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Super Mario 3D World: Bowser's Furry

Bowser wanted to display the jarred Sprixies in a shelf behind his desk for impressive backdrop for his Zoom calls with Waluigi, Wario, and Wart.
 

JBear

Internet's foremost Bertolli cosplayer
(He/Him)
Bowser wanted to display the jarred Sprixies in a shelf behind his desk for impressive backdrop for his Zoom calls with Waluigi, Wario, and Wart.
Canon.

Now I want fanart of Bowser in a Zoom call, wearing tiny glasses on his nose and leaning in too close to the camera.
 

ShakeWell

Slam Master
(he, etc.)
Right, but other 3D Mario games also do that? Including Galaxy 2, which still has some kinda easy hand-holdy worlds early on.
 

muteKi

Geno Cidecity
I mean Galaxy 2 is sort of the starting point for 3D Land and World to the point where those games are practically a trilogy, though at the same time I feel like of the 3, Galaxy 2 feels weakest due to it being least willing to fully commit to the formula the later two embrace with absolutely no reservations.

(well, ok, I think cosmic clones kind of sucked in 3D Land compared to Galaxy 2 and in general I was mixed on 3D Land's "revisit the level but with a cosmic clone, time limit, or both" thing it did a ton in the bonus worlds)
 

MetManMas

Me and My Bestie
(He, him)
Bowser wanted to display the jarred Sprixies in a shelf behind his desk for impressive backdrop for his Zoom calls with Waluigi, Wario, and Wart.

Canon.

Now I want fanart of Bowser in a Zoom call, wearing tiny glasses on his nose and leaning in too close to the camera.
It's not a drawing, and I don't have seven squirrels (to use as Sprixies) or a bottle to shove them in, but this concept was too awesome to not do a photo shoot of.
 

LBD_Nytetrayn

..and his little cat, too
(He/him)
"also we've been kidnapped and crammed in a tiny jar" might have been pertinent
I guess? I mean, it was 1988., when this was blowing minds:

maxresdefault.jpg


That we got as much as we did is kinda remarkable.
 

Phantoon

I cuss you bad
Yes, but the whole point is that kidnapping isn't Mario's motivation in this game. It's not in any way mentioned until the end screen, an end screen that many players won't see.
 

LBD_Nytetrayn

..and his little cat, too
(He/him)
Yes, but the whole point is that kidnapping isn't Mario's motivation in this game. It's not in any way mentioned until the end screen, an end screen that many players won't see.
Yeah, that's fair, I suppose. Same as SMB3, really. People act like Mario was out to rescue the princess in that, when it didn't come up until World 7 was finished.

That's actually been a beef I've had with the Mario games for some time now, and one reason I did really like 3D World. People talk like all Mario's ever done, like his whole MO is rescuing Peach. And these days, it looks like that more often than not.

But it wasn't always that way. Besides Super Mario Bros., it wasn't often that it was his motivation at the outset.

SMB2: Help the people of Subcon.
SML: Rescue Princess Daisy.
SMB3: Restore the kings of the Mushroom World to human form.
SMW: This one has Peach go missing early, and it looks like Bowser's doing, but at least there's the added wrinkle of the kidnapped Yoshi's, too.
SML2: Free the people of Mario Land from Wario's control.
Yoshi's Safari: Rescue King Fret and Prince Pine

Personally, I blame Super Mario RPG for things going south. They make a joke about Peach being kidnapped by Bowser SOOOO often, and I swear it must have been the funniest thing Nintendo has ever heard, because after that:

SM64: Rescue Peach
Paper Mario: Rescue Peach
Sunshine: Rescue Peach*
PM:TTYD: Rescue Peach
New SMB: Rescue Peach
SPM: Rescue Peach
Galaxy: Rescue Peach
NSMBWii: Rescue Peach
Galaxy 2: Rescue Peach
3D Land: Rescue Peach
NSMB2: Rescue Peach
NSMBU: Rescue Peach
PMSS: Rescue Peach

Then we come to 3D World, and after 17 years, we finally get a game that isn't about saving Peach again! Sprixies? And we can play as Peach again? Hell yes, I'll take it! Kinda sucks that it's Bowser again, but I'll take the W on this one. This is the greatest thing to me.

Then Odyssey had to go right back into ye ole status quo. I didn't much like that. Fantastic game otherwise, but I just really hated that they went back to "Bowser kidnap Peach, Mario save" again.

I will admit that there were a few outliers in the above list, mainly the Mario & Luigi series, but still (and even then, they played it up). When I was growing up, I didn't see rescuing Peach from Bowser (or whoever) as Mario's thing, I saw helping people in need as Mario's thing.

And hey, he still does, but it almost always seems incidental now. Peach is kidnapped by Bowser, and oh, hey, Rosalina's car needs a jump-start, too, and she can give us a ride. Neat.

I did appreciate the symmetry between Mario and Cappy's situations in Odyssey, though. That's part of why I'm disappointed they didn't let you play as Peach and Tiara after rescuing them.

TBH, I didn't want to go into a whole thing on this -- I was planning an article about it once, but I don't think I got around to it -- but here we are, I guess. Now you guys get it.
And I barely even touched on how Nintendo wastes Mario's rogues gallery in favor of Bowser reruns. New Super Mario Bros. 2? Wario was right there!

So yeah, Sprixies were another kidnapping, but at least it was someone different, and allowed one of my favorite teams to reunite for an adventure.

(* Okay, and clean the island, but it happens so early in the game and the cleaning was clearly part of the "kidnap Peach" plan that I think it counts)

(** At least it wasn't from Bowser this time, and his subplot of "no one kidnaps her but ME!" dragging him into everything was genuinely funny.
 
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Patrick

Magic-User
(He/Him)
Champion's Road now finished with all 5 characters.

I completely agree with the Galaxy comparisons, and I think I might like this and 3D Land better than the two Galaxy games now. I really liked that the last 4 worlds took place in space and started using music from Galaxy, too. It was really nice to listen to Gusty Garden Galaxy (one of my favorite Mario tracks) while learning Champion's Road. Playing through the entire game as all five characters took a while, but I found it really relaxing to just pick a random character and world and fly through it whenever I had a bit of time free.

And Bowser's Fury is great, too! My one complaint is that it doesn't have any kind of post-game challenge. But, considering it was free, I can't complain too much. I would love to see a full game made out of the format though (with some tweaks to Fury Bowser, as that only really worked because of the short length).

I think next up I'm going to revisit 3D Land.
 

Violentvixen

(She/Her)
I rented this (I'm always happy when Gamefly randomly wants to give me a month free for $1) and am having fun although also having my usual 3D Mario frustrations, always find it hard to orient myself in these games.

But I have a question about one specific area. In the upper right of the map there's a bunch of blocks in the water and a golden shell above it. I threw the shell in there and butt-stomped all the blocks to get the coins, but didn't get a shine. Is there anything specific I need to do here or is it just an area to get coins?
 

Patrick

Magic-User
(He/Him)
I don’t remember that specific area, but I think the game will point out missing shines on your map after a certain point (maybe the final boss fight?)
 

John

(he/him)
I think that area was just for coins. It was some tougher platforming for that small reward, too.
 

Violentvixen

(She/Her)
I beat it this evening and you do indeed get the map after the fight which is a nice perk. It confirmed there is no shine there, just coins.

I liked it but glad I rented it since I had the original on WiiU and don't need to buy the whole game again just to play this. I have 70-something shines now and think I'll call it.

The stupid blue coin ice skating challenge is the WORST though.
 
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