Take our protected hand and let the Polygon Winter Games pack for 2021 guide you through the winter games playground – which is great, what is not and what interesting features await you in the games that will be released in February and March.
Super Mario 3D World + Bowser Fury combines an old Mario game and a new Mario game. The first half of the game’s mathematical equation title, Super Mario 3D World, was originally released on the poorly designed home console Wii U.
Don’t be fooled by the origin: the game is wonderful, an inspired combination of Mario 2D and Mario 3D. It is the missing link between New Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario Odyssey. Mario and friends can move freely through three-dimensional space, but most stages are quite confined and linear.
Super Mario 3D World best enjoyed with three friends. Thanks to the Switch’s Internet connectivity, you won’t have to break CDC’s guidelines to host a Mario party. And for those who prefer to play alone, there is always the double cherry power-up, which doubles Mario. In fact, the double cherry can duplicate the duplicates, filling the screen with handsome men with mustaches.
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Image: Nintendo EPD / Nintendo
The second half of the title equation is Bowser’s Fury, the first Mario game of “open world”. The level format at the level of all other Mario entries is gone; instead, we have an archipelago of platform challenges.
Every now and then, a firestorm rolls in the sky and a kaiju-sized Bowser crosses the site, rushing the plumber to collect a star and startle the huge beast. In his effusive demonstration, Julia Lee of Polygon called it “the most chaotic Mario game I’ve ever played”.
So why are these two games being sold as one? That’s a great question and I have a useful answer: cats! Super Mario 3D World presented the franchise with a power-up for cats, a kitten costume that allows Mario and his friends to scale walls and dive into the air with their claws.
Bowser’s Fury takes the feline feature even further, occasionally turning Mario into a skyscraper-sized “Cat Mario”. Is it a logical method for a plumber to fight a giant fire-breathing lizard? No. But who needs logic when you can turn Mega-Bowser into a scratching post?
Super Mario 3D World + Bowser Fury will be available on Nintendo Switch on February 12th.