Super Mario 3D World plays a lot like the classic 2D Mario platformers but while being somewhat 3D. The levels are still linear and it has the familiar world layout of previous Mario 2D platform games. The ability to pick your character and unlock Rosalina adds some variety. There's only a handful of levels where a specific character is required to collect a star. The multiplayer ability is also interesting. Most of the levels where easy to moderate difficulty, the few harder levels are offset by a special powerup that appears if you die repeatedly granting a super leaf and making you immune to monsters but still vulerable to lava or falling(although this is typically mitigated by the tail floating). The postgame levels contain a few rather challenging levels. The collecting of stars and stamps is where there can be some more tricks required compared to just clearing a level to get to the flag pole.

Bowser's Fury is a sort of open world 3D Mario, the ability to go between each area seemlessly without loading was a nice touch. I found the boss event frequency to be too slow when you wanted it, and too quick when you didn't. But certainly it added an interesting element if you were in the middle of trying to collect another cat shine when Bowser showed up. At 50 shines minimum to finish and only 100 total this game felt rather short so it was good that it was bundled together with Mario 3D world. Another 50 or so shines would have been nice.