In some ways, it feels like a remix of 3D World’s ideas, but in others, it grandly iterates and twists in delightful ways. While I do miss some of the flexibility of Mario’s movement from Odyssey, seeing the design concepts of 3D World transposed into an open world is more fun than I expected. If you have reached a threshold of shines, you can turn into giant Cat Mario and do battle.īowser’s Fury blew me away and might be one of my favorite 3D Mario experiences ever. He can be temporarily set back if you collect a shine during the night segment. Bowser emerges at night, shooting off fire and generally wreaking havoc. Part of your time will be in a sunny day setting, but then Fury Bowser, who ominously sits in the center of the map during these light segments, emerges as rain pours and night falls. Bowser’s Fury runs on a day-night cycle of sorts as well.

Those usually involve riding on the back of Plessie, the good-natured dinosaur mount that was featured in a lot of 3D World levels. There’s no loading from area to area and additional shines can be found throughout the water.

While this is not as expansive as other 3D Mario games, playing through the main story took me about 3-5 hours, while completing all of the content took me closer to 10 hours total. The whole of the game takes place in Lake Lapcat, which is made up of a series of islands that are organized into different areas that each generally contain five challenges, represented by Cat Shines. Right out of the box, you can access Bowser’s Fury, a moderately sized open-world 3D Mario with the controls and design concepts of 3D World.

Super mario 3d world vs odyssey