Super Mario Bros. Wonder

It’s been awhile since I’ve talked about a Super Mario game. I believe the last review I wrote for the franchise was Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope back in 2022. One of the spinoff RPGs and a quite underrated one in my opinion. For my last mainline entry it’d be Super Mario Odyssey, which I covered the same year and ever since then I haven’t talked about the Super Mario series. Bring it up every now and then, but never cover another title. Which is a real shame, because the Super Mario series made up a good chunk of childhood and I feel like I would have a lot of fun discussing whether or not each game held up. I think the reason why I never talk about Mario is because…. Well it’s Mario. Everyone knows what Mario is and hundreds of copies get sold each year without stop. Nintendo has an infinite money maker, and you can’t go five seconds without some saying how much fun they’re having. Mario is big, and when something grows big enough it tends to shove too deep into the face of others. Those who wish to hear about other games, and I’m one of those people. I prioritize reviewing indie games or encouraging gamers to check out games outside their comfort zone. Not regurgitate opinions of an already loud crowd. 

The Nintendo Switch 2 released a few days ago as of writing this review, and despite the amount of raving I’ve seen online I don’t really plan to get one. Not because I think it’s bad, or because the console is a bit pricey compared to the previous Nintendo Switch. I personally want to wait until the Nintendo Switch 2 has more games, and there’s a plethora of original Nintendo Switch titles I have yet to get to. Like the one we’re reviewing today. Super Mario Bros. Wonder, latest amongst the 2D Super Mario entries and the last mainline title. Weird for Nintendo to head back to the 2D formula considering the last time they did it the formula was staggering. Starting all the way back in 2006, Nintendo revolutionized the 2D formula with New Super Mario Bros on the Nintendo DS. If you play the classic Super Mario games, which I have, you’d see each title took leaps forward as to what Super Mario could handle. Super Mario Bros the original was simplistic, and Super Mario Bros. 3 added much needed depth and level mechanic variety. Then on the next console Super Mario World pushed those mechanics to the limit and was able to do more thanks to stronger tech at the time. It felt like improvement after improvement, and for the first in the New Super Mario Bros. series that’s how it felt. An evolution of what World did.

Nintendo took note of how much people loved New Super Mario Bros and decided to do more of it. Unfortunately this was a mistake. New Super Mario Bros. Wii was released in 2008 and for the most part people love it. It was New Super Mario Bros. but now with couch co-op. I say Wii gets a pass as it did enough, but then you have the next two entries. New Super Mario Bros. 2 and of course Wii U, and this is when fans started to feel mixed. Nintendo, a company for innovating with each of their games, was starting to go backwards. They stopped improving and fans were getting really tired of Super Mario Bros. Then Nintendo took some time off, went to the drawing board, and made Super Mario Odyssey. A needed breath of fresh air for Super Mario. Message was very clear. The 2D formula could not be further expanded upon and if so a lot of thought had to be put in. They can’t just do New Super Mario Bros again. It was important they move on and not look back at the past. People wanted Super Mario Odyssey or at least a new 3D Mario game. They did NOT want New Super Mario Bros or something similar. Then during a Nintendo Direct in 2023 they revealed Super Mario Bros. Wonder. A return to the 2D formula, and skepticism should’ve arisen during that moment. Why go back to something that stopped working? Simple answer is: Drugs. Lots of drugs. Get so high something good comes out.

The developers did something with the 2D formula that hadn’t been done since 2006. They had innovated. They improved what had no room left for improvement and they created what I think is one of the best 2D Super Mario games to date. Now I’m a very happy go lucky person. This is a franchise I don’t want to over praise, because there’s a lot more interesting games and the last thing I want to do is steal the spotlight away from them. The reason why I put this game on hold was  because back in 2023 there were so many interesting titles. A lot of which were from indie studios. I wanted to give recognition to art. That is not to say Super Mario can’t be art, but we damn well know it was going to do well no matter what while the other games wouldn’t. I went and skipped it, but during a vacation recently I picked the game up on sale in Japan for what is the equivalent of $40 in the US. Ignoring how crazy video game prices and inflation has gotten, would I say the game is good now that I’ve tried it. Yes. Yes it is. I made that very clear just a few seconds ago. Super Mario Bros. Wonder is the much needed innovation the 2D formula has required for a while, and while I wouldn’t say it’s one of my favorite Super Mario games I would say it’s an excellent one and fans of the series are guaranteed to have a good time with this one. Today we’ll talk about Super Mario Bros. Wonder and why it deserves your attention.

Story

Plot is quite simple. It’s a Super Mario game. What do you expect? Mario and his friends decide to take a vacation outside the Mushroom Kingdom. That includes his brother Luigi, Peach and Daisy, a bunch of Toads, and bunch of Yoshis, and a thieving Nabbit following behind. They’ve journeyed to the nearby Flower Kingdom to take in all of its wonderful sights. A bizarre realm home to the world changing Wonder Seeds. A single touch can morph its users and surroundings into something strange. The power of the seeds are made clear, but just because there’s warnings doesn’t mean it’ll stop everyone. Bowser flies in hoping to harvest the power of the Wonder Seeds for himself, and upon touching the seed it fuses him with his Clown Car and the grand castle. Now he’s a giant floating fortress riding around, transforming the land, and messing everything up. Trapping the residents within cages and sending his henchman out to cause trouble. Prince of Flower Kingdom is distressed by all this, and Mario and company volunteer to help out. They do so by collecting minor Wonder Seeds scattered throughout the world, and locating the grander ones. That way they can break the barriers that protect Bowser, infiltrate inside him, and recover the Wonder Seed in his body. Save the kingdom, save the day, and enjoy your vacation. Simple as it gets, and that’s all the game needs to do as playing it is fantastic.

Gameplay

This game plays similarly to the New Super Mario Bros games, but what makes Wonder different is how varied the mechanics are this time around. You’re still doing what you’d typically do in a Super Mario game. Navigating from Point A to Point all the while collecting items, dodging all sorts of hazards, and knocking out enemies. You still follow the power up endurance the older games do. Grab a Super Mushroom to grow big if you’re small. Grab a power up stronger than it to perform a special ability tied to that power up. Get damaged if you downgrade in the previous stage. For example, if you are Fire Mario and get hit you transition back into Super Mario. After that it’s regular Mario, and after that it’s death. Certain hazards can kill you instantly no matter what form you’re in, and everytime you die you lose a life. Run out of lives and it’s game over. There’s checkpoints placed around levels so you don’t lose too much progress, and occasionally the game gives you a choice on what levels you want to tackle first. With some levels and the path leading forward being locked behind collectible requirements. There’s less power ups this time around, but the gimmicks they circle around are more unique. You have the traditional Fire Flower to shoot fireballs, but there’s Elephant Fruit. Allow Mario to grow big, smash through bricks with his trunky, and suck up water to get a momentary angled projectile attack.

There’s the Bubble Flower to entrap enemies in bubbles and with well timed placement can be jumped on to reach further heights. The Drill Mushroom that lets you burrow into the ground or ceiling, and reach areas you couldn’t reach normally until you want to unburrow. Nice stuff, but the craziest edition to Super Mario Bros. Wonder are the Wonder Flowers. Each stage has one either hidden or floating around. Interacting with it triggers a wonder effect where the mechanics change. This allows the game to be mechanically varied and prevent one level from being similar to the other. Maybe you’re given the ability to walk walls, or swim through lava as if it was just like water. You may get blown high into the air, see the placement of water and air switch, get chased by a stampede of bulls, and much more. Wonder effects are often tied to a level’s current mechanics, so in some way there’s expectancy of what will happen. However, it manages to take me by surprise each time. I encourage players to search for the Wonder Flowers no matter what, because without them they’ll be playing this like an average Super Mario Bros game. Beat each level, collect Wonder Seeds, and beat the final level of each world. Only then you can get what you need to stop Bowser and prevent him from getting freaky. Everyone’s freaky here.

Thoughts

Super Mario Bros. Wonder is proof that a tried and true formula can still feel refreshing several years after it has outlived its welcome. I do have a few criticisms with this game, but overall my time with it was good and I strongly recommend it even if you’re tired of the 2D titles. There is a lot to love about Wonder as it contains all the core elements that make a good 2D platformer. The first of course is level variety. My biggest complaint with the New Super Mario Bros series was not just how repetitive the world themes get, but recurring gimmicks across each game. Course there’s going to be a level in the sky with swinging mushrooms. Of course there’s a swamp level with a poisonous floor you can’t fall into. Of course there’s an airship usually with cannons  that just fire Bullet Bills at you. Of course there’s a desert level with quicksand you have to be careful about. Level ideas repeat throughout each game and they neve build on top of each other. They never stack, so the difficulty of New Super Mario Bros doesn’t become complex. That is not to say the games don’t scale in difficulty, but it feels more stagnant compared to other platformers. How titles like Shovel Knight and Celeste introduce new ideas within the same stage, combine them with concepts they had earlier, and create challenges that keep you thinking.

Now this game does repeat ideas seen before, but it handles them in such unique ways you can barely notice. A lot of the level mechanics seen now have never been done in previous games. For example, the world where there are charging bulls and you can either trick them into ramming into blocks you want destroyed, or ride them as when the run off ramps they launch into the air. One of the game’s more popular stages is the singing Piranha Plant stage where the appearance of walking plants are timed to the music. So you can use this to your advantage to predict when more enemies appear. A level where poles emerge from blocks, and you can use them to either climb around or just walk on them normally. The game introduces ideas whether it be through new enemy types or environmental objects. There are a few levels that reuse some of the mechanics seen earlier, but they’re built upon in such a way they feel fresh in newer stages. This isn’t the cream of the crop of course. The Wonder Flowers the highlights of each level as they test even crazier mechanics. Walking on walls, defying gravity, creating singing plants like I mentioned earlier, transforming Mario into a bizarre creature, and more. They’re needed to get the Wonder Seeds needed to advance, and while the requirement is small I bet most players went out of their way to find every one. Just to see what crazy event a stirs up.

Visually the game looks very nice. It’s 3D models with a 2.5 structure, but they pop out more this time around compared to the previous 2D games. Probably because Wonder has been stylized, and as I’ve stated multiple times in the past games with stylized visuals will often age better with time. They will continue to look good years after a game’s launch, and make the player feel as if the game were made today. I mean Super Mario Bros. Wonder came out almost two years ago, but you get the point I’m trying to make. No stage outstays it’s welcome and replaying them to get any of the collectibles you missed is fun as most levels take less than three to five minutes to complete. The music is cheerful as with all Super Mario games, and there’s enough reasons to keep playing even after you roll credits. Mario games have always been fun to work towards one hundred percent completion, and this is one of them. The core gameplay is the focus as with any of the Super Mario titles, and despite some difficulty curves which I admit aren’t as bad as a big chunk of platformers out there I would say there’s nothing wrong with the core principles of this game. Super Mario Bros. Wonder is as good as people say it is, but it's not perfect.

This is my favorite amongst the 2D entries, but it has a few hiccups that prevent me from calling it one of the best in the franchise. One element I forgot to mention earlier is the badge system. It grants you a different ability or perk depending on the one equipped, and may make stages easier or harder depending on which one is brought. The powers are nice like a parachute cap, the high jump Luigi had in previous games, or giving you a spin like the one in Super Mario Galaxy. The problem is that I never found myself using a majority of these outside challenges requiring them as most of the platforming can be done with basic abilities you have at all times. It’s also weird that when you die you can swap out the badge you have. Even if you are midway through a level. I understand this design choice as it provides accessibility, or quick swap in swap out if you feel like you made a mistake at the start of a stage. However, these stages aren’t long to begin with and I like being rewarded for dedicating myself to a specific tool for a given moment.

Another aspect I failed to mention are purple coins, and dear lord are they useless after getting all the badges and Wonder Seeds at shops. You can also spend them to unlock collectible standees, but outside of that nothing else. Just extra lives, which are already easy to pick up. Why is this game using a live system though? A bit outdated if you ask me. Game Maker’s Toolkit did a video on this back when Crash Bandicoot 4 came out. Saying it either makes the game too easy as a lot of extra lives prevent you from ever reaching the fail state or slow it down at least. That or it’s too hard as very few extra lives prevent players from getting far on long or difficult stages. I fell into the first category. I don’t want to flex off my skills or anything, but I know there are folks in the second group. People who aren’t skilled at platformers find the live system limiting. The mechanics and level ideas are varied, but my personal biggest disappointment are bosses. What I should be saying instead is boss, because there’s only one outside the final boss. You’ll fight Bowser Jr. several times throughout the game and design wise it works the same each time. It’s just his arena that changes, but even then fighting him isn’t difficult as long as you stock up on a power up before entering. My assumption is that so much time was put into the level ideas that they forgot to cook up different bosses for each world. It’s not a major problem, but you do notice it when you face off against him the third time. Final boss is epic though.

I really love Super Mario Bros. Wonder. It’s a fun time. Nothing more or less to say. I still have the belief a majority of 2023 games are more interesting than it, but amongst my art fiascos and trying to find something new to talk about each week it’s nice to just play a game that’s simple fun. A game that proves good design can be what backs a game. In the end I am going to have to give Super Mario Bros. Wonder a 9/10 for excellence at best.

9/10, Excellence