 After replaying every 3D Mario platformer and playing through Mario’s newest adventure, Bowser’s Fury, I knew I wanted to write a blog covering my thoughts on every 3D Mario game. Since I haven’t written about many of these games in detail, I decided to split this blog into two parts so I could properly cover each game. I posted Part 1 already covering Super Mario 64, Super Mario Sunshine, Super Mario Galaxy, and Super Mario Galaxy 2. I’m back now with Part 2 which will cover Super Mario 3D Land, Super Mario 3D World, Super Mario Odyssey, and Bowser’s Fury. I have a lot to share, so let’s dive right in!  Super Mario 3D Land (3DS) Like Super Mario Galaxy 2, my thoughts on Super Mario 3D Land have not terribly shifted with my latest playthrough. While Super Mario 3D Land wasn’t the first time a 3D Mario game arrived on one of Nintendo’s handhelds, it was the first uncompromised and unique 3D Mario experience on a handheld. 3D Land attempts to merge the 2D and 3D styles of Mario while being a showcase for stereoscopic 3D. While Nintendo has abandoned the technology for better or worse, Super Mario 3D Land still looks impressive on the 3DS as you can peer into Mario’s world to get an even better sense for Mario’s place in it which makes movement and jumps easier.  Like the original 2D Super Mario games, Super Mario 3D Land is divided into eight worlds with a fairly linear progression of levels. Classic Mario enemies and power-ups are the focus here, rather than the anything goes drive of the Galaxy games. Perhaps part of the decision behind that focus is due to the smaller screen, which doesn’t lend itself to more elaborate platforming. While that is a disappointment, the core running and jumping feel good and the three star coins in each level present at least three secrets/challenges for players to pursue. There are interesting levels here as well including a deep descent through the clouds with the help of the Tanooki suit (which makes its first appearance in a 3D Mario game), some tricky ghost house levels, and a level based on the top down Legend of Zelda games. Another interesting idea are the Bowser showdowns, which essentially adapt the 2D fights into 3D. The final showdown is essentially just an intense platforming level with crumbling platforms and Bowser harassing you with fireballs which works out really well. There is an impressive post game for Super Mario 3D Land as an extra eight worlds open up after the credits roll. Many of these levels are welcomely brand new, but there is a good deal that function like the comet levels in the Galaxy games that tack on a modifier to an existing level. Like Galaxy, the very last level is locked behind a complete Luigi playthrough (ugh) and a new goal to hit the top of the flagpole in every level. Like Galaxy 2, this final level is a new gauntlet for the toughest players. I reloaded my original save and had a great time tackling this challenge level. While you do have more than one hit, it actually asks a great deal from you including chaining long jumps across single block platforms, conquering two minibosses at their most aggressive, and dodging/kicking parachuting Bomb-Ombs off a switchboard platform. While I consider it unlikely, I really hope one day Nintendo will remake/port Super Mario 3D Land to other platforms because it is still an excellent game from start to finish.  Super Mario 3D World (Wii U, Switch) I have mixed feelings walking away from my latest playthrough of Super Mario 3D World due to a seemingly minor, but ultimately disruptive change to the Switch port. When it first launched on Wii U, it was confidently my 2013 game of the year. I absolutely adored playing through all of the levels by myself as they brought so much more creativity and challenge to Super Mario 3D Land’s already tight design. While I didn’t get to do it too often, I had a blast playing the game in co-op too as multiplayer Mario works better in a 3D space and the five unique characters made 3D World lovingly chaotic. I came away on Switch still happy I replayed it, but I think the increased movement speed that actually makes the game more accessible, does dilute the difficulty for single player. At first blush it is a fun modifier as you really can tear through levels and you might even have trouble staying on the course. After a little while though, it’s obvious it makes jumps way easier and cheapens every level as you just don’t exist in them for as long. Another negative change in my view is that if you die mid-level, but start over from the start or a checkpoint flag, any green stars you had grabbed (the star coins of this game) remain collected which again cheapens the difficulty since you don’t need to survive collecting green stars from platforming challenges anymore. These changes make the game more accessible and potentially less frustrating (especially for online play), but both really should be modifiers you flip on and off to preserve the original vision. Like the Mario 3D All-Stars Collection, the changes just seem to be uncharacteristically less thought out by Nintendo which is disappointing to see. I wish I could say I’ll just play future replays on the Wii U as a result, but sadly I know my Wii U Gamepad’s batteries are on their last legs which will make replays impossible. Despite my frustrations, there is still an excellent game at the heart of the experience. All of the levels are much more distinct than in 3D Land with many of them offering unique challenges and obstacles at the core of them. One of my favorite levels, Piranha Creeper Creek, is a jungle level infested with the new Piranha Creeper enemies and poisonous, purple waters. The way the Piranha Creepers wrap around the 3D space, especially as they cover tight and moving platforms, is engaging and stomping them out requires proper timing and patience. Two other especially cool levels are Shadow Play Alley, which plays around with silhouettes in both 3D and 2D spaces, and Mount Must Dash, which is essentially a delightfully, speedy Mario Kart themed sprint. The bosses in the game are sadly too easy, but there is an especially memorable one with Hisstocrat, a giant snake king. Hisstocrat summons snakes to burst through his sandy arena and with the use of the new Cat Mario powerup you can scale up the snakes to get enough height to jump on Hisstocrat’s head. While it doesn’t offer an additional eight worlds, the post game for Super Mario 3D World is impressive as truly fantastic levels populate it. Many of my favorites are in the early stretch that incorporate Mario Galaxy elements into 3D World and one of those surprisingly turns the game into a top down, auto-scrolling shmup. You unlock the fifth character, Rosalina, in this stretch of the game who has access to the spin jump / spin attack from Mario Galaxy which is especially useful as the difficulty ramps up and culminates in Champion’s Road which is the hardest Mario level to date. While significantly easier with the speed increase, it is still an awesome challenge to conquer as it tests all of your platforming skills across its many challenges.  One final element that I do want to touch on is the introduction of Captain Toad levels, which were so good that they eventually spawned their own game. I actually replayed Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker as part of my 3D Mario replays, but my opinion largely remains unshifted and it isn’t a 3D platformer so I didn’t want to talk about it in a dedicated section of my blog. It’s still fun to spin the camera around as you explore each diorama-like level and search for secrets. I barely remembered the game (which is unusual for me), so it felt like I was mostly playing it for the first time which was cool. I played Captain Toad’s DLC for the first time following my replay and sadly I highly recommend avoiding it. While the new levels are awesome, the DLC is disappointingly mostly remixes of old levels you will have played multiple times already if you 100% completed the game.  Super Mario Odyssey (Switch) My final Mario replay, which concluded my journey for the 35th anniversary, was of Super Mario Odyssey. While I loved the game at launch and it was my fourth favorite game in 2017, at the time I considered it the weakest 3D Mario game. I know why I felt that way at the time as the insanely large number of unique moons, 880(!!), ultimately means a good deal of activities aren’t always the most compelling and a lot of the best challenges in the game don’t feature Mario himself. While those complaints still stand, I was wrong overall, because on replay, I truly began to feel Super Mario Odyssey is one of Mario’s finest adventures and is closer in spirit to Mario 64 than I first gave it credit for.  Super Mario Odyssey begins with Mario failing to rescue Peach from Bowser’s clutches when he decides to kidnap her so he can forcefully have her marry him. When Mario is thrown off Bowser’s airship, his hat gets torn to shreds in the propellors. Thankfully, Mario teams up with a new character named Cappy, who replaces his old hat and grants Mario the ability to “Capture” enemies, animals, and objects. An astounding amount of variety comes from this as it dramatically increases the number of playable characters and increases the amount of variety in the game substantially. I think why I turned around on Odyssey so much was due to the knowledge I gained from my initial playthrough. I felt way more comfortable taking advantage of Mario’s moveset here, which evokes Mario 64’s feel and Sunshine’s versatility and depth. There are four new moves here that I finally made full use of from the start: rolling (so you can speed along the ground), throwing Cappy to attack (which lets you attack without stopping or jumping), the ability to bounce off Cappy if you let him linger in the air, and the Cap Dive which lets you alter your direction midair when you throw Cappy and use a dive to reach and bounce off him. These four moves, together with my knowledge of where, how, and why moons and purple coins were hidden, helped me more confidently and efficiently conquer each kingdom which dramatically improved the pacing. I enjoyed playing Odyssey far more on a moment to moment basis as a result since I wasn’t wasting as much time as I moved from objective to objective. Furthermore, I began to appreciate the variety in tasks more and noticed there actually is a substantial amount of platforming that still revolves around Mario instead of the captured creatures.  There’s a lot of awesome kingdoms to visit in Mario Odyssey and also a lot of cool Captures to play as across your journey. My favorite kingdom by far is definitely the Metro Kingdom. All the kingdoms in Mario Odyssey have distinct world states locked behind a main quest of sorts and the Metro Kingdom certainly has the most interesting. You first enter the Metro Kingdom at night during a fierce storm. From a distance you can see Bowser’s army has locked down the streets and a giant Mecha-Wiggler is wrapped around New Donk City Hall (the biggest skyscraper in the city). After you free the city, the sun shines again and you are told the town is going to hold a festival, so you need to recruit musicians to perform in it and fully restore the city’s power. At this point you are given free reign to explore the city and Mario’s platforming skills are well suited to scale skyscrapers and jump across rooftops. Tons of collectibles are tucked away in this dense area as well as hidden levels to explore. When the festival itself begins, the wonderful vocal theme song Jump Up Super Star begins playing and you hop in a pipe and play a handful of Donkey Kong themed 2D levels before squaring off with Donkey Kong himself! Some other standout kingdoms in the game are the Wooded Kingdom (which plays my favorite instrumental song in the game, Steamed Gardens), Bowser’s Kingdom (which is themed like a Japanese castle instead of his traditional Western ones), and the Moon Kingdom. What makes a lot of these levels especially memorable are the Captures in each one. My favorite Capture in Odyssey is still the Pokio that is primarily found in Bowser’s Kingdom. It is a small, round bird that can scale walls and attack enemies by extending its beak. Playing as the Pokio is so much fun and the challenges that require them are so clever and well designed that I want a spinoff starring one in the same way Captain Toad got his own game. Other awesome Captures are the Sherm tanks, the stretchy Uproots and Tropical Wigglers, the Gushens, and of course the T-Rex. As I blasted my way through each story mission, I made sure to thoroughly explore each kingdom. With my knowledge from my first playthrough, I knew what to look for to find Moons hidden across the land. For example, if I didn’t know it my first time through, I internalized for sure this time that the levels hidden behind doors and moon rock passages always have two moons to find within. While a few moons still don’t feel special, I think far more than I first gave credit for are proper rewards for poking around for secrets and solving puzzles (they are also better rewards than the 1-ups of old Mario games). At the end of my big sweep through a level, I appreciated that there are two separate in-game hint systems you can take advantage of for the final clean up. One gives the title of the Moon which can help direct your search, while another points you to its location even if it doesn’t help you claim it. There’s a substantial amount of Moons to claim on your first visit to each kingdom and I was impressed how many more there are to claim in the post game which also opens up new areas to explore in each level. I ended my Mario Odyssey journey this time by claiming the final multi-moon on the Darker Side of the Moon. This final gauntlet is nowhere near as hard as the other post game gauntlets since I actually beat it on my first try in this replay, but its still so cool how it incorporates so many of the best Captures in the game. It truly feels like the culmination of the journey and that final climb of New Donk City Hall as Cappy reflects on everything so far is still a cool moment. Ultimately, I’m so glad I replayed Mario Odyssey. My opinion of Odyssey has only soared now that I’m more in sync with the game’s flow. I’m excited to one day play it again.  Bowser’s Fury (Switch) The latest 3D Mario game, Bowser’s Fury, came bundled with the Switch port of Super Mario 3D World and is a significantly different experience than every other 3D Mario thus far. Bowser’s Fury repurposes the controls, obstacles, and graphical style of Super Mario 3D World into a fully open world adventure. Bowser’s Fury takes place in Lake Lapcat and the various islands within it. All you have to do is walk up to an area/level and you are instantly ready to collect the current Cat Shine available until you have collected them all. When you complete or get bored of one island, you can hop on Plessie to ride across the lake in search of new islands and levels. That would already be interesting, but the biggest change is the introduction of Fury Bowser. During the day, a resting Fury Bowser is slowly rising from the center of Lake Lapcat. After a few minutes pass, a dark rain storm rolls in, and Fury Bowser awakens. At this point you can either try to avoid him until his fury subsides, collect a cat shine while dealing with his chaotic havoc, or use a Giga Bell to transform into Giga Cat Mario to engage Fury Bowser directly in battle. While I wish this idea was explored further, across the various islands of Lake Lapcat, are Fury Blocks that can only be destroyed if you lure Fury Bowser over to them so his presence isn’t always an obstacle to overcome. Bowser’s Fury not being a standalone adventure and its short length (three hours to beat, maybe five or six hours to collect all 100 cat shines) gives it an experimental feel, but all of the levels and challenges are fantastic and make interesting use of the space they occupy. The regular threat of Fury Bowser keeps you driven to tackle goals efficiently and informs how you’ll tackle goals. I often kept an eye out for Fury Blocks for example, so I’d know where to rush to the moment Fury Bowser would awaken. Other times I’d glance over to Fury Bowser and check his state before claiming a Cat Shine so I could dismiss him quickly if I wanted to. My biggest complaint about Bowser’s Fury is the lack of control customization. Like 3D World, there’s a run button in Bowser’s Fury that you’ll always want held down. Unlike 3D World, since you actually need to manipulate the camera regularly, the control scheme becomes incredibly uncomfortable as three things constantly ask for your right hand's thumb all at once. I tried a variety of “claw” grips, until I settled on resting my index finger on the X button perpetually which is awkward. I didn’t think there’d be a third instance of Nintendo being uncharacteristically sloppy with their Mario games for the 35th anniversary back to back, but here we are!  All of the levels in Bowser’s Fury are largely excellent, but I do have a few favorites. Pounce Bounce Isle is littered with bounce pads and bullet bills, while Trickity Tower is an invisible climb save for the ground surrounding Mario’s feet. I also really enjoyed Mount Magmeow as you use Switchboard platforms to ascend it as well as Roiling Roller Isle which is probably Bowser’s Fury trickiest level. The Fury Bowser showdowns when you power up as Giga Cat Mario are a lot of fun as well. They amusingly all directly take place on Lake Lapcat and oddly for a Nintendo game Fury Bowser has a health bar and you can actually swipe and damage him directly as Giga Cat Mario. The most effective way to take him down is to counter his attacks and throwing the pillars he rains down from the sky to open him up to a ground pound attack. The spectacular final showdown with Fury Bowser is definitely my favorite part of the game as he temporarily loses the ability to be driven away by cat shines, his attacks become the most varied and fully aggressive, and he has one extra phase to the battle that ends on an incredible note. While I had an amazing time with Bowser’s Fury and it is one of my favorite experiences in 2021 thus far, I’m not sure just yet where it totally fits in relation to the other Mario games. Regardless, I’m looking forward to replaying Bowser’s Fury eventually. It’s a short, but sweet experience that stands out among the 3D Mario games. I hope it is pointing towards a full open world Mario game, because Bowser’s Fury teases the amazing potential that idea has.  That concludes Part 2 of my 3D Mario blog and I hope you enjoyed it! Every 3D Mario game is truly an incredible experience and I’m so glad I finally replayed all of them back to back. I definitely need to replay these games more often as they are all delightful and satisfying to conquer. I always enjoy hearing your comments and feedback, so feel free to reach out to me @JustinMikos. Until next time! Comments are closed.
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