Nintendo has ported or released sequels for nearly every major first-party Wii U game on the Switch, with titles like Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze and Pikmin 3 Deluxe adding new content to the experiences. Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury is no exception, with major additions including online multiplayer for 3D World and the titular, brand-new Bowser’s Fury expansion. Players got their first look at Bowser’s Fury via a two-minute trailer released Tuesday, and one of the most interesting things about the adventure is how much it departs from the original game it’s attached to.
That isn’t to say Bowser’s Fury looks nothing like Super Mario 3D World. Mario’s movement style and power-ups all appear to be exactly the same, and there are plenty of mechanics and environmental set pieces that carry over: Riding Plessie across the water, spinning grates that Cat Mario can latch onto, dash panels, motion-activated invisible flooring, and much more. However, what makes this new experience stand out is how it incorporates that content into an open world that appears to take many cues from the Switch blockbuster Super Mario Odyssey.
The original Super Mario 3D World has been criticized for its linearity by some, as the epitome of the 2D obstacle course-turned-3D style also seen in its 3DS predecessor Super Mario 3D Land. Meanwhile, Super Mario Odyssey was considered a return to the “sandbox” style of 3D design seen in games like Mario 64 and Sunshine – now together in Super Mario 3D All-Stars. Bowser’s Fury looks to throw the obstacle course elements into an open sandbox with a controllable camera and collectible cat shines with a pose eerily familiar to when Mario gets a Moon in Odyssey.
Mario has been collecting celestial bodies in 3D platformers since the Power Stars around Peach’s Castle in Super Mario 64. Yet the casual nature of picking up cat shines in Bowser’s Fury evokes the idea of Moons so much so that the mode almost looks like Super Mario Odyssey DLC – or at the very least like it was designed by a team still interested in creating that sandbox style. Fans of the 3D sandbox Mario games should no doubt be excited by this, as it suggests there may not be as long a gap between Odyssey and the next game of its ilk as there was after Sunshine.
In that regard, a good place to start might be Super Mario Odyssey 2. Direct sequels are rare in the Mario canon, with only a few examples like Super Mario Galaxy and Galaxy 2 popping up outside of spin-offs and the New Super Mario Bros. series.
However, the same could be said about The Legend of Zelda franchise, and Nintendo surprised fans by announcing a sequel to Breath of the Wild in 2019. Though that sequel has yet to come out, it shows the company’s willingness to use its pre-existing game engines to create new experiences, much like Ocarina of Time and Majora’s Mask before it.
The world-travelling premise, creative lands, and capture mechanic seen in Mario Odyssey easily leave the door open for a sequel that takes its ideas and expands upon them, much like Galaxy 2. Even if the developer does not want to go in that direction, the possibility of these elements bleeding into an entirely new style of game ala Bowser’s Fury shows there are plenty of other possibilities to work with. As Nintendo continues to expand the Switch’s life cycle, new 3D Mario sandbox games would certainly help the system stand out.
Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury will release on February 12, exclusively for Nintendo Switch.
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