game engine, contain mostly the same power-ups, and feature the same basic core gameplay, yet each of them is distinctly different due to their world design and a few unique core mechanics. As such, I wouldn’t go as far as to say that Bowser’s Fury is entirely new – its moment to moment gameplay feels very much like Super Mario 3D World. However, enough has changed that the overall experience is one that’s brand new.

That’s not the only thing that’s new, however – Super Mario 3D World has received a slew of upgrades to ensure that it’s an overall improved experience. The movement speed for the characters has been greatly increased, making for an overall quicker experience. Elements of the original game that required touchscreen interaction now give players the option to use a gyroscopic motion-controlled cursor so players can play in docked mode. The multiplayer gameplay has been extended to include online play, with some excellent connectivity that worked without a hitch (though it retains some of the minor issues I have with the multiplayer overall, which I’ll get to in a bit). In addition, this version of the game adds multiplayer co-op play into the game’s bonus “Captain Toad” levels, the absence of which seems like an odd oversight in the original release, and its inclusion just makes sense now that multiplayer play has been added to the Nintendo Switch version of the full Captain Toad game.

And that is of course all without talking about the boost in performance the game gets in its transition to the Nintendo Switch. While the Wii U version of Super Mario 3D World played at a 720p resolution, the Nintendo Switch version of the game runs mostly around 1080p in docked mode, down to 720p in handheld mode, with both docked and handheld modes playing at a virtually flawless 60FPS framerate (thanks to Digital Foundry for the numbers).

Beyond the cold hard numbers though, Super Mario 3D World is a beautiful game. Above all else, this game looks extremely polished, with a superb presentation filled with wonderful little details. As per usual with Mario games, the world here is bright, colorful, and imaginative, full of beautifully-crafted and well-animated 3D characters and scenery, with some wonderful water effects, lighting effects, and distortion effects from things like water and clear pipes. In short, even though this is basically just an up-res of an eight year-old game, it still looks absolutely gorgeous by today’s standards, although it is arguably topped by Bowser’s Fury, which I’ll get to a bit later.

This gameplay is backed by a solid soundtrack full of quality instrumental themes, though I’ll say that for the most part these aren’t quite as catchy as I tend to find Mario’s usual fare. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still very good, just not as fantastic as what we see in some of Mario’s best games.

As for the gameplay, I’ll start by saying that the “3D World” title is a bit of a relic from the game’s origins, with this being a direct sequel to the Nintendo 3DS game Super Mario 3D Land. That game made full use of the Nintendo 3DS’s unique 3D features, which of course neither the Wii U nor the Nintendo Switch have. Rather, it is the general approach to game design and world design that 3D World shares in common with 3D Land, which is to say that this is a game that infuses the 3D gameplay of games like Super Mario Galaxy and Odyssey with more linear level design closer to 2D Mario games.

The result is a game that feels more user-friendly and familiar, but also less ambitious than the likes of Galaxy and Odyssey. There is some exploration here, but nowhere near what you saw in those titles. Even next to Super Mario Galaxy, one of the most linear 3D Mario games, Super Mario 3D World is a very linear experience. Now, that’s not a bad thing, per se. Rather, that’s just saying that 3D World doesn’t convey the same sense of wonder and discovery you get from those more “fleshed-out” 3D Mario experiences.

However, there’s a place for a more accessible game like this too, and players more used to 2D Mario games may find this to be the ideal title to help them transition to more 3D Mario experiences. There’s no need to baby a camera, judging depth perception is usually less tricky than other 3D Mario games, and there’s less in the way of more complex acrobatics than what some of those games call for.

Building on this user-friendly experience, Super Mario 3D World does offer one other baked-in element to welcome in as many players as possible, and that is its 4-player co-op play. As far as co-op Mario experiences go, this is probably about as good as it gets, though it does have its limitations. Players select Mario, Luigi, Peach, or Toad (each with slightly different properties, as is series tradition) and move around in the same area as the others, helping or possibly hindering them. It makes for great co-op moments, such as grabbing and throwing another player to help them get to a high platform. There’s also potential for competition, as players are scored through their runs of the level, and those scores are ranked at the level’s end, a ranking that seems to be primarily for bragging points.

While the multiplayer here is an excellent inclusion, there are a few elements that make it unnecessarily frustrating. Players are pushed and pulled towards each other, with the camera insisting on keeping all four characters in frame even when you play the game online. If a player wanders too far out of frame, they get zapped over to the others. At times, the game’s choice of which character to fixate on seems arbitrary, and it’s frustrating to make a difficult jump only to have the game decide, “no, I think the other player is where the camera should be”, and zap you back over. Likewise, if a character goes in a door or pipe, remaining characters have a scant few seconds to finish up what they’re doing before being forced over to the new location as well. This is not even getting into the map screen, where only the first player controls where everyone goes. In a game that’s otherwise an excellent 4-player co-op experience, this is a really frustrating flaw.

All in all, Super Mario 3D World is a solid, polished, beautiful, fun, and multiplayer-friendly game that nevertheless feels like a somewhat lesser experience than the likes of games like Super Mario Odyssey and Galaxy, though that comes as a trade-off for being a more accessible experience. And if I were to end the review there, I would say that this is a superb port of an excellent game that is still a pale shadow next to the likes of its bigger brothers… but of course, I’m not ending the review here.

Okay, so let’s talk about Bowser’s Fury!

As previously mentioned, Bowser’s Fury takes the core presentation elements and mechanics of 3D World and does something new with them. Where 3D World had self-contained levels with a fixed camera, Bowser’s Fury has a free-roaming camera the player controls, and is set in an open-world consisting of multiple islands players move between seamlessly. However, these aren’t the only major new elements at play here. One of the other factors at work here is the role of Bowser himself.

Much as in a game like Super Mario Odyssey, players move around these open-ended levels looking for objects of interest (instead of stars, shines, or moons, Bowser’s Fury has players collecting “cat shines”). However, at seemingly random intervals, this exploration is interrupted by Bowser himself, who has apparently been corrupted by a grey sludge that has turned him into a massive raging kaiju version of his former self.

This gigantic rampaging version of Bowser brings a lot of new elements to the game. Not only are players compelled to dodge fire raining down from above, but Bowser now occasionally uses a massive fire beam that forces players to duck behind cover. However, rather than being merely a hazard, Bowser’s presence can also help Mario – his appearance creates new platforms Mario can only use when Bowser is around, and his fire beams can destroy blocks that are otherwise indestructible.

As a result, players are often faced with an interesting choice when it starts to rain in-game (a signal that Bowser is about to emerge) – do they continue with their current task, careful to be aware of this new environmental hazard making things more difficult for them, or do they deviate to some other nearby task that can only be done with Bowser’s “help”? Or possibly, if they have collected enough cat shines, they can make use of the extra large “cat bell” power-up, that boosts Mario’s size to be comparable to Bowser’s, enabling players to get into a gigantic battle between the two behemoths. Completion of these battles, incidentally, is how players open up new sections of the open world for exploration.

Other than the open-ended nature of the game, it is these moments when Bowser attacks that make for the most visually-stunning new elements of the game this time around. Bowser’s massive looming form is impressive already, but add to that the superb rain effects, the wonderful sludge effects, and the excellent new lighting effects when Bowser threatens to blast players away with his fire beam (a visual effect that doubles as a functional way of warning players the attack is incoming no matter which direction they’re facing), and you wind up with a truly delightful visual experience.

All of this comes at a price in terms of performance – unlike Super Mario 3D World, Bowser’s Fury’s resolution in docked mode is a mere 720p-792p, albeit still with a very smooth 60FPS framerate, with momentary framerate drops during busier sections (namely Bowser’s attacks). In handheld mode, the resolution stays at 720p, but the framerates drop down to 30FPS. This is all still quite good, and still very impressive-looking, but it’s clear that everything Bowser’s Fury is doing is pushing the limits of what the Nintendo Switch can do (again, thanks to Digital Foundry for the numbers).

I should mention that Bowser’s Fury also includes some new songs as well, and while most are in the “very good but not on par with Mario’s best” standards of 3D World, I have to make a special exception for the Bowser’s Fury Theme, the music that plays when Bowser is attacking. This Death Metal-esque theme is pretty out of the norm for Mario games, and yet is absolutely perfect in amping up the stakes and highlighting Fury Bowser as the massive threat he’s intended to be here.

I will say that overall Bowser’s Fury still feels like less of an awe-inspiring game next to the sort of exploration and discovery seen in the likes of Odyssey. However, it comes a lot closer to it than 3D World did. I’d argue that this works beautifully as another step in the transition from 2D to 3D… though this transition isn’t without its own issues.

Namely, this game is adding camera controls back into a formula that originally wasn’t designed with a free-moving camera in mind, and that can make things unnecessarily difficult, especially when players need to run, jump, and adjust the camera at the same time – the existence of a “run” button, carried over from 3D World, makes coordinating this far more frustrating than if running was simply done through the use of the left stick’s analog controls, as most 3D Mario games do.

I should also mention Bowser’s Fury’s scaled-down multiplayer features. Gone is 3D World’s 4-player co-op. Instead, Bowser’s Fury supports only 2 players locally (no online support), and the second player takes control of Bowser Jr., who has enlisted Mario to help him fix whatever’s wrong with his dad. Bowser Jr. operates somewhere between a full-fledged second character and Super Mario Galaxy’s “girlfriend mode” – he can move independently, but he’s clearly a support character, unkillable, able to fly, and having different interactions with the world than Mario does. This is a character to give to a player who’s maybe not as good at this sort of game, rather than one wanting to be an equal partner. Oh, and for those wanting to go solo, know that Bowser Jr. can be set to different levels of helpfulness, directly ordered to go to a spot on-screen, or have his help completely disabled. Whichever the player wants.

One other thing here deserves mention – Bowser’s Fury is a pretty short game, estimated to take 3-4 hours to beat, and perhaps double that to complete. If this were a standalone experience, that would be atrociously short for a Mario game, but given that this was an extra game we never expected to get included with an already full game, it’s hard to see this as anything but a great value… and as many have already have noted, the open-world nature of this game holds a lot of promise for the direction 3D Mario games could go in the future.

Finally, before wrapping things up here, I should note that this game supports the use of Amiibo figures, with some Mario series Amiibo figures giving players special power-ups or making other interactions with the game (the Bowser Amiibo, for example, can be used to summon Fury Bowser at any time). The game will recognize other Amiibo figures too, but these just give the player a 1UP or a power star. In any case, while the Amiibo figures add a little extra to the game, they’re hardly anything I’d consider necessary, unless you want to make things easy for a young child playing (in which case, seek out the Cat Mario Amiibo, which grants the player an invincible white cat suit power-up).

All told, Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury is a package that combines two games which, on their own, simply don’t hold a candle to the best Mario has to offer. Super Mario 3D World is a solid game that’s just not as ambitious as Galaxy and Odyssey, and Bowser’s Fury is too short to be considered a full-fledged Mario experience… but the two combined make for an amazing package that’s a great value. In fact, given the high quality and upgraded features of the port of Super Mario 3D World, this game would have been a top-notch release well worth paying full price for even on its own, but with Bowser’s Fury tossed into the mix, this becomes a package that’s a must-have for Mario fans. I still don’t quite think it’s on par with Mario’s best adventures… but it comes very close.

tl;dr – Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury is a Compilation of two 3D Platformers – an upscaled and much-improved port of Super Mario 3D World, and the all-new Open-World game Bowser’s Fury. On their own, each wouldn’t hold a candle to Mario’s best adventures – 3D World isn’t nearly as ambitious as Odyssey or Galaxy, and Bowser’s Fury is too short. However, combined they come very close to that same level of quality, and the resulting package is a must-have for Mario fans.

Grade: A

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This game has been nominated for one or more of eShopperReviews 2021 Game Awards:

Winner:

Best Port/Remake – Nintendo could have easily made a sloppy, lazy port of Super Mario 3D World from Wii U to Nintendo Switch, slapped a $60 price tag, and it would still make bank. Heck, that’s pretty much exactly what they did with New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe. Surprisingly, Nintendo didn’t take the lazy approach this time – the Nintendo Switch version of the game has improved movement speed, new gyroscopic motion controls, new online multiplayer, new co-op play for the Captain Toad levels, and a boost from 720p resolution to 1080p with smooth 60FPS framerates. As a result, Super Mario 3D World on the Nintendo Switch is about as close to a definitive version of the game as you can hope to get. And that’s before you even look at the other thing this game adds…

Best Compilation/Collection – As if it wasn’t enough that Nintendo surprised everyone with an excellent port of Super Mario 3D World, they created an entirely new game to package in with it, Bowser’s Fury. While fairly short by Mario standards, Bowser’s Fury is still far too substantial a game to be considered a minor bonus, and actually explores the potential of what an Open-World Mario game might look like. Again, Nintendo could have easily gotten away with selling only Super Mario 3D World for a full $60, but instead of making a port that customers would grudgingly hand their money over for, they instead produced a Compilation package that had even those who didn’t like Super Mario 3D World giving this package serious consideration.

Best Platformer – It may seem like the easy, predictable thing to do, awarding Best Platformer to a Mario game. And what’s more, Super Mario 3D World isn’t even an entirely new game, being a port from a 2013 Wii U game. However, the upgrades made to Super Mario 3D World breathe new life into the game, making it faster, better-looking, and with more features. And then there’s Bowser’s Fury, an entirely new game packaged in here that gives us a taste of what open-world Mario could look like, albeit in a relatively short experience. Simply put, Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury is the best Platformer of 2021, and there’s enough new content here that it’s far, far more than just a rehash of an 8 year-old game.

Runner-Up: Game of the Year, Best Game for Kids and Casual Players, Best Multiplayer, Best Value, Most Efficient Use of File Storage Space, Best Song (Bowser’s Fury Theme by Daisuke Matsuoka and James Phillipsen)

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The Nintendo Switch 2 Difference

Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury

Genre: Compilation / 3D Platformer / Open-World

Players: 1-4 Co-Op (Local, Online), GameShare (Local Wireless / Online)

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Review:

One of the initial batch of games to receive free updates on Nintendo Switch 2 when it launched in 2025, Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury was an unexpected delight when it released, not only giving us a marvelous new take on Super Mario 3D World, but gifting us the entirely new Bowser’s Fury, Mario’s first stab at something vaguely resembling Open-World, albeit on a small scale. However, this new addition did have its limits, with a lower resolution and occasional framerate drops.

Well, all of that is in the past with this patch on Nintendo Switch 2, which improves both the framerate and resolution, addressing the one lacking part of the presentation. What’s more, Bowser’s Fury also gets HDR lighting, which… why only Bowser’s Fury?

This update also adds GameShare for both games’ multiplayer components, letting you invite friends to join you locally or online in either game. While I’m not sure how much this is going to be appreciated in Bowser’s Fury, Super Mario 3D World is very much multiplayer-focused, so I suspect it will get good use there.

Overall, this is a solid update that adds yet even more reasons to play this great pair of games!

tl;dr – Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury is a Compilation of two 3D Platformers – an upscaled and much-improved port of Super Mario 3D World, and the all-new Open-World game Bowser’s Fury. On their own, each wouldn’t hold a candle to Mario’s best adventures – 3D World isn’t nearly as ambitious as Odyssey or Galaxy, and Bowser’s Fury is too short. However, combined they come very close to that same level of quality, and the resulting package is a must-have for Mario fans.

Grade: A

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