A while back I wrote about Super Mario™ 3D World + Bowser’s Fury and how awesome the Super Mario 3D World of it was. We've (me and my girlfriend) has had a bit of an hiatus from it but finally got back to it this week. We've gone through the main game and managed to defeat Bowser in an awesome last showdown.

What's pretty cool is that there's even a post-game. After beating the game two new worlds unlock! This has us going up into space. The gameplay is the same but the levels are way harder than in the main game. We've been struggling a bit with them and we decided to leave them be. Instead we went on to try the Bowser's Fury expansion for the game which we had pretty much forgotten about.

What immediately surprised me was the magnitude of Bowser's Fury. I originally had the impression it was just some bonus content for Super Mario 3D World but turns out it's almost a full game on its own. I'm not complaining.

It's all cats

The first thing that happens is we're transported to this water filled world covered in black goo. It's in full disarray and being attacked by an awesome giga version of Bowser. Without a doubt the coolest rendition of Bowser we've ever seen. We go through a small section of the world where we find a star, called "shines" in this game. This powers up a lighthouse which scares Bowser away and put him into hibernation for a while. As this happens the world returns to its normal state.

From there on out it's all about cats. Everything is literally cats. The trees, bushes and flowers have cat ears. All enemies and mini-bosses has fur and cat ears. The signs showing us where to go have cat ears. There's cats walking around all over the world. The seagulls? Cat ears. Seeing that cats are basically my favorite thing in the world I'm fine with this. It's absolutely amazing.

It's a collectathon

As isn't new in Super Mario games this one is also a collectathon. We're collecting stars again and they're hidden all over the place. It's all in the classic fashion of having to traverse the landscape to hard to reach places or defeat some enemies. Some are really well hidden though.

The cool and unique thing with this game though is the way Bowser acts. Bowser is this huge black, extra spiky version of himself and he's hell bent on destroying this world. We can see him sleeping in his shell in the distance as we run around. Every now though it will start to rain and Bowser will awaken. When this happen the sky goes dark, rain starts falling down and Bowser starts wreaking havoc. Fire rains from the sky and all that jazz.

What's cool though is that the world changes when this happens. New blocks pop up and makes us able to reach new places. This is risky though seeing as the world is generally more dangerous to traverse while this is happening. There's some special blocks which can only be broken by Bowsers laser beam attack which always have a star in them as well. What's not so cool though is that the normally cute and cuddly cats turn into phantoms that attack us. Eventually Bowser gets tired and hides in his shell again. This means we have a limited time window to collect the stuff we need from this world state. Pretty cool.

It's a lot like Odyssey

While Bowser's Fury is advertised as an expansion to Super Mario 3D World, as well as being sold alongside it, it reminds me more of Super Mario Odyssey than it does of Super Mario 3D World. While it does borrow elements from both the general gameplay is more like Odyssey.

The world is an actual 3D world where we have control of the camera instead of being stuck with the isometric view. It's also way less arcadeish than 3D World. Mario does however keep the moveset from 3D World and we get to use all the same power ups as well. All the classic Super Mario power ups are present and that's pretty cool. We can gather up a few of them in our bank and switch between them freely. That's quite satisfying.

The coop aspects of Bowser's Fury is however closer to Odyssey than it is to 3D World. Early on after entering the world we meet Bowser Jr. He's a sad cry baby because his father, big bad Bowser, has gone mad and isn't anything like himself. He asks for our help to save him and he even tags along. If you play solo he flies around and picks up items for you but if you're two players the second player can take control of him.

Bowser Jr. acts a lot like Cappy did in Odyssey. He can fly around collecting coins, defeating enemies, smashing boxes and just being generally helpful. He moves more freely than Cappy did though and isn't tied to Mario as much as Cappy was. He can fly pretty far off to which is cool. It's a little clunky playing the game in coop though, seeing as the camera is always centered on Mario. It doesn't split up the screen or anything, so Bowser Jr. is mostly off-screen which is annoying for the player playing as him. My girlfriend hates this but she still thinks it's fun.

It's great

We've been having tons of fun with this new game these last few days. It's great to sink down into the couch and relax with. We're doing oral exams with the students at work this week so I'm pretty knackered when I get home. I have six hours straight of exams to sit through tomorrow so I'm looking forward to the weekend. We're gonna be spending some time in Bowser's Fury for sure!