I played Bowser’s Fury this weekend. I planned to save it until I finished my first run through the Switch remake Super Mario 3D worldbecause, like most people, I had never owned a Wii U. But boy did I get bored of that quickly. And there was Bowser, just waiting for the launch screen and seducing me with his blind gaze. Turns out, this is what I would like Nintendo to do a lot more.
Obviously, everyone really wants Nintendo to do more. Like more METROID PLEASE SHOUT LOUDLY. But what this bite-sized 3D platformer shows is a whole other side of Nintendo that they haven’t revealed before: brevity.
At first I was disappointed when I read that Anger would be considerably shorter than the kind of 3D words we are used to from Nintendo. Super Mario Odyssey is three and a half years old! I am very impatient! But when I started playing – disillusioned and disappointed 3D World a) is not a 3D world, and b) feels like a replay of every other 2D Mario I’ve played enough, thanks – I realized, “Oh my god, this is manageable
I have not played that many Nintendo games. I know, I am the bad person here. But the reality is, I’ve never seen the end of Breath of the wilderness, will almost certainly never find time to complete the second run Odyssey, and thank goodness knows when I ever get close to brushing off 64 Sunshine and universe, now i bought them all again. But I completed it through the first game Bowser’s Fury during a busy weekend with children climbing everywhere me everywhere. I am already well on the way to the second lot of Cat Shines! And crucially, it was just as good as you expect from Nintendo
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In fact, it is an amazingly clever reinterpretation of the eight-year-old 32D World, all his little feline embracing idiosyncrasies and rethink them as one appropriate 3D Mario game. And while Bowser’s moments of anger come too thick and fast, to the point of bitter irritation at the end, it does so many, many excellent things with all the expertise you’d hope for, just in a much shorter amount of time.
Admittedly, my satisfaction is somewhat distorted by the price. $ 60 (or £ 50) is an awful lot of money. Yeah, sure, I have 2.5D World to end up trudging on. But my expected price for ten-year-old games is closer to the kind of $ 10, and another 50 for bonus Bowser definitely feels too much. This has the feel of DLC, albeit not content to fit into it to an earlier game. Her Odyssey in the spirit, 3D World in motifs, but doesn’t really fit in well either.
However, I’m really happy with the fun I’ve had, and the fun I’ve yet to, um, have. Most importantly, it has made me long for a Nintendo that sees these types of projects as something viable for its future. I can imagine games like Bowser’s Fury is being released as download-only offers, not weighing in on the expectation of a boxed release of a brand new Mario outing, but making room for experimental, imaginative, equally delightful games for a lot less money.
There just must have been so many Mario ideas glued to bulletin boards around Nintendo’s offices, thought to be too strange or too temporary to make it to the next big game. It would be the most wonderful way to let them in the light, with less pressure and effort. And for me it would be more games that I know I have time to finish! That’s no mean feat when it’s games as fun as this one.