Where do you even start when trying to review this game? You can look at the past titles in the series, slim the focus down to just the 2D platforming style ones and compare how it has changed and arguably evolved over time.
This is an angle I am sure many, and I know some, people will use when writing about this title but I have to come out on top and say something that may invalidate all the words I write following.
I don’t love 2D Mario games.
Yes, I’m one of those people. I was a Sega kid, a huge Sonic fan and although not a person who will slurp up any crap with the blue blur’s name on it, do still hope to have an ounce of the great feelings I got when I was in single digits of years old.
This is not to say I hate Mario or that I never played his games, it’s just I never got to spend the time with him, his loose approximation of lore never dug into my soul like (Fleetway) Sonic the Comic did. I never got to learn exactly how good the little plumber could be on the move at a young age and although I have been back and appreciate what the guy in the dungarees does it’s a harder sell when you’re a decade or even decades removed.
For me to compare Wonder to Super Mario Land 3 or Super Mario World, the ones I usually hear heralded as the greatest, would be false because I don’t have nearly enough understanding to write eloquently and informatively about them.
If you read anything else I put up on this site or have checked “Favorite Games” in my profile you’ll see that Mario is still quite an important character to me.
Once the platforming mascots of the 90’s big two entered the third dimension it didn’t take long for even me, a Sonic fan, to see that Mario had the spikey lad beat.
Sonic Adventure had some interesting things and although not the best paced or most polished game I would still argue Sonic Adventure 2 was good. Super Mario 64 however was great, it was a game changer.
Triple jump in time towards the Wii and the Galaxy games arrive and my thoughts and feelings have been cemented. These are not just game changers but the best in class and some of the best of all time.
This short personal history lesson, which is far from over, highlights a major factor that I need to speak about now in regards to Wonder. It is the factor that, if I had to simply boil down why Galaxy 2 is still, in my opinion, the best platforming game period, is innovations and pure ideas per minute.
Every Mario game has done this. I am aware it is not exclusively a Galaxy trait but the pure volume and successful hit-rate of new idea, new idea, new idea… that Galaxy has is unparalleled.
Wonder may lose one third of the dimensions Galaxy has but it doesn’t drop one third in that department.
Each new power up from Elephant to Bubble is brilliantly executed, adds fun obvious surface details and small control traits that give the player very different feeling stages to go through and master.
Each Wonder seed, the main gimmick of the game, brings to life a whole new experience with very little repetition which further adds variety and excitement to each stage.
Each badge, the new selectable power up system, doesn’t quite do as good a job as the previous but even so hidden within are abilities whole other platformers would use as their gimmicks and also do give some extra replay value.
Mario Wonder much like the best Mario games has such a great variety of stages throughout that by the end of the game when something finally repeats you almost get nostalgic for the beginning of the game - it doesn’t feel like a rehash but a beautiful showcase of something that they’d only shown for the first time in this game but already feels like it’s part of the DNA of the series.
At this stage, with all the praise I have given Mario Wonder in just a few paragraphs the question is not if the game is good but how good? Where does it sit in the pantheon of platformers?
Now as mentioned before, I don’t feel I can fairly place this game if we go all the way back into the 90’s but when we look at what I believe to be the cream of the crop in modern 2D platformers then yes - Super Mario Bros Wonder does sit amongst them.
As an aside, I’ve mentioned what I feel these are but a quick few titles to sate your curiosity: Rayman Origins/Legends, Celeste, Sonic Mania, this game and also Pizza Tower, a comparison I just can’t help but return to in my head again and again.
When I speak on “modern” my shortlist does go back over a decade, so the question here is why did none of the New Super Mario Bros. games do it for me?
To review those games would truly have to involve looking back at the games many other people played as children and as I have said I would find that difficult and a little dishonest for me to write about, however I can say that NSMB felt less new to me than the 3D titles did and less new than even Wonder does.
Some of this goes back to volume and quality of ideas, none of them hit for me and although it being more of the same is no bad thing when a lot of people would call SMW the GOAT, it just felt like more of the same.
Also one of the most superficial reasons too, was simply the look. NSMB felt to me almost plastic-like, the aura it has is one of a shiny new replica rather than a fresh piece of art - something I do not get from Wonder with its new little facial expressions, animations and even the new varieties of friends and enemies like Poplins or Trottin’ Piranha Plants.
To put my feelings on NSMB simply, when I saw the first Wonder trailer I got some NSMB vibes and instantly thought “I’ll play this but I probably won’t love it” and thankfully I was wrong.
When I speak about the most recent 2D platforming greats the first comparison with this game right now is actually to the aforementioned Pizza Tower.
I love Wario, it is hard for me to say with complete conviction that Wario Land is better than Mario’s two dimensional escapades but I do have more love for them and I genuinely prefer Wario Land 4 more than any NSMB variant.
Pizza Tower therefore already has an advantage over Mario Wonder due to this.
It’s a different beast, much more about speed and aggression - it’s going for a retro look and not trying to be a new generation, even though it is.
When comparing the two it is really as subjective as it gets. Mario Wonder looks beautiful, and it would be easy to say it looks “nicer” than Pizza Tower, but that game is not trying to be nice, it is trying to be gross and weird, and it succeeds. Both games are full of life, fantastic little animations, great innovative power-ups and ideas that change the play pattern.
Pizza Tower easily beats Mario Wonder in the music department for me, it’s a soundtrack I go back to again and again but also whilst Wonder does have the typical Mario style of soundtrack you’ll find humming to yourself as you boil the kettle none of it really true sticks or surprises - sure there are some musical elements that put a huge grin across my face but I can’t see me even considering grabbing the OST in a physical format.
My last Pizza Tower comparison point goes into the final few things I want to discuss with Mario Wonder and that is replayability, completely clearing the game and what the game gives you or what you may want to do.
Before I finish with it I will say, by a margin Pizza Tower is my preference between these two games but if you read me putting Wario Land 4 on a pedestal as insanity then you know that it’s probably an opinion we don’t agree on.
Pizza Tower has replay built in via collecting “toppins” and then getting higher ranks - something which is a little too hardcore for me but I am sure to go back to when there’s a quiet period for new releases.
One element Wonder has which I can’t skip, but will skim past is online capabilities.
This game can be played in multiplayer, not something new to the series but an addition I know will go down greatly with the right people, especially parents with children who game together.
To talk on that would be even less honest than me speaking of 90’s Mario memories.
What I can briefly add my two pennies on is the new, “Strand Game” like systems of playing online.
Death Stranding and Dark Souls, two games that are nothing like Mario Wonder but that do weirdly share traits in the way they work online.
If you enjoy collecting stickers and the like, Mario Wonder has standees - each of the dozen playable characters have a dozen different standee poses to collect. In game these can be placed for other players in your level to interact with and use as lifesaving checkpoints.
Much like Dark Souls you can also see ghostly images of the other players and emote to potentially guide them to a secret exit or warn them of a pit. In a more literal sense you can see their ghostly image (of their ghost) if they die and can get to you quickly to be revived.
All together it feels implemented very well, Internet additions and Nintendo don’t go hand-in-hand typically but credit where it’s due. For me however I felt that either the reviving made things too easy or was pointless and I didn’t like the extra things being on screen.
Nintendo have done a good job to not fill the screen with new furniture but for such a pretty and elegant game I didn’t want it added in that way.
The one exception are treasure hunting stages, full of big coins and even blocks that are invisible (to most players). These stages are a complete crap shoot playing offline but are maybe the most fun implementation of what Wonder is going for.
Super Mario Bros. Wonder otherwise however, actually fits the box ticking part of my brain perfectly.
Multiple Wonder Seeds and three giant coins on most levels give you a reason for at least one extra playthrough and if it doesn’t because your first run is perfect, grabbing the top of the flagpole as you leave some levels have secret exits too.
These bonus exits which typically lead into more stages are a great classic feeling way to unlock some alternate routes as you go, and where it might not be quite as free flow as I’d have liked, the more open map of Mario Wonder’s world lets you tackle the game, mostly, in your own way.
To add to this is the badges system, which I find smart but not perfect. A minor smudge on the record of this game, an eyelash in its extremely tasty soup.
Badges unlock as you progress the game, giving Mario new abilities and in some cases changing how he acts completely - those styles (the rightmost if you’ve started the game) I think are great because they truly change how the game can play and definitely add an extra challenge or replay value.
The others however feel like things that when you unlock them should have just been in Mario’s base move set, sure I’ll take the hat glide to make getting the flagpole tip easier but shouldn’t I always have a dash underwater with or without it? It’s a strange addition to Mario that almost feels a little half baked, something to make it feel more new and modern but not as well thought out as its core ideas like the Wonder Seeds or even new power-ups.
In the end any of these negatives sounding comparisons or criticisms are as minor as they come. At its worst Super Mario Bros. Wonder only “fails” because it doesn’t completely rewrite the game or blow you away, but at its best it does or at least it shows why Mario is the icon, why Nintendo will forever pump out multiple platforming series with the plumber and his pals and between all that have them play sports, drive karts and do whatever else may sell.
Simply, Mario is good.
This is an angle I am sure many, and I know some, people will use when writing about this title but I have to come out on top and say something that may invalidate all the words I write following.
I don’t love 2D Mario games.
Yes, I’m one of those people. I was a Sega kid, a huge Sonic fan and although not a person who will slurp up any crap with the blue blur’s name on it, do still hope to have an ounce of the great feelings I got when I was in single digits of years old.
This is not to say I hate Mario or that I never played his games, it’s just I never got to spend the time with him, his loose approximation of lore never dug into my soul like (Fleetway) Sonic the Comic did. I never got to learn exactly how good the little plumber could be on the move at a young age and although I have been back and appreciate what the guy in the dungarees does it’s a harder sell when you’re a decade or even decades removed.
For me to compare Wonder to Super Mario Land 3 or Super Mario World, the ones I usually hear heralded as the greatest, would be false because I don’t have nearly enough understanding to write eloquently and informatively about them.
If you read anything else I put up on this site or have checked “Favorite Games” in my profile you’ll see that Mario is still quite an important character to me.
Once the platforming mascots of the 90’s big two entered the third dimension it didn’t take long for even me, a Sonic fan, to see that Mario had the spikey lad beat.
Sonic Adventure had some interesting things and although not the best paced or most polished game I would still argue Sonic Adventure 2 was good. Super Mario 64 however was great, it was a game changer.
Triple jump in time towards the Wii and the Galaxy games arrive and my thoughts and feelings have been cemented. These are not just game changers but the best in class and some of the best of all time.
This short personal history lesson, which is far from over, highlights a major factor that I need to speak about now in regards to Wonder. It is the factor that, if I had to simply boil down why Galaxy 2 is still, in my opinion, the best platforming game period, is innovations and pure ideas per minute.
Every Mario game has done this. I am aware it is not exclusively a Galaxy trait but the pure volume and successful hit-rate of new idea, new idea, new idea… that Galaxy has is unparalleled.
Wonder may lose one third of the dimensions Galaxy has but it doesn’t drop one third in that department.
Each new power up from Elephant to Bubble is brilliantly executed, adds fun obvious surface details and small control traits that give the player very different feeling stages to go through and master.
Each Wonder seed, the main gimmick of the game, brings to life a whole new experience with very little repetition which further adds variety and excitement to each stage.
Each badge, the new selectable power up system, doesn’t quite do as good a job as the previous but even so hidden within are abilities whole other platformers would use as their gimmicks and also do give some extra replay value.
Mario Wonder much like the best Mario games has such a great variety of stages throughout that by the end of the game when something finally repeats you almost get nostalgic for the beginning of the game - it doesn’t feel like a rehash but a beautiful showcase of something that they’d only shown for the first time in this game but already feels like it’s part of the DNA of the series.
At this stage, with all the praise I have given Mario Wonder in just a few paragraphs the question is not if the game is good but how good? Where does it sit in the pantheon of platformers?
Now as mentioned before, I don’t feel I can fairly place this game if we go all the way back into the 90’s but when we look at what I believe to be the cream of the crop in modern 2D platformers then yes - Super Mario Bros Wonder does sit amongst them.
As an aside, I’ve mentioned what I feel these are but a quick few titles to sate your curiosity: Rayman Origins/Legends, Celeste, Sonic Mania, this game and also Pizza Tower, a comparison I just can’t help but return to in my head again and again.
When I speak on “modern” my shortlist does go back over a decade, so the question here is why did none of the New Super Mario Bros. games do it for me?
To review those games would truly have to involve looking back at the games many other people played as children and as I have said I would find that difficult and a little dishonest for me to write about, however I can say that NSMB felt less new to me than the 3D titles did and less new than even Wonder does.
Some of this goes back to volume and quality of ideas, none of them hit for me and although it being more of the same is no bad thing when a lot of people would call SMW the GOAT, it just felt like more of the same.
Also one of the most superficial reasons too, was simply the look. NSMB felt to me almost plastic-like, the aura it has is one of a shiny new replica rather than a fresh piece of art - something I do not get from Wonder with its new little facial expressions, animations and even the new varieties of friends and enemies like Poplins or Trottin’ Piranha Plants.
To put my feelings on NSMB simply, when I saw the first Wonder trailer I got some NSMB vibes and instantly thought “I’ll play this but I probably won’t love it” and thankfully I was wrong.
When I speak about the most recent 2D platforming greats the first comparison with this game right now is actually to the aforementioned Pizza Tower.
I love Wario, it is hard for me to say with complete conviction that Wario Land is better than Mario’s two dimensional escapades but I do have more love for them and I genuinely prefer Wario Land 4 more than any NSMB variant.
Pizza Tower therefore already has an advantage over Mario Wonder due to this.
It’s a different beast, much more about speed and aggression - it’s going for a retro look and not trying to be a new generation, even though it is.
When comparing the two it is really as subjective as it gets. Mario Wonder looks beautiful, and it would be easy to say it looks “nicer” than Pizza Tower, but that game is not trying to be nice, it is trying to be gross and weird, and it succeeds. Both games are full of life, fantastic little animations, great innovative power-ups and ideas that change the play pattern.
Pizza Tower easily beats Mario Wonder in the music department for me, it’s a soundtrack I go back to again and again but also whilst Wonder does have the typical Mario style of soundtrack you’ll find humming to yourself as you boil the kettle none of it really true sticks or surprises - sure there are some musical elements that put a huge grin across my face but I can’t see me even considering grabbing the OST in a physical format.
My last Pizza Tower comparison point goes into the final few things I want to discuss with Mario Wonder and that is replayability, completely clearing the game and what the game gives you or what you may want to do.
Before I finish with it I will say, by a margin Pizza Tower is my preference between these two games but if you read me putting Wario Land 4 on a pedestal as insanity then you know that it’s probably an opinion we don’t agree on.
Pizza Tower has replay built in via collecting “toppins” and then getting higher ranks - something which is a little too hardcore for me but I am sure to go back to when there’s a quiet period for new releases.
One element Wonder has which I can’t skip, but will skim past is online capabilities.
This game can be played in multiplayer, not something new to the series but an addition I know will go down greatly with the right people, especially parents with children who game together.
To talk on that would be even less honest than me speaking of 90’s Mario memories.
What I can briefly add my two pennies on is the new, “Strand Game” like systems of playing online.
Death Stranding and Dark Souls, two games that are nothing like Mario Wonder but that do weirdly share traits in the way they work online.
If you enjoy collecting stickers and the like, Mario Wonder has standees - each of the dozen playable characters have a dozen different standee poses to collect. In game these can be placed for other players in your level to interact with and use as lifesaving checkpoints.
Much like Dark Souls you can also see ghostly images of the other players and emote to potentially guide them to a secret exit or warn them of a pit. In a more literal sense you can see their ghostly image (of their ghost) if they die and can get to you quickly to be revived.
All together it feels implemented very well, Internet additions and Nintendo don’t go hand-in-hand typically but credit where it’s due. For me however I felt that either the reviving made things too easy or was pointless and I didn’t like the extra things being on screen.
Nintendo have done a good job to not fill the screen with new furniture but for such a pretty and elegant game I didn’t want it added in that way.
The one exception are treasure hunting stages, full of big coins and even blocks that are invisible (to most players). These stages are a complete crap shoot playing offline but are maybe the most fun implementation of what Wonder is going for.
Super Mario Bros. Wonder otherwise however, actually fits the box ticking part of my brain perfectly.
Multiple Wonder Seeds and three giant coins on most levels give you a reason for at least one extra playthrough and if it doesn’t because your first run is perfect, grabbing the top of the flagpole as you leave some levels have secret exits too.
These bonus exits which typically lead into more stages are a great classic feeling way to unlock some alternate routes as you go, and where it might not be quite as free flow as I’d have liked, the more open map of Mario Wonder’s world lets you tackle the game, mostly, in your own way.
To add to this is the badges system, which I find smart but not perfect. A minor smudge on the record of this game, an eyelash in its extremely tasty soup.
Badges unlock as you progress the game, giving Mario new abilities and in some cases changing how he acts completely - those styles (the rightmost if you’ve started the game) I think are great because they truly change how the game can play and definitely add an extra challenge or replay value.
The others however feel like things that when you unlock them should have just been in Mario’s base move set, sure I’ll take the hat glide to make getting the flagpole tip easier but shouldn’t I always have a dash underwater with or without it? It’s a strange addition to Mario that almost feels a little half baked, something to make it feel more new and modern but not as well thought out as its core ideas like the Wonder Seeds or even new power-ups.
In the end any of these negatives sounding comparisons or criticisms are as minor as they come. At its worst Super Mario Bros. Wonder only “fails” because it doesn’t completely rewrite the game or blow you away, but at its best it does or at least it shows why Mario is the icon, why Nintendo will forever pump out multiple platforming series with the plumber and his pals and between all that have them play sports, drive karts and do whatever else may sell.
Simply, Mario is good.