Review: Bowser’s Fury

by · March 29, 2022

The Cats have taken over
Video belongs to Nintendo

I know it might not be obvious right now, but I love Nintendo games. One of my very first games was Super Mario Galaxy for the WII. Ironically, I stuck to player two. Bowser’s Fury Brought back memories of Sunshine, Galaxy, and the joys of being player two. I played as Bowser Junior, and it was interesting seeing the logic used to make his partnership with Mario valid.

Mario seems to take the roll of “Disappointed father” in this game, and I love it. Credit to Nintendo.

Junior is like Nabbit from New Super Luigi Bros. He is immune to all forms of damage, as he either uses his clown car as armor or enemies ignore him. To balance this, he cannot use power ups or collect cat shines. Something unique to him is his paintbrush, first seen in Sunshine. He can use it to reveal power ups or golden pipes. this makes him a great addition for someone who wants to play but doesn’t want to deal with platforming or tricky boss fights. Like me!

For Mario, the controls are similar to Galaxy, which still works great. He can also hold 5 of each power-up, which is a gamechanger. It circumvents the need to hunt for powerups whenever he gets hit and is a good gateway for beginner players.

Drinking Milk Again

This doesn’t mean the game was perfect, however. Ironically, a lot of my issues come from the main mechanic of the game: Bowser’s randomized appearances. The way he works is that after a period of time it starts to rain and he rises from some tar. It then rains fire, blocks rain from the sky, and Bowser will attack using his fire breath. After a while, he will go away… unless you’re near the end of the game, where he never left us alone. Bowser himself slowed the game down due to the amount of obstacles he creates. If Mario hides inside a building, Bowser never leaves. It feels like we are being punished for playing conservatively.

The lag in this part of the map is the biggest offender. Game belongs to Nintendo

There was also a time when one of the joycons kept glitching out and disconnecting. The issue was firmware, but it meant every time Mario had to reconnect his joycons, I was kicked out of the game and we had to activate two player mode again. In games like Mario Kart 8, if someone’s joycon dies or disconnects it does not kick the other players out of the game.

I am not a professional programmer: I do not know how to fix the second issue. I think the lag could be fixed by removing particles from the wasteland and the snow areas. I do not know where to start on fixing AI, so bowser’s timing might just stay.

All in all, I think that this is a good game for introducing anyone to the platforming genre. It has a great multiplayer system and nice mechanics that are a bit unusual for most Nintendo games. I would not recommend this game for anyone who desires amazing performance all the time. Thank you for reading.

Check out the game Here.

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