QuentTheSlayer
Log Status
Completed
Playing
Backlog
Wishlist
Rating
Time Played
--
Days in Journal
4 days
Last played
October 23, 2023
First played
October 20, 2023
Platforms Played
Super Mario Bros. Wonder is the evolutionary game 2D Mario has needed for a long time. The classic Mario platformers were always very innovative and constantly adding to the formula to make each entry stand tall, this sort of refinement and improvement reached its climax with Super Mario World. The "New" Super Mario Bros. series would be more experimental and loose with concepts and design while using technological advancement since Mario World to add much more depth to Mario's move set and mechanics. Unfortunately, the "New" Mario series became rather stagnant and complacent when it began emphasizing multiplayer as the defining trait of the series, this led to weaker level design and even weaker concepts each entry, eventually leading to New super Mario Bros. U the weakest 2D entry in Mario's history besides The Lost Levels. With such a decline, Mario Maker would take the reins and it felt like 2D Mario's final resting place, until Super Mario Wonder was announced. Considering Mario Maker allowed the players to make every single possible level with many tools at their disposal, as well as unique ideas and mechanics placed in Mario Maker specifically to sweeten the pot of level design and concepts. It then becomes absolutely critical Super Mario Wonder has mechanics, level design, and concepts that cannot be achieved with Mario Maker, nor tread familiar ground too closely to the New Super Mario series, lest it feel unjustified and a disappointment. I can wholeheartedly say not only did Mario Wonder justify itself, but it is the largest transformation of the 2D Mario series since Super Mario 3, and Super Mario World.
Super Mario Wonder's biggest gimmick are the Wonder flowers, capable of transforming levels, enemies, or even Mario & his friends in weird ways that completely change how the level is played. While wonder flowers are optional for the most part, they are the most important idea Mario Wonder has since the actual levels in Mario Wonder are rather easy and from a level design perspective, play it very safe and rather stale. Wonder flowers make up for this shortcoming since as mentioned, they will entirely change the way the level is played, and it makes every level stand out from the rest since each level usually has its own unique gimmick you need to figure out. This game is very impressive in that every level without fail has a wonder flower, had even half the levels had a wonder flower, it would've broken up gameplay enough from standard levels to make this game memorable and better than the sterile New Super Mario Bros. U. Instead, every single level defines itself, which is incredibly welcome and makes the entire game memorable for how weird it gets, the creativity present is not just to create a false sense of soul, a lot of time and effort were put into each level's gimmick, and they all feel incredible to play and very fun to experience.
Mario Wonder is incredibly easy, I don't necessarily look for challenges when playing Mario, but Super Mario Bros. 3 and Super Mario World have very challenging levels that really challenge the player and demand mastery of the mechanics. Super Mario Wonder isn't as strict in this aspect, as most levels revolve around their gimmicks to throw you off to create challenges rather than the actual level design. While some are indeed challenging, Mario Wonder mechanically is not. For example, some of Mario's capabilities in the New Super Mario series is missing in Wonder, which to me is a red flag they definitely simplified levels since if Mario isn't as capable, the levels won't be as intricate. That's not to say they're bad or New Super Mario took full advantage of his capabilities before, because they didn't really, but Wonder is definitely simpler, but the levels are soundly designed, they're just too damn easy. For me, I only started losing lives while playing through optional levels that do present a challenge I very much liked, but the rest of the game I felt like I was on autopilot and never ran into any walls or challenges that really forced me to master certain mechanics. Let me say again, I do not go into Mario expecting challenge, but I do expect a strong progression of difficulty and the game making me master certain things, because Mario 3 and World did this incredibly well, and this is an area Mario Wonder falls flat with for me.
The new power-ups in Mario Wonder can range from good to just okay, it actually has the same amount of power-ups in total as a New Super Mario Bros. game. Elephant is the poster child of the game, and as such, felt like it had the most utility and depth at first glance. Your hitbox is bigger, which makes you an easier target, but you can swing your trunk to pretty much take care of anything from enemies to blocks, anything in your way can be dealt with swiftly using this melee attack. Elephant can also store water in its trunk to water flowers and interact with the level to reveal secrets or gain coins. Elephant was definitely the most fun and impressive of the power-ups since it was really unique but also oddly fit with the wacky nature of the game quite well, I do think it was the most utilized power-up overall, so it was probably my favorite. Next is the Bubble Flower, the Bubble Flower had a ton of potential but was severely underutilized in all the levels it was in to me. The bubbles kill enemies like fireballs but can float, so they could take care of flying enemies or elevated enemies with ease which made it a welcome addition to start with. The issue falls into its two more niche uses, jumping off bubbles, and bubbles going through walls; these two abilities of the bubble flower are never used in the level design, so it’s up to the player’s discretion to make use of them. Unfortunately many levels in this game aren’t too vertical, so it didn’t feel as useful as it could’ve been, it’s certainly fun to bounce off the bubbles, but the usefulness of it felt very lacking. Same situation with the ability for bubbles to pass through walls to interact with stuff, this is used one time in the entire game to my knowledge and never again after that, which is a huge shame because there could’ve been tons of secrets that could’ve been hidden behind walls with a subtle visual detail that would reward players for playing well to keep their power-up, and also reward them for paying attention, unfortunately, the bubble flower never does this, though some levels do without needing a power-up at all. Super Mario world did a fantastic job with the cape feather in comparison, the cape was required for many secrets in Super Mario World that continued to justify its properties, and rewarded players for hanging onto it throughout the level. Anyways, let’s move onto the last power-up, the Drill Shroom. The Drill Shroom is interesting in concept, allowing you to burrow into walls to find secrets, avoid enemies, and could kill enemies who fall on top of you due to the drill on your head. This particular power-up felt the most useless of the 3 since its usefulness only felt valid if the level took it into account or wanted you to have it. There isn’t a single level where the Drill Shroom can’t be found and it’s useful. Mario Wonder emphasizes specific power-ups for levels rather than having every power-up feel useful in every level. Of course they're useful for disposing of enemies, but I’m referring to their specific abilities here, for example, let’s say I go into a level with the bubble flower, but the level gives me the Drill shroom. The Drill shroom will allow me to 100% the level without any issues, but the bubble flower can’t do anything to find a secret exit or reveal a secret area in the level or anything, it’s pretty much pointless. With that said, the Drill shroom is fine, but easily the most underutilized and universally worthless power-up in the game to me, it’s a fun and interesting power-up for sure, just not very useful.
Taking a note from the Mario RPG’s, Super Mario Wonder introduces badges as well. Badges are interesting because it allows the player to give themselves a unique capability in their toolkit to help with traversing and beating levels. Besides badge challenges however, these badges barely have any levels that make use of their unique capabilities, making them entirely optional to a fault. I want to preface that I really enjoyed the badges and found most if not all of them fun or circumstantially useful while playing, but we’ve run into the same problem with the badges as the power-ups I’m afraid. Mario’s wonders levels play it far too safe, so it really defeats the purpose to have so many awesome capabilities not really be used to the fullest like they should be. Badges get away with it a bit more since they have badge challenges specifically tailored to their abilities, which I really loved, I just wish more actual levels did this. Badges do have a multitude of uses, and the passive badges like auto mushroom are great to remove frustration and help you survive longer and help you get the better power-ups right away. There’s also some badges that can make the game much harder, which is very much welcome, and I’m glad they exist because it can create tons of fun challenge runs that will likely make the game much more difficult. Mario’s more limited move-set in this game justifies the badges in a way since it’ll give you something you can rely on in levels and help with trickier sections of levels, it also allows players to carve out their own style more than previous entries, which is a huge plus. Badges are a mixed bag for me, I very much enjoyed seeing them all and what they can do, but I really wish levels took them into account more like the power-ups.
Visually stunning, Super Mario Wonder was such a beautiful and fantastic looking game. The animations were incredibly expressive and had this very charming overexaggerated nature about it that made it incredibly charming from start to finish. Very bright colorful levels, incredibly diverse landscapes that did fall into typical cookie-cutter Mario environments we all know and love, but Wonder did put care into them to make them feel distinct, which I can very much appreciate. Facial expressions were the best they’ve ever been in Mario, the character models are fantastic, fluid animation as well, no frame drops that I could see, it was just an incredibly consistently beautiful and well-running game. I will take note that Yoshi specifically looked a bit off with a few animations, but that was all I noticed in Wonder that stood out in a bad way.
Alright, let’s talk about the voice acting really quick as well. So I’ve been a gigantic Mario fan since I was a tiny, tiny kid, and I grew up with Charles Martinet’s voicing of Mario and his friends from my first memories. The new voice actor (I don’t know his name, but if someone can let me know, that’d be awesome!) does a really damn good job voicing Mario. There were maybe two lines in the entire game where I noticed “oh, that’s not Charles anymore, right” other than that? Great performance, really looking forward to hearing more. But, I gotta say this, the Luigi needs a bit more work. I don’t want to sound petty criticizing the VA, but Luigi just sounded a bit too high-pitched. I’m sure the VA will find a very comfortable position with Luigi in the future, and really not every voice line for Luigi even sounds bad, it’s mostly good, but I noticed it more than with Mario, so I wanted to mention it. Otherwise? Fantastic work, looking forward to hearing it in more Mario games moving forward!
Super Mario Brothers. Wonder was a wonderful time… Sigh. All corny jokes aside, I very very much enjoyed this game and think it’s an incredibly bright future presented for 2D Mario I hope gets expanded upon with another entry or more DLC. I stand by my criticisms of the game no matter what though, and I hope they get addressed. Even if I critique a game to kingdom come, I can still very much love and enjoy it, too. Thank you all for reading my very long review of Super Mario Bros. Wonder, I've been trying to make my reviews longer and delve into the specifics of games I talk about more rather than just dissect it by story, gameplay, music etc. I hope you’ve all been enjoying them, thank you for all the support, and I will see you all in the next review!
Super Mario Wonder's biggest gimmick are the Wonder flowers, capable of transforming levels, enemies, or even Mario & his friends in weird ways that completely change how the level is played. While wonder flowers are optional for the most part, they are the most important idea Mario Wonder has since the actual levels in Mario Wonder are rather easy and from a level design perspective, play it very safe and rather stale. Wonder flowers make up for this shortcoming since as mentioned, they will entirely change the way the level is played, and it makes every level stand out from the rest since each level usually has its own unique gimmick you need to figure out. This game is very impressive in that every level without fail has a wonder flower, had even half the levels had a wonder flower, it would've broken up gameplay enough from standard levels to make this game memorable and better than the sterile New Super Mario Bros. U. Instead, every single level defines itself, which is incredibly welcome and makes the entire game memorable for how weird it gets, the creativity present is not just to create a false sense of soul, a lot of time and effort were put into each level's gimmick, and they all feel incredible to play and very fun to experience.
Mario Wonder is incredibly easy, I don't necessarily look for challenges when playing Mario, but Super Mario Bros. 3 and Super Mario World have very challenging levels that really challenge the player and demand mastery of the mechanics. Super Mario Wonder isn't as strict in this aspect, as most levels revolve around their gimmicks to throw you off to create challenges rather than the actual level design. While some are indeed challenging, Mario Wonder mechanically is not. For example, some of Mario's capabilities in the New Super Mario series is missing in Wonder, which to me is a red flag they definitely simplified levels since if Mario isn't as capable, the levels won't be as intricate. That's not to say they're bad or New Super Mario took full advantage of his capabilities before, because they didn't really, but Wonder is definitely simpler, but the levels are soundly designed, they're just too damn easy. For me, I only started losing lives while playing through optional levels that do present a challenge I very much liked, but the rest of the game I felt like I was on autopilot and never ran into any walls or challenges that really forced me to master certain mechanics. Let me say again, I do not go into Mario expecting challenge, but I do expect a strong progression of difficulty and the game making me master certain things, because Mario 3 and World did this incredibly well, and this is an area Mario Wonder falls flat with for me.
The new power-ups in Mario Wonder can range from good to just okay, it actually has the same amount of power-ups in total as a New Super Mario Bros. game. Elephant is the poster child of the game, and as such, felt like it had the most utility and depth at first glance. Your hitbox is bigger, which makes you an easier target, but you can swing your trunk to pretty much take care of anything from enemies to blocks, anything in your way can be dealt with swiftly using this melee attack. Elephant can also store water in its trunk to water flowers and interact with the level to reveal secrets or gain coins. Elephant was definitely the most fun and impressive of the power-ups since it was really unique but also oddly fit with the wacky nature of the game quite well, I do think it was the most utilized power-up overall, so it was probably my favorite. Next is the Bubble Flower, the Bubble Flower had a ton of potential but was severely underutilized in all the levels it was in to me. The bubbles kill enemies like fireballs but can float, so they could take care of flying enemies or elevated enemies with ease which made it a welcome addition to start with. The issue falls into its two more niche uses, jumping off bubbles, and bubbles going through walls; these two abilities of the bubble flower are never used in the level design, so it’s up to the player’s discretion to make use of them. Unfortunately many levels in this game aren’t too vertical, so it didn’t feel as useful as it could’ve been, it’s certainly fun to bounce off the bubbles, but the usefulness of it felt very lacking. Same situation with the ability for bubbles to pass through walls to interact with stuff, this is used one time in the entire game to my knowledge and never again after that, which is a huge shame because there could’ve been tons of secrets that could’ve been hidden behind walls with a subtle visual detail that would reward players for playing well to keep their power-up, and also reward them for paying attention, unfortunately, the bubble flower never does this, though some levels do without needing a power-up at all. Super Mario world did a fantastic job with the cape feather in comparison, the cape was required for many secrets in Super Mario World that continued to justify its properties, and rewarded players for hanging onto it throughout the level. Anyways, let’s move onto the last power-up, the Drill Shroom. The Drill Shroom is interesting in concept, allowing you to burrow into walls to find secrets, avoid enemies, and could kill enemies who fall on top of you due to the drill on your head. This particular power-up felt the most useless of the 3 since its usefulness only felt valid if the level took it into account or wanted you to have it. There isn’t a single level where the Drill Shroom can’t be found and it’s useful. Mario Wonder emphasizes specific power-ups for levels rather than having every power-up feel useful in every level. Of course they're useful for disposing of enemies, but I’m referring to their specific abilities here, for example, let’s say I go into a level with the bubble flower, but the level gives me the Drill shroom. The Drill shroom will allow me to 100% the level without any issues, but the bubble flower can’t do anything to find a secret exit or reveal a secret area in the level or anything, it’s pretty much pointless. With that said, the Drill shroom is fine, but easily the most underutilized and universally worthless power-up in the game to me, it’s a fun and interesting power-up for sure, just not very useful.
Taking a note from the Mario RPG’s, Super Mario Wonder introduces badges as well. Badges are interesting because it allows the player to give themselves a unique capability in their toolkit to help with traversing and beating levels. Besides badge challenges however, these badges barely have any levels that make use of their unique capabilities, making them entirely optional to a fault. I want to preface that I really enjoyed the badges and found most if not all of them fun or circumstantially useful while playing, but we’ve run into the same problem with the badges as the power-ups I’m afraid. Mario’s wonders levels play it far too safe, so it really defeats the purpose to have so many awesome capabilities not really be used to the fullest like they should be. Badges get away with it a bit more since they have badge challenges specifically tailored to their abilities, which I really loved, I just wish more actual levels did this. Badges do have a multitude of uses, and the passive badges like auto mushroom are great to remove frustration and help you survive longer and help you get the better power-ups right away. There’s also some badges that can make the game much harder, which is very much welcome, and I’m glad they exist because it can create tons of fun challenge runs that will likely make the game much more difficult. Mario’s more limited move-set in this game justifies the badges in a way since it’ll give you something you can rely on in levels and help with trickier sections of levels, it also allows players to carve out their own style more than previous entries, which is a huge plus. Badges are a mixed bag for me, I very much enjoyed seeing them all and what they can do, but I really wish levels took them into account more like the power-ups.
Visually stunning, Super Mario Wonder was such a beautiful and fantastic looking game. The animations were incredibly expressive and had this very charming overexaggerated nature about it that made it incredibly charming from start to finish. Very bright colorful levels, incredibly diverse landscapes that did fall into typical cookie-cutter Mario environments we all know and love, but Wonder did put care into them to make them feel distinct, which I can very much appreciate. Facial expressions were the best they’ve ever been in Mario, the character models are fantastic, fluid animation as well, no frame drops that I could see, it was just an incredibly consistently beautiful and well-running game. I will take note that Yoshi specifically looked a bit off with a few animations, but that was all I noticed in Wonder that stood out in a bad way.
Alright, let’s talk about the voice acting really quick as well. So I’ve been a gigantic Mario fan since I was a tiny, tiny kid, and I grew up with Charles Martinet’s voicing of Mario and his friends from my first memories. The new voice actor (I don’t know his name, but if someone can let me know, that’d be awesome!) does a really damn good job voicing Mario. There were maybe two lines in the entire game where I noticed “oh, that’s not Charles anymore, right” other than that? Great performance, really looking forward to hearing more. But, I gotta say this, the Luigi needs a bit more work. I don’t want to sound petty criticizing the VA, but Luigi just sounded a bit too high-pitched. I’m sure the VA will find a very comfortable position with Luigi in the future, and really not every voice line for Luigi even sounds bad, it’s mostly good, but I noticed it more than with Mario, so I wanted to mention it. Otherwise? Fantastic work, looking forward to hearing it in more Mario games moving forward!
Super Mario Brothers. Wonder was a wonderful time… Sigh. All corny jokes aside, I very very much enjoyed this game and think it’s an incredibly bright future presented for 2D Mario I hope gets expanded upon with another entry or more DLC. I stand by my criticisms of the game no matter what though, and I hope they get addressed. Even if I critique a game to kingdom come, I can still very much love and enjoy it, too. Thank you all for reading my very long review of Super Mario Bros. Wonder, I've been trying to make my reviews longer and delve into the specifics of games I talk about more rather than just dissect it by story, gameplay, music etc. I hope you’ve all been enjoying them, thank you for all the support, and I will see you all in the next review!