The giant combat itself isn’t much to write home about, but the operatic music that could’ve been taken straight from either Dark Souls or a fight with Sephiroth? *chef’s kiss* Once Mario collects the Giga Bell, he becomes a giant cat (Super Saiyan Cat Oozaru, a bit like in Dragon Ball GT), and does battle with Bowser in the closest any Mario game has ever gotten to emulating Godzilla.

Once you hit a certain threshold, you’ll unlock the Giga Bell power-up, which becomes available once Fury Bowser emerges from the mire to do battle. There are multiple challenges on each island, and then those challenges get remixed several times so you can replay the same environment with new objectives, such as collecting blue coins, wiping out enemies, or giving chase to a shadowy Luigi. Related: Super Nintendo World's Cactus Looks A Lot Like A Fan-Made Asset is also there to float nearby and assist with occasionally slapping an enemy and collecting a few coins, but unless you get a second player to control him directly, he’s not worth mentioning - and even then, it’s one of Nintendo’s infamous concessions to get a less experienced player involved, even when it’s probably not necessary.

You collect cat coins while hopping around the islands to climb mountains, thwart goombas, and uncover secrets. On each island you’ll find traditional platforming challenges that reward you with Cat Shines - yes, they’re like Shines from Super Mario Sunshine, but they have a cat face on them. This is the cute and creative cat climate that 3D World was lacking. Puffy flowers are actually in the shape of cat paws, leaves on plants are cat-shaped, there are adorable kitties in every area, and even the birds have cat ears on their heads.

Here, in Lake Lapcat, absolutely everything is cat-inspired. The Bell power-up turned Mario into a cat, but other than the fact the power-up was there, that concept was never really expanded upon. Possibly my favourite aspect of Bowser’s Fury is that it finally goes all the way with the felines Super Mario 3D World introduced. Bowser himself has been overcome with a dripping evil goo, and it’s up to Mario to save the day. Instead of linear levels and bursts of distinctly video game-y platforming with impossible architecture, Bowser’s Fury takes place on Lake Lapcat where islands rise out of the water. The developer took everything that Super Mario 3D World set up and made something entirely new, with the lessons learned from Super Mario Odyssey in mind. Fun, but not for me, thanks.īowser’s Fury feels like Nintendo going back to the drawing board. Mario games are about exploration and precision platforming - something 3D World had - but it never capitalised on those strengths, instead opting for a more casual, beginner-friendly experience. It was built around multiplayer, and while a four-player frenzy sounds like a great way to play a game like this, that came with caveats: levels had to be wide enough to support four players, and Mario had to move relatively slowly so everyone on screen can keep track of where they are. There were a few small issues in its original iteration, but these were truly minor. The public consensus seemed to be that if the game couldn’t make people buy a Wii U, it probably wasn’t worthwhile in the first place. Super Mario 3D World is a Wii U port that got a bad rep thanks to launching on a doomed console.

Oh, and Bowser’s Fury might just be better than most of the content in the main game, so that’s also nice. It is that, of course, but the small changes Nintendo has made to the original make this remaster feel transformative. Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury isn’t just a sharper, faster version of Super Mario 3D World.

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