Is it just me or has it been a hot minute since we last got a brand new Mario game? I’m not talking about spin-off sports games, remasters, added additions to remasters, or a sequel to the game that was basically a “create your own Mario game” Mario game. I’m talking about one that is suppose to act as the next big installment in the main series of games, one that is by design meant to push the series forward. The last game that fits those two definitions was 2017’s Super Mario Odyssey, which was basically the quintessential 3D Mario game that delivered the most perfect feeling 3D Mario game you could possibly imagine. Six years later, we know have Super Mario Bros. Wonder, which seems to want to act as the quintessential 2D Mario game, pushing the 2D games into bigger boundaries then any of the New Super Mario Bros games did (Still love you New Super Mario Bros Wii!). Oh, and it also happen to come out around a similar time that a new 2D Sonic game came out along with coming out the exact same day as a new Spider-Man game. After such a long wait for a brand new and original Mario game, does Super Mario Bros. Wonder deliver? No doubt about it but let’s find out why!
Plot:
Mario, Luigi, Princess Peach, Princess Daisy, and a handful of Toads and Yoshis are invited to Flower Kingdom, a kingdom that just so happens to be right next door to the Mushroom Kingdom. It’s there that they have been summoned by their ruler Prince Florian, to witness a brand new powerup known as the Wonder Flower, which act as great treasures of the Flower Kingdom that can warp reality. Of course, Bowser comes in to ruin the day and snags the Wonder Flower, using it’s power to merge with Prince Florian’s castle and turn himself into a giant flying fortress while capturing citizens of the Flower Kingdom. Mario and the gang agree to help Prince Florian with the trouble that Bowser has caused. It’s then that the Mario crew must make their way to another adventure where they must stop Bowser, rescue the citizens, and restore order to the land of the Flower Kingdom.
As you would expect, the plot of Super Mario Bros. Wonder is about as simple and straightforward as it gets for a Mario game. Aside from some characters old and new thrown in along with new people that Mario and his friends need to save, there is nothing to complex or layered about the story here. It’s mostly just an excuse to have the characters go through different worlds and bump into old and new foes for Mario and crew to fight. But as with any Mario game, that’s perfectly okay because as we all know, the main strength of Mario games come from the gameplay, powerups, and world building. All which Super Mario Bros. Wonder is able to greatly exceed at.
Gameplay:
Super Mario Bros. Wonder is a 2D side-scrolling platform game. You get the ability to play as one of eight characters: Mario, Luigi, Princess Peach, Princess Daisy, Toad, Toadette, Nabbit and Yoshi. Similar to previous Mario games, your goal is to guide your character to the end of each level collecting coins, unlocking power-ups, avoiding enemies and transporting yourself through Warp Pipes.
The main new feature this time around is that each stage contains multiple collectibles that are known as the Wonder Seed. To collect a Wonder Seed, you would need to unlock the Wonder Flower. The Wonder Flower is a feature that transports you to another form of the level which triggers bizarre effects such as pipes coming to life, swarms of enemies spawning, and characters appearances and special abilities. The effects ends when you are able to capture a Wonder Seed, leave the area of effect, or time runs out.
However, the wonder seeds aren’t the only new additions that Super Mario Bros. Wonder offers. New power-ups include a fruit that can turn you into an elephant, a flower that allows you to create bubbles to catch enemies in, and a mushroom that gives you a drill hat that will allow you to dig into the ground or ceiling to evade enemies or overcome obstacles. These can be very useful and resourceful, especially when it comes to finding special items or different alternate paths to the goal.
One last new feature of the game includes the ability to equip badges. These are able to be unlocked throughout the game and give different advantages to help you proceed through each level. They are split into different categories: Action Badges, Boost Badges, and Expert Badges. Action Badges gives you an addition ability, Boost Badges gives you an additional passive ability, and Expert Badges gives you an advanced skill. Only one of these badges can be activated at a time per level. Even if you don’t care for these, they are mainly optional and can be turned off complete for higher difficulty.
Super Mario Bros. Wonder also have the option for local multiplayer which allows up to four players. It contains some online multiplayer functionality to where you can connect with your friends through the Switch. When playing through a level while playing online, other versions where up to three other players play through the exact same level can be present. When other online players are present nearby, defeated players become ghosts and are given a short period of time to revive themselves by flying to another player or a standee placed by another player. I haven’t remained that active on it but they are there for those that love to play Mario and Nintendo games with your friends and families. And as the very least, they are better than say…….whatever Sonic Superstars was with it’s multiplayer mode.
At it’s heart, Super Mario Bros. Wonder feels like the most logical progression for a 2D Mario game that you could make in the year of 2023. It’s able to take everything that worked about the original three Mario games and Super Mario World while mixing in the “new” elements of the New Super Mario Bros series to make something truly unique. While I don’t think it quite reaches the level of a satisfying culmination that Super Mario Odyssey provided, there is still plenty of here that will satisfy fans and gamers everywhere.
The roster of Mario characters has never been more wider for a main series Mario game then here. The expansions of all the Mario characters such as Mario, Luigi, Peach, Daisy, Toad, Yoshi, and even Nabbit is cool and will have everyone eager to play as every single one of them. Even if I find myself missing some other notable players here such as Wario, Waluigi, and Rosalina, there is no one that will claim that they didn’t get their full money’s worth when it comes to amount of playable characters that Wonder provides.
All characters mostly control the same and are quite smooth to play as, with each one having their own unique ability and look to all the power-ups they are able to unlock. Most of them can be customize in terms of what badges they have for each level, the special features you can unlock for it, and what standee they are looking to include. The most notable exception to this is with Yoshi and Nabbit, both acts as the most op characters of the bunch, as they require no-power ups, are practically invisible, and can only die by falling into a bottomless pit. These are the two characters you are best to use when you find yourself struggling hard on a level and just want to complete it to move on to the next age. Even so, they all play great and all control as good as they can.
There’s a ton that Super Mario Bros Wonder offers in terms of the levels that you will likely find yourself replaying each one until you are able to fully 100% it. The Wonder Seed in particular makes for a perfect new feature, adding a nice mix to the traditional gameplay while offering the player a chance to play as a Mario who’s quite trippy. It helps includes multiple different pathways to the goal and sometimes even find hidden ways to other parts of the game, most notably the special worlds. If you are someone that is looking to 100% each level of the game, you will likely find yourself having to beat the level in a couple of different ways in order to do that. It’s nice to see the Mario series continue to add special features to each game that adds to the replay value and experience rather than hinder it.
While Wonder does offer plenty of challenge and variety, there are times to where it perhaps offers too much of that. You are informed about the level of difficulty of each level with a star rating that appears before you enter each level. While it’s great to alert us ahead of time of what to expect in terms of difficulty, they do feel quite random with it’s difficulty spikes. There are times to where it will have just a one or two star level of difficulty only to have a level right next to it have the hardest difficulty imaginable. None of the levels are necessarily hard in an unfair way but there will be certain sections that will have you die repeatedly because you didn’t master each move at the exact right time which makes you wish you can just turn the difficulty setting on your own terms.
The difficulty levels comes at a maximum level with entering the special worlds, which are by design that hardest levels in the game. While I guess that’s rightfully so, these feel like they were made specifically for two specific characters, Yoshi and Nabbit. Since those two are easily the most op characters in the game, they are easily the best two characters to play as in these levels with the special world. If you desire to choose any other character for these levels, then good luck with that and that’s all I’ll say on that matter.
When it comes to the boss fights, they are mostly your typical Mario bosses. They don’t amount to much more than just dodging the attacks from the bosses themselves and jump on them at least three or four times without dying to beat them. I get that bosses aren’t the biggest feature in Super Mario Bros. Wonder but it’s kinda of a shame that it doesn’t even attempt to be as half as creative or memorable as the bosses in say Super Mario Odyssey. It basically follows the same methods that the majority of 2D or 2.5D Mario games have without trying to change anything about them whatsoever. They are fun in the moment but that’s about it.
The gameplay of Super Mario Bros. Wonder is able to succeed greatly in the same ways that most Mario games do, providing a fully fleshed out gameplay experience that offers tons of memorable levels, fun power-ups, and plenty of fan favorite characters to play as. Even when the game gets hard, it never gets too hard that you will find yourself wanting to rage quit. If anything, you will be more and more motivate to complete each level and has many as you can before it’s time to put the Switch down for the day. If you were to ask me what would be a Mario game that acts as the most worthy successor to Super Mario World in the year of 2023, Super Mario Bros. Wonder is basically what you get. And I could not be happier to say that!
Graphics:
The graphics are about as beautiful as you can imagine for a game on the Nintendo Switch. While not necessarily as groundbreaking or on the level of say The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, this may just be the most beautiful looking Mario game to date. All the colors mix incredibly well with the art designs, the backgrounds of each level and hub world look so good that you will want a wallpaper out of it, the characters look great and have perfectly fluid animation, and the game runs as good and smooth as you would expect for a next gen Mario game. What you see in terms of the graphics for Super Mario Bros. Wonder is basically what you get! It’s just a delight to look at! Can only imagine how good the next 3D Mario game is gonna look on the Switch?
Sound:
The music, as with most Mario games, is fantastic! There are plenty of tracks that are instant classic and will have plenty of fans wanting to listen to them in their own spare time. What makes it even more unique that past Mario games is the way there are certain levels or challenges that will have their own vocal tracks that play a factor into the levels themselves. The background characters and enemies will react at around the same moments that there is a certain beat that plays. It’s hard to describe how exactly this works but it’s able to do in a way that adds to the gameplay experience rather than take away from it.
Nintendo legend Koji Kondo returned to do the score, along with Shiho Fujii, Sayako Doi, and Chisaki Shimazu, and all of their finger prints is all over the soundtrack. This is the kind of series where the score basically acts as the heart and soul of the series and that is once again showcased brilliantly all throughout Super Mario Bros. Wonder! It’s hard to imagine how Mario himself would be if it weren’t for the geniuses behind the incredible scores for these games.
If I had one grip in terms of the music is that there are certain levels where it plays the same track over and over again that you start to become numb to it.. It’s still really good but some tracks are just used way too often and will likely have you sick by the time you have listened to it again for the fourth or fifth time..
When it comes to the voice work, it’s no secret that this is the first Mario game since the character started speaking to not have Charlie Martinet as the voice of either Mario or Luigi respectively. His successor to take over the mantle for both beloved characters is Kevin Afghanti. And unless I’m mistaking, the other characters seem to have different voices then prior Mario games as well, giving me the mindset that the voice cast had been changed for future Mario games.
While you can certainly tell these are different voices, it’s never too far out of the ballpark where they sound like they are playing completely different characters. Mario still sounds like Mario, Luigi still sounds like Luigi, Peach still sounds like Peach, Daisy still sounds like Daisy, Yoshi still sounds like Yoshi, Toad still sounds like Toad, and Bowser still sounds like Bowser. I’m sure they are all going to take time to get use to for some but I think they all sound fine and are about as good of a replacement for these characters as you can get. If you don’t like that, well….at least we won’t have to hear Chris Pratt as Mario and Seth Rogen as Donkey Kong every game now.
The game does offer the most voice work a Mario game has had since at least Sunshine, mostly due to many of the background characters, mostly the flowers, spouting out a random line of dialogue throughout the level or sometimes will give you some advice on what to do to get to the next part of the level. Although I’ve never been someone that has demanded for more voice work in my Mario game, it’s a pretty neat feature and shows that Nintendo aren’t too afraid of adding more voice acting to their games.
Overall:
Super Mario Bros. Wonder is another superb and quality Mario game, making for perhaps the plumber’s finest 2D outing since Super Mario World. It’s able to expand on it’s level design and power ups further than any prior 2D Mario game while acting as one that can stand perfectly on it’s own two feet. The levels are fast paced and fun, all characters are a delight to play as, the music is amazing, the graphics are beautiful, the new voice cast does a fine job, and the Wonder Flower power-up stands out as one of the best and most unique power-ups in any Mario game. Even the difficulty spikes to certain levels/challenges along with the often repetitive level themes that constantly plays throughout isn’t enough to bring this game down in any way.
I don’t know why it took Nintendo this long to put out a new and fresh 2D Mario game or just a new Mario game in general but it was absolutely worth the wait. Between Metroid Prime: Remastered, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Pikmin 4, and now Super Mario Bros. Wonder, not only as 2023 has been easily the best year ever for Nintendo Switch but possibly even the best gaming library for any Nintendo console they have ever released. So much so, that they can hold off on a new console for a few more years and just focus on releasing more quality games on the Switch such as these!
Now, just give me Super Mario Odyssey 2 and I can fully die happy! Even I can’t live to see that, I can at least say I had Super Mario Bros. Wonder which will make me die not only happy but trippy!
Adam's Blog 