After years of sterile, commercial, uninspired entries, it's nice to finally see a 2D Mario full of life and creativity. Not that the NSMB games were necessarily bad or anything. They were, generally speaking, well made platformers that were perfectly serviceable. However, serviceable doesn't and shouldn't cut it for Mario. Playing a Mario game shouldn't feel like you're playing a corporate product developed by people being kept on a leash so they don't "go too far" or something. Luckily, Nintendo seems to have freed them from those shackles, and clearly it paid off incredibly.
This game feels like a true follow-up to Mario World in that it's actually expanding upon 2D Mario with things like badges, new enemies, and tons of new level gimmicks. There's also a bunch of secrets to find too that are pretty easy to miss, so there's plenty of replayability. The badges alone add a lot of replayability too just to experiment with and see how much you can cheese levels with them.
Level design is overall pretty great and each world has very unique theming as well. You don't just have a grass world, ice world, water world, etc. Every world has a variety of different aesthetics to keep them from getting stale. The trippy Wonder Seed parts of certain levels are a highlight as well. It's fun to see a Mario game really lean more into the weird and wacky aspects of the series that inspired so many people to make the same insufferable drug jokes over the years.
The online functionality is actually pretty cool as well. I at first didn't think it would be all that notable, but having these ghost players play along with you and help you out with finding secrets (or revive you from death if you really want to go full baby mode) adds a lot to the experience. The levels where you have to search for hidden coins especially make use of this feature in a neat way.
Only negatives I can really think of is that I do wish the different characters weren't just skins and had their unique attributes they're known for. Playing as Peach often would confuse me because I'm so use to her having a hover ability. I guess also the bosses are a little uninspired, but honestly I don't think 2D Mario games ever truly had particularly great boss fights.
Mario Wonder is genuinely wonderful. I wouldn't put the game above Mario 3 or World, but I would say it's definitely in the same tier of quality.
This game feels like a true follow-up to Mario World in that it's actually expanding upon 2D Mario with things like badges, new enemies, and tons of new level gimmicks. There's also a bunch of secrets to find too that are pretty easy to miss, so there's plenty of replayability. The badges alone add a lot of replayability too just to experiment with and see how much you can cheese levels with them.
Level design is overall pretty great and each world has very unique theming as well. You don't just have a grass world, ice world, water world, etc. Every world has a variety of different aesthetics to keep them from getting stale. The trippy Wonder Seed parts of certain levels are a highlight as well. It's fun to see a Mario game really lean more into the weird and wacky aspects of the series that inspired so many people to make the same insufferable drug jokes over the years.
The online functionality is actually pretty cool as well. I at first didn't think it would be all that notable, but having these ghost players play along with you and help you out with finding secrets (or revive you from death if you really want to go full baby mode) adds a lot to the experience. The levels where you have to search for hidden coins especially make use of this feature in a neat way.
Only negatives I can really think of is that I do wish the different characters weren't just skins and had their unique attributes they're known for. Playing as Peach often would confuse me because I'm so use to her having a hover ability. I guess also the bosses are a little uninspired, but honestly I don't think 2D Mario games ever truly had particularly great boss fights.
Mario Wonder is genuinely wonderful. I wouldn't put the game above Mario 3 or World, but I would say it's definitely in the same tier of quality.