I was pretty quick to dismiss Mario Wonder when it was originally announced on July 21, 2023. It screamed all style no substance; the revamped graphics compared to New Super Mario were no doubt some sort of improvement, but I thought it looked somewhat ugly, and the Wonder mechanic especially seemed like a shallow addition, compounded with the talking flower and the very plain level design made it feel as if Wonder, despite aspects of it being promising, would be a disappointment. I didn't really pay attention to the rest of the news cycle other than what I learned from osmosis, but when I heard of a totally legal way to play it early, I decided to give it at least the benefit of the doubt
Two worlds in, I shut off the game. Yep, classic Mario. I thought I saw everything it offered. And after a few minutes, I turned it back on and went back to play it. By the time I left to watch a play, I had left off at World 6 of 7 (sort of 8?), and felt a slight thirst to keep going. It was very small, but a very small part of me was hooked to the game, unable to escape from its appeal.
Super Mario Bros. Wonder is both classic 2D Mario action and its own thing. Taking more cues from Super Mario 3D World than it does from the New Super Mario series, it's able to rejuvenate a dead style with a strong combination of excellent level design, new but familiar aesthetics and a new array of powers. A lot of emphasis must be placed on the level design of Super Mario Bros. Wonder as it is bar none some of the best the franchise has seen, with a wide variety of challenges to be encountered. The absolute large amounts of levels with branching paths and secrets to be found is immense, and the levels have a decent balance of challenge; none feel utterly hard, but they aren't always cake walks. If anything is amazing in this game and must not be taken for granted, it is how this game can cultivate such a strong sense of discovery through short levels, making every run through them interesting. The Wonder flower adds to this, as unlike my first impressions, it isn't a cakewalk to reach these always nor are they boring gimmicks, but rather fundamentally change your play style to bring upon a different challenge that couldn't be done without the game wanting to pull the rug from under your feet. A Wonder flower can change the plane to a Sonic 3D Blast ripoff, making it a top-down perspective, or it can change your character to a ball and implement more momentum-based platforming, or it can create a musical that has you play to the beat of it to succeed.
What Wonder does best, as you've probably assumed, is variety. The game is filled with ideas, making every level unique in some way with the unifying tie being the world's motif. World 5 comes to mind as the prime example; where the last few levels are a long stretch in-story of an old temple, and you're required to explore the level properly to find the Wonder flower, or else when you reach the "end" without it, it'll just end early with a "Course Cleared...?". Dialogue with the NPCs will also point out that this search is necessary, and you can't just bumrush your way through the level. Finding the Flower is never hard, but it did trip me up once, and more than anything I respect the dedication there is to making each World its distinct scenario, rather than all of them having Bowser Jr. appear and fuck things up. World 3 is another example, where rather than finding Bowser Jr. and kicking his ass, the leader of that area presents you with various trials to see if you are worthy of the Royal Seed as some sort of tradition. It makes the end goal feel less repetitive as each world is unique in its formation. World 4 had me scratching my head still, where most of the difficulty isn't in the stages, but actually finding the stages in the World Map. I still had a good number missing until postgame and had to ask for help to figure out the location of some.
The World Map in general is interesting as Super Mario Bros. Wonder does not attempt to have a linear structure after the third World, allowing the player to go through World 4-6 in any order, before ending with "World 7", which is more so a hub that connects the other worlds. Alongside that, Wonder introduces "breaks", which are more bite-sized levels that focus on a different style of gameplay other than pure platforming. There's a pretty large variety, but I don't find it too important to point all of them out since they're usually just about a minute or two long, with the exception of the Search breaks, which jesus christ yeah I was only able to do one the others I saw I could not fucking wrap my head around them. Regardless, they're nice additions that give you an extra Seed, and the Badge stages also give you a new badge if you beat them.
Speaking of badges, this is when we veer off from pure praise to more conflicting opinions. The Badge system allows you to equip one badge to vary your options, be it an extra move for traversal, a passive buff like a coin magnet, or one of the Expert badges. I'll be honest and say that for the action badges, I'm more confused on why these are optional equipments instead of proper upgrades to a base arsenal. Your character in this game is barren. Things like the Triple Jump are changed from a basic traversal ability to a badge, and for some like the grappling hook I never used because the level design simply didn't accomodate for it. Some of the passive badges would also be more useful if I didn't use my sole slot for higher speed; if there were more Badge slots than just one, or if you could equip both one action badge and one passive badge I would see this system as something more useful, but as is I felt it a waste because so much possibility for level design is limited by making these movement options optional.
I did think the expert badges to be more of a fun gimmick comparatively, though; I'm only missing one, but all changed the way the game played in a more unique way that makes it more logical that it is an option, and especially one aimed at harder play. I can see myself going back and utilizing the dash, for example. Regardless, the badge system is more of a minor complaint at some missed potential in level design; same goes for the playable characters playing basically the same? As I said, this game takes a bit more from 3D World's controls and style than it does from New, but one thing 3D World had that this didn't is the character variety in control styles. Wonder does have 6 playable characters, and an additional 6 that no one will play, but I do miss the idea behind the characters having more individual styles such as Toad's faster run speed but smaller range in jumps. Maybe it's a bit of wishful thinking to have both the great level design of this and the unique characters of 3D World... but it stuck out to me so I'm mentioning it.
Something else that stuck out to me is the power-up selection. Not counting the Wonder Flower because it's more similar to a Mega Mushroom than anything, there's only four, and only one is a returning one; the Fire Flower. No comments on that, you've played Mario, you know what it does. The other three are the Elephant, the Bubble, and the Drill. I'll be honest I only really liked the Bubble powerup; it goes through walls and you can jump on the bubbles themselves, and they move somewhat slow so lining up jumps with it is doable. It also instantly kills anything the bubble catches, so it's both a great addition to your movement and a great offensive weapon in most situations. The drill is one I would have liked to love, but unfortunately its implementation is a little off. It lets you dig into the ground and the ceiling, as well as being able to hit enemies with your head. It's useful for some stages, but otherwise just doesn't really do much. The Elephant is in theory pretty nice except I hate looking at it. Fuck it. It instills in me a sense of rage I rarely feel. It's also just a little off; it's more of a close range dealer that breaks blocks, but it can also absorb water to rejuvenate some plants, and yeah whatever it works? But I don't like it and I don't like using it.
I also don't like the talking flower. Nintendo strikes back with their my way or the highway mentality because you cannot turn off the flower completely. You can turn off the voice and it somewhat helps but it's still distracting to see text that does nothing but spout Whedonisms. YES I can see that weird shit is happening, I don't need the game to reaffirm that weird shit is happening. It's just an odd addition when the rest of the game is all-in on wanting you to immerse yourself into the Flower Kingdom, seeing the different groups and how you interact with them, to also attract attention to it in an odd, fourth-wall way. They don't give advice or hints. They're entirely there to just tickle your brain if you somehow enjoy the sort of dialogue it spawns.I don't like it. It do not tickle my brain. It does the opposite.
Another small disappointment I have is with the postgame levels in the Special world, only having nine stages and all of them being pretty short and the challenge coming more so from precise application of gimmicks than any strong platforming. I don't mind this approach for the normal levels because part of the appeal is the variety that sprouts from it, but the levels never really felt like a proper challenge because of it. I wish the last stage was longer and harder.
The bosses are fine, there's only really three; Bowser Jr., the ship's, and Bowser himself. Bowser Jr has a pretty set moveset that changes less because of him and more of what the world's general gimmick is. The ship's is more akin to Bowser's fights in Mario 1 where the goal isn't to kill him but to reach the ax. Bowser's fight was a strong and fun spectacle, but not really hard. I wish there were more? Not for every World, I think they all do a good job at variety, but I think there could've been a better way to implement a set piece boss alongside the Wonder flower's effects.
I do think that perhaps Wonder's biggest issue is that it is not a very deep game; not in terms of plot but in terms of gameplay. There's not much avenue for a strong application in gameplay since the game functions much less as something focused on Mario's movement kit and much more on a visual spectacle, pulling the rug off your feet. And Wonder is great for that! But when it also attempts to pose a serious challenge, it starts faltering.
Wonder shows a lot of wonderful spectacle, but stumbles in a few key aspects that still show promise for the evolution of 2D Mario and how it can change and evolve.
Two worlds in, I shut off the game. Yep, classic Mario. I thought I saw everything it offered. And after a few minutes, I turned it back on and went back to play it. By the time I left to watch a play, I had left off at World 6 of 7 (sort of 8?), and felt a slight thirst to keep going. It was very small, but a very small part of me was hooked to the game, unable to escape from its appeal.
Super Mario Bros. Wonder is both classic 2D Mario action and its own thing. Taking more cues from Super Mario 3D World than it does from the New Super Mario series, it's able to rejuvenate a dead style with a strong combination of excellent level design, new but familiar aesthetics and a new array of powers. A lot of emphasis must be placed on the level design of Super Mario Bros. Wonder as it is bar none some of the best the franchise has seen, with a wide variety of challenges to be encountered. The absolute large amounts of levels with branching paths and secrets to be found is immense, and the levels have a decent balance of challenge; none feel utterly hard, but they aren't always cake walks. If anything is amazing in this game and must not be taken for granted, it is how this game can cultivate such a strong sense of discovery through short levels, making every run through them interesting. The Wonder flower adds to this, as unlike my first impressions, it isn't a cakewalk to reach these always nor are they boring gimmicks, but rather fundamentally change your play style to bring upon a different challenge that couldn't be done without the game wanting to pull the rug from under your feet. A Wonder flower can change the plane to a Sonic 3D Blast ripoff, making it a top-down perspective, or it can change your character to a ball and implement more momentum-based platforming, or it can create a musical that has you play to the beat of it to succeed.
What Wonder does best, as you've probably assumed, is variety. The game is filled with ideas, making every level unique in some way with the unifying tie being the world's motif. World 5 comes to mind as the prime example; where the last few levels are a long stretch in-story of an old temple, and you're required to explore the level properly to find the Wonder flower, or else when you reach the "end" without it, it'll just end early with a "Course Cleared...?". Dialogue with the NPCs will also point out that this search is necessary, and you can't just bumrush your way through the level. Finding the Flower is never hard, but it did trip me up once, and more than anything I respect the dedication there is to making each World its distinct scenario, rather than all of them having Bowser Jr. appear and fuck things up. World 3 is another example, where rather than finding Bowser Jr. and kicking his ass, the leader of that area presents you with various trials to see if you are worthy of the Royal Seed as some sort of tradition. It makes the end goal feel less repetitive as each world is unique in its formation. World 4 had me scratching my head still, where most of the difficulty isn't in the stages, but actually finding the stages in the World Map. I still had a good number missing until postgame and had to ask for help to figure out the location of some.
The World Map in general is interesting as Super Mario Bros. Wonder does not attempt to have a linear structure after the third World, allowing the player to go through World 4-6 in any order, before ending with "World 7", which is more so a hub that connects the other worlds. Alongside that, Wonder introduces "breaks", which are more bite-sized levels that focus on a different style of gameplay other than pure platforming. There's a pretty large variety, but I don't find it too important to point all of them out since they're usually just about a minute or two long, with the exception of the Search breaks, which jesus christ yeah I was only able to do one the others I saw I could not fucking wrap my head around them. Regardless, they're nice additions that give you an extra Seed, and the Badge stages also give you a new badge if you beat them.
Speaking of badges, this is when we veer off from pure praise to more conflicting opinions. The Badge system allows you to equip one badge to vary your options, be it an extra move for traversal, a passive buff like a coin magnet, or one of the Expert badges. I'll be honest and say that for the action badges, I'm more confused on why these are optional equipments instead of proper upgrades to a base arsenal. Your character in this game is barren. Things like the Triple Jump are changed from a basic traversal ability to a badge, and for some like the grappling hook I never used because the level design simply didn't accomodate for it. Some of the passive badges would also be more useful if I didn't use my sole slot for higher speed; if there were more Badge slots than just one, or if you could equip both one action badge and one passive badge I would see this system as something more useful, but as is I felt it a waste because so much possibility for level design is limited by making these movement options optional.
I did think the expert badges to be more of a fun gimmick comparatively, though; I'm only missing one, but all changed the way the game played in a more unique way that makes it more logical that it is an option, and especially one aimed at harder play. I can see myself going back and utilizing the dash, for example. Regardless, the badge system is more of a minor complaint at some missed potential in level design; same goes for the playable characters playing basically the same? As I said, this game takes a bit more from 3D World's controls and style than it does from New, but one thing 3D World had that this didn't is the character variety in control styles. Wonder does have 6 playable characters, and an additional 6 that no one will play, but I do miss the idea behind the characters having more individual styles such as Toad's faster run speed but smaller range in jumps. Maybe it's a bit of wishful thinking to have both the great level design of this and the unique characters of 3D World... but it stuck out to me so I'm mentioning it.
Something else that stuck out to me is the power-up selection. Not counting the Wonder Flower because it's more similar to a Mega Mushroom than anything, there's only four, and only one is a returning one; the Fire Flower. No comments on that, you've played Mario, you know what it does. The other three are the Elephant, the Bubble, and the Drill. I'll be honest I only really liked the Bubble powerup; it goes through walls and you can jump on the bubbles themselves, and they move somewhat slow so lining up jumps with it is doable. It also instantly kills anything the bubble catches, so it's both a great addition to your movement and a great offensive weapon in most situations. The drill is one I would have liked to love, but unfortunately its implementation is a little off. It lets you dig into the ground and the ceiling, as well as being able to hit enemies with your head. It's useful for some stages, but otherwise just doesn't really do much. The Elephant is in theory pretty nice except I hate looking at it. Fuck it. It instills in me a sense of rage I rarely feel. It's also just a little off; it's more of a close range dealer that breaks blocks, but it can also absorb water to rejuvenate some plants, and yeah whatever it works? But I don't like it and I don't like using it.
I also don't like the talking flower. Nintendo strikes back with their my way or the highway mentality because you cannot turn off the flower completely. You can turn off the voice and it somewhat helps but it's still distracting to see text that does nothing but spout Whedonisms. YES I can see that weird shit is happening, I don't need the game to reaffirm that weird shit is happening. It's just an odd addition when the rest of the game is all-in on wanting you to immerse yourself into the Flower Kingdom, seeing the different groups and how you interact with them, to also attract attention to it in an odd, fourth-wall way. They don't give advice or hints. They're entirely there to just tickle your brain if you somehow enjoy the sort of dialogue it spawns.I don't like it. It do not tickle my brain. It does the opposite.
Another small disappointment I have is with the postgame levels in the Special world, only having nine stages and all of them being pretty short and the challenge coming more so from precise application of gimmicks than any strong platforming. I don't mind this approach for the normal levels because part of the appeal is the variety that sprouts from it, but the levels never really felt like a proper challenge because of it. I wish the last stage was longer and harder.
The bosses are fine, there's only really three; Bowser Jr., the ship's, and Bowser himself. Bowser Jr has a pretty set moveset that changes less because of him and more of what the world's general gimmick is. The ship's is more akin to Bowser's fights in Mario 1 where the goal isn't to kill him but to reach the ax. Bowser's fight was a strong and fun spectacle, but not really hard. I wish there were more? Not for every World, I think they all do a good job at variety, but I think there could've been a better way to implement a set piece boss alongside the Wonder flower's effects.
I do think that perhaps Wonder's biggest issue is that it is not a very deep game; not in terms of plot but in terms of gameplay. There's not much avenue for a strong application in gameplay since the game functions much less as something focused on Mario's movement kit and much more on a visual spectacle, pulling the rug off your feet. And Wonder is great for that! But when it also attempts to pose a serious challenge, it starts faltering.
Wonder shows a lot of wonderful spectacle, but stumbles in a few key aspects that still show promise for the evolution of 2D Mario and how it can change and evolve.