Review- Super Mario Bros. Wonder

 

Mario in 2D has stagnated for the past 20+ years. After Yoshi’s Island in 1995, the majority of Mario’s 2D outings have been through the New Super Mario Bros. series, a series that has increasingly seemed like a snake eating its own tail, as the past 3 entries for each of Nintendo’s major consoles have all seemed incredibly similar in terms of both mechanics and aesthetics. Juxtapose that with the sheer level of innovation, creativity, and difference between any of the original 2D games, and you would not be called crazy to say that modern 2D Mario has seemingly run out of juice. In comes Super Mario Bros. Wonder to dispel any notion of that idea. There is not a moment in Super Mario Bros. Wonder that doesn’t feel bursting with new enemies, mechanics, or set pieces. The game’s precise goal is invoking joy and wonder, and it does both to the utmost degree.

 

The story of Mario Wonder has you collecting royal wonder seeds from the flower kingdom in order to defeat Bowser, who this time has turned himself into a castle thanks to the awesome power that said royal wonder seeds have. There are seven worlds with seven wonder seeds to collect, as well as a special world that has curated difficult levels that lacks a royal wonder seed. Speaking first of the main seven worlds, every world has a set aesthetic to differentiate themselves from one another as well as set expectations for the type of levels Mario will be jumping in. In these worlds are the four main types of worlds that encompass most every game: Grass, sand, underground, and lava. The ask of each world is to collect a certain amount of wonder seeds, which unlocks the main boss stage that nets you one of these royal wonder seeds. Collecting all six in the overworld grants access to Bowser’s castle to defeat him and collect the final wonder seed. Along your journey in some of these worlds there are unlockable travel points that take Mario (or others) to the special stage, a place that lacks a royal wonder seed but makes up for it by taking all of your stored extra lives away because of the difficulty spike. The best thing that can be said about these special levels is that they never felt unfair. Frustrating for sure, but the levels are short enough that it’s more about a swift execution of jumps rather than an endurance test of the same feat.

 

 The winning combination of this game’s level design is the enemy variety working in tandem with each levels wonder flower set piece. While there are the mainstay enemies of the series, like Goombas and Koopa Troopas, every level is jam packed with new enemy varieties that comes with their own movement that often works in tangent with Mario in some way. There’s these big blue buffaloes that will charge full speed at the player, to the point where they can gain a bit of airtime after running up a hill. Then there are these birds that shoot their beaks at Mario, and their beaks stick into a surface, temporarily creating a platform that Mario can use as solid ground for a few seconds. Almost every level showcases some new enemy, or how to use an enemy in a new way, and it leads to such a fun new experience, but as mentioned earlier, that is only one part of the equation.

 

The second part of that winning combination is the wonder flower set pieces, the big new thing shown off in all the marketing. The player will find, either hidden or obvious, a wonder flower in a level (normally around the halfway point), and when this flower is collected the level itself will change. These changes are almost always unique to each level, and either change up the difficulty, or show off a level made up of singing Piranha Plants. I’m not the first person to mention this, but it’s still worth mentioning that these set piece wonder flower moments feel a lot like the big set piece in New Donk City in Super Mario Odyssey, where the town throws a big party for Mario, singing the famous Jump Up Superstar song. The best thing about this game as a whole in regard to the wonder flower, is that even without these set pieces the game is still filled the brim with creativity and joy, and the wonder flower takes those things and just dials it up to 11. Mario Wonder is a game that is always running on all cylinders, and these wonder flower moments are a big part of that.

 

The wonder flower isn’t the only new addition to the world of Mario, as three brand new powerups have been introduced in the elephant, bubble, and drill power up, the drill power up serves the very useful function of being able to drill into the ground and ceiling, which allow the player to evade enemies explore areas otherwise cordoned off from the main path. The bubble power up has a high skill ceiling but is fun to use regardless of that fact. The bubbles that the player blows out can automatically take care of enemies by surrounding them and turning them into coins, but also as an emergency platform that can be used for traversal. I was never able to get it to work, but the people that can have shown off some crazy skips in some levels that just blow me away no pun intended. The best was saved for last of course, as the elephant power up does just what the name implies, it turns Mario into a Republican. No but seriously, turning Mario into an elephant was never something I thought I needed in my life but I’m glad to admit that Nintendo can make basically any concept work. When Mario turns into an elephant, 3 major things happen. One, the course music adds more bass with some brass instruments, and it’s legitimately my favorite part of the power, to the point that if the music addition was all it does then that would be enough for me. The other two abilities are how Mario uses his elephant trunk, one where he can hit enemies or bricks, and the other where water is stored in the trunk and can be used on wilted flowers around the level that grant secret items. All these powerups are nice on their own, but the highlight is how the level incorporates their powers to benefit the player, like a low hanging ceiling for the drill, or an annoying enemy guarded by walls that only the bubble can reach. The abilities don’t stop at the power-ups, as this game also introduces a badge system that gives the player a variety of new abilities to help them navigate the course. These badges can be purchased or earned through special courses throughout the world and can do things like add more items blocks around a level, give the player a vertical wall jump, or even give the player a grapple hook, which objectively makes this a Game of the Year contender on that fact alone, since we all know that grapple hooks only make games better. All these abilities elevate player choice in the moment and work in concert to create a satisfying gameplay experience.

 

Everything mentioned so far has been great additions to shake up the Mario formula that has set in with the past few 2D entries, but the connective tissue that holds it all together are the small details to add life into the levels. When Mario goes into a horizontal pipe, his cap will stay behind, and he has to reach his hand out to get it. When Mario is in his elephant form, he will get stuck in a pipe momentarily before squeezing through. When the player is about to jump on a goomba, it will have a momentary face of shock right before it gets stomped. When a koopa shell gets too close to a flying koopa, it will get all stressed and try to flutter away. Mario has new running, jumping, and crouching animations. He’s started to say Wowie Zowie, like his brother Luigi did in Luigi’s Mansion 3, every time he turns into an elephant. My favorite part of this entire game was all these little details I would spot as I played to the point that an earlier concept for this review was going to start with me listing off every little detail I could remember or had recorded. These small moments aren’t large but taken with the context of everything mentioned previously, they enrich each moment with just that much more life, tying the entire experience together.

 

Sup Mario Bros. Wonder is joy built, packaged, and sold for $60. Every aspect of this game, be it the power-ups, the enemies, the set pieces, or the small 1-second character animations, has been polished and designed to create the wonder advertised on the front of the box. The more I think about it, the higher it ranks on my Game of the Year list, in a year filled to the brim with games vying for those spots. If you choose to check the game out, I hope you enjoy it as much as I did, and I thank you for reading my review.