When 3D World first came out, I wrote it off as another boring nothing game like the New Super Mario series. I finally play the Switch port years later and I just touched it so rarely that I eventually gave up. But then I picked up Bowser's Fury and I was blown away by it. Never have I seen a 3D platformer where you can just walk to another level seamlessly, and yet I have. That's exactly what 3D World is.
At first I thought combining the structure of a 2D Mario game with a 3D one was the most retarded idea I've seen. Now I think that it makes that game my favorite 3D Mario game. Giving each level a beginning, a middle, and an ending is something Nintendo should've done ages ago. It allows developers to experiment with new ideas and mechanics at a rapid rate. It's not all great though.
There are some glaring issues like the "You died too many times so here's a baby power-up" feature that de-legitimize the game. The Captain Toad levels are just miserable anti-fun horseshit. He's just incapable of dying to the point where those levels play themselves. I'm also not really into the multiple characters gimmick. The level design and the music are so great though that I stopped caring about all of these problems and blazed through the first 5 worlds, within the span of a few hours, while collecting everything in the process (except the dumb stickers).
First Bowser's Fury and then Super Mario Wonder. I'm genuinely curious what they'll come up with next.
