3.5/5 ★ – FoofDeckman's review of Bowser's Fury.

Bowser's Fury is really good for what it is. I never expected an addon to an already existing game to be worth comparing to other fully fledged 3D Mario titles, but here we are. This definitely feels like Nintendo experimenting with what they can do with the 3D Mario formula as it's pretty different from other Mario titles. For one, it's completely open world, not sectioned off open world like in Super Mario Odyssey, but a fully fledged open world (even if it's only slightly bigger than an Odyssey world). I absolutely love the idea of this ticking clock element with how Bowser works in this game. Pretty much every 5-10 minutes he'll appear and drastically change how you play, it does get a little old after a certain point, but for the most part I really like this addition. I really hope the next Mario game can expand on these Ideas instead of just leaving them in a one-off game. It kind of goes without saying that the music in a Mario game is amazing, but Bowser's Fury's soundtrack is really good. I particularly loved the more foreboding themes that start playing closer to when Bowser is ready to attack. I also really loved the Final Battle theme, which is just a more heavy version of Bowser's 3D World theme. Even though most of the visuals are ripped from 3D World, I still love the art direction this game decides to go in with a Cat themed island. It sort of reminded me of Super Mario Sunshine with all of the black sludge, collecting Shines and also Bowser Jr being a main focal point again. One of this game's biggest downsides is actually not a fault of it's own, but rather a fault of running in the 3D World engine. You can tell compromises had to be made just to get this thing working properly like a 3D Mario game, i.e the inconsistent camera. As much as I love this game, my biggest complaint would be that it feels like it barely scratched the surface with what It can do. I know this game even existing is an anomaly, especially when Nintendo LOVES to just repackage old games for $60-70 with no new game attached to it, so I can't complain too much. Overall Bowser's Fury is a really good 5 hour game and since it comes with an already great game being 3D World, I highly recommend checking both of these games out if you haven't already.