I'm excited to the next 3D Mario game as everyone else, you know? Mario Odyssey is one of my favorite games of all time, but it was launched in 2017! I graduated, married and created three new blogs in this time. Will the new game just be Odyssey 2, with new kingdoms and the same capture mechanic? Will Super Mario Bros. Wonder change how a Mario game is made forever? Will we see a full graphical change in the franchise?

In the past days, I came back to 2021 to play what is, probably, the most reliable clue about the future of 3D Mario we can get (and because I hadn't a Switch before so I'm catching up anyways). Bowser's Fury is the "extra content" of the Super Mario 3D World port for the Nintendo Switch and couldn't be more different than the original adventure: a small, self-contained, structuring experimental platform game with a single-player focus.

We are presented to Lake Lapcat, an huge archipelago of small islands, all inspired and populated by cats — and the home of the Giga Bells, huge versions of the cat power-up that are resting in some isles. And, of course, a dark version of our biggest enemy: Fury Bowser, since the Koopa King became possessed by black goo that is polluting the water. With no hope of saving his father alone, Bowser Jr. asks Mario for help to collect the Cat Shines to use their power to save Bowser.

When I started playing Bowser's Fury, I was a little confused about how the shines were organized. There weren't linear levels like 3D World, and it wasn't exactly the sandbox concept of Mario 64. Here we have a big map with small clusters of challenges with similar mechanics and themes. It's like you take a whole world in Super Mario Galaxy, stitch them together in a free-roaming map and sprinkle some Odyssey moons between them. You can be focused to "finish" a cluster, and then you just wander off, get some extra shines in the way and find a new isle to play.

In the first 10 shines, I was already a fan of this new idea. For me, it solves a lot of problems from other games. I didn't like Galaxy that much because, although it had amazing scenarios and planets, it was too linear and no much room for exploration. And even though I love Odyssey, a lot of the moons are just... there. No cool puzzles or platforming challenges, you just see a yellow dust, ground pound there and it's done. With this new concept, Bowser's Fury manage to create an always-interesting map, with cool scenarios that can also be explored in different ways.

And if those islands are the cogs of the game, connected perfectly to form a seamless transition of platforming challenges, Fury Bowser is the motor of the machine. They could just have made a big map and call it a day, but the constant attacks of the possessed king creates a sense of unity and greatness for the quest. It's a constant remainder of why you are collecting the shards and exploring Lake Lapcat. Bowser is also a great mechanical change for the pacing: I was constantly changing my position in the map or the way I was playing when he was awake.

A thing that I wasn't expecting of this whole idea is how inviting the game's progression is. Parts of the lake are revealed with a good pacing, when you probably already did most of the challenges available. In the post-game, with the map upgrades you get — showing where are the remaining shines and allowing you to fast travel in the lake — it's way less frustrating to discover what's still there to play. I never finished a Mario "world" at first, but I couldn't stop playing Bowser's Fury until I mastered it.

I can completely see the new bigger 3D Mario game following the steps of Bowser's Fury. Give me five or six "worlds" like this, with different themes and "big problems" to solve and I'll be really happy fan. I love how some games in the franchise (like TTYD or even Odyssey) use different narratives in each of their chapters, and I think this cluster-based way of organizing the collectables would be a great way to pull this off.

Bowser's Fury as a game by itself is not perfect. Using the 3D World engine was not the best decision for me, and the classic power-up system was more of a pain to manage. The distribution of this short adventure is also a problem by its price tag, specially if you already played its parent game on the Wii U. But I can't stop praising Bowser's Fury as a blueprint for Mario titles in the future. Although it can seems strange in the beginning, this new way to present the game was more inviting, interesting and intriguing even than Odyssey's kingdoms or Galaxy's planets. I can't see the future (and I don't have an uncle that works at Nintendo), but I can only hope that the future of the Italian plumber can learn more with his cats.