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This review contains spoilers
Damn, I am glad I got this remake. IDK if I can ever do a full review of the game, but I wanted to get my thoughts out right when I finished the game, just before I forget. This is a wonderful update to this innovative JRPG. Even after playing P3P, I felt this game was refreshing and new.
The combat continues to be excellent with its weakness system and the ability to fuse multiple Personas for your strategies. All of the characters needed buffs to their attacks and abilities, although I still didn't use Akihiko, Ken, and Koromaru for most of the game. The Theurgy system of charged moves was integrated wonderfully so that all of the characters have important attacks that can quickly change the tide of battle; the persona fusion attacks were re-integrated into this system. Grinding in Tartarus was never boring because 1) the environments look much better than the original and 2) extra events like Monad doors and grand clocks would speed up grinding and help give me new gear.
Weapons and upgrades were hard to come by in the beginning, but if you focus your time on earning money through shifts or by grinding enough in Tartarus, you be fine late game. Moreover, the antique store (a system I stupidly ignored in P3P) is a more rewarding system to earn weapons and gear. Other than that, the weapons and gear itself were pretty self-explanatory: some have higher stats as well as cool abilities for you to use, as long as you keep up with switching out gear
The bosses were just as good this time around, so nothing new to report. Although, and you should know by now I'm spoiling the game, the fights against Strega were much better both in gameplay and story.
The social aspect continues to strengthen your personas and the story's themes. Every social link that you come in contact with deals with the threat/concept/reality of death, which illustrates that there are many times in which everyone of any walk of life has to come to terms with their life and their mortality. My favorite social links are the Tower, Hierophant, and ESPECIALLY the Sun, a social link I missed out on last time. Seriously, if you only do ONE social link, make sure you hit up the shrines on Sundays. I'd be lying if I said that all of the social links are good. I don't particularly care about the Magician or Fortune, and I HATE the Moon to the point where I avoided that fat fuck. Luckily, the SEES members have their mini-social links that you can perform at night to gain abilities, unlock persona fusions, or help gain social stats.
The new voice actors continue to portray these characters accurately. My favorites are the actors Junpei, Makoto, Mitsuru, Fuuka, and Shinjiro. I did not care much for Ken or Koromaru, and I was a bit sour on Akihiko and Yukari, as the former tries too hard to sound rough and edgy, while the latter misses the snark and sarcasm in her voice at times. Oh, Aigis is the best one though. The social link actors, who now voice ALL LINES, did a pretty good job, although the Hermit and the Star had some stilted line delivery.
The music. Oh my god, the music is amazing. I waited half a year for the OST to slowly leak and gain in audio quality. And now we are FINALLY at a point where the OST is officially out. While I do lament the original P3's OP for its tone, 'Full Moon Full Life' is still super epic. Moreover, all of the other songs got improvements and second verses, although I mixed on the new female singer at times.
As for the pretty bad, I would say that the 'Babe Hunt' scene was tampered with, with the last lady at the end. They swapped out the secretly a man joke with some unfunny conspiracy theory joke. IDK why they felt the need to do that, but it sucked. I don't know if there are any other [Localization] hiccups like that, but it is important to keep in mind.
On another bad note? TOO EXPENSIVE! Seriously, $70 BASE GAME, then ATLUS added shitty costumes and music DLC as separate or 'Digital Deluxe' Edition shit. Oh, and the epilogue chapter 'The Answer'? Separate DLC for $35. The cheapest version of all of this is $105. That is ridiculous.
So yeah, everything you loved about P3 is in this, and I would DEFINITELY play this game again as the years pass, and after I have played 'The Answer'. But either wait for a price drop, buy P3P or mod the original P3FES.
The combat continues to be excellent with its weakness system and the ability to fuse multiple Personas for your strategies. All of the characters needed buffs to their attacks and abilities, although I still didn't use Akihiko, Ken, and Koromaru for most of the game. The Theurgy system of charged moves was integrated wonderfully so that all of the characters have important attacks that can quickly change the tide of battle; the persona fusion attacks were re-integrated into this system. Grinding in Tartarus was never boring because 1) the environments look much better than the original and 2) extra events like Monad doors and grand clocks would speed up grinding and help give me new gear.
Weapons and upgrades were hard to come by in the beginning, but if you focus your time on earning money through shifts or by grinding enough in Tartarus, you be fine late game. Moreover, the antique store (a system I stupidly ignored in P3P) is a more rewarding system to earn weapons and gear. Other than that, the weapons and gear itself were pretty self-explanatory: some have higher stats as well as cool abilities for you to use, as long as you keep up with switching out gear
The bosses were just as good this time around, so nothing new to report. Although, and you should know by now I'm spoiling the game, the fights against Strega were much better both in gameplay and story.
The social aspect continues to strengthen your personas and the story's themes. Every social link that you come in contact with deals with the threat/concept/reality of death, which illustrates that there are many times in which everyone of any walk of life has to come to terms with their life and their mortality. My favorite social links are the Tower, Hierophant, and ESPECIALLY the Sun, a social link I missed out on last time. Seriously, if you only do ONE social link, make sure you hit up the shrines on Sundays. I'd be lying if I said that all of the social links are good. I don't particularly care about the Magician or Fortune, and I HATE the Moon to the point where I avoided that fat fuck. Luckily, the SEES members have their mini-social links that you can perform at night to gain abilities, unlock persona fusions, or help gain social stats.
The new voice actors continue to portray these characters accurately. My favorites are the actors Junpei, Makoto, Mitsuru, Fuuka, and Shinjiro. I did not care much for Ken or Koromaru, and I was a bit sour on Akihiko and Yukari, as the former tries too hard to sound rough and edgy, while the latter misses the snark and sarcasm in her voice at times. Oh, Aigis is the best one though. The social link actors, who now voice ALL LINES, did a pretty good job, although the Hermit and the Star had some stilted line delivery.
The music. Oh my god, the music is amazing. I waited half a year for the OST to slowly leak and gain in audio quality. And now we are FINALLY at a point where the OST is officially out. While I do lament the original P3's OP for its tone, 'Full Moon Full Life' is still super epic. Moreover, all of the other songs got improvements and second verses, although I mixed on the new female singer at times.
As for the pretty bad, I would say that the 'Babe Hunt' scene was tampered with, with the last lady at the end. They swapped out the secretly a man joke with some unfunny conspiracy theory joke. IDK why they felt the need to do that, but it sucked. I don't know if there are any other [Localization] hiccups like that, but it is important to keep in mind.
On another bad note? TOO EXPENSIVE! Seriously, $70 BASE GAME, then ATLUS added shitty costumes and music DLC as separate or 'Digital Deluxe' Edition shit. Oh, and the epilogue chapter 'The Answer'? Separate DLC for $35. The cheapest version of all of this is $105. That is ridiculous.
So yeah, everything you loved about P3 is in this, and I would DEFINITELY play this game again as the years pass, and after I have played 'The Answer'. But either wait for a price drop, buy P3P or mod the original P3FES.
Uhh, so I already hit one credit scene after completing a 6* quest to kill Magnamalo in single-player...and apparently, there are multiple credit scenes, so I'll use these opportunities to journal my thoughts on the game so far.
As someone who did not like MH4U, something about Rise just clicked with me. Was it the beautiful landscapes and charming characters? Was it the ease of learning and gaining power with whatever weapon you wanted? Was it the thrill of the hunt and learning a monster's attack pattern? Or was it D, all of the above? Honestly, I feel you can REALLY enjoy a Monster Hunter game once you have a dedicated buddy to hunt with you, although that is generally true for all online RPGs. Still though, if you commit to the grind of the multiplayer missions, you will easily gain strength. It also helps to find what weapon you want to main, although you can easily switch to any weapon you want in and out of missions. So yeah, definitely get this game to play with friends, but you should probably 1) wait for a discount and b) find some friends to play online or locally (preferably the latter)
As someone who did not like MH4U, something about Rise just clicked with me. Was it the beautiful landscapes and charming characters? Was it the ease of learning and gaining power with whatever weapon you wanted? Was it the thrill of the hunt and learning a monster's attack pattern? Or was it D, all of the above? Honestly, I feel you can REALLY enjoy a Monster Hunter game once you have a dedicated buddy to hunt with you, although that is generally true for all online RPGs. Still though, if you commit to the grind of the multiplayer missions, you will easily gain strength. It also helps to find what weapon you want to main, although you can easily switch to any weapon you want in and out of missions. So yeah, definitely get this game to play with friends, but you should probably 1) wait for a discount and b) find some friends to play online or locally (preferably the latter)
This review contains spoilers
What a refreshing take on a 2D Mario Platformer! Super Mario Wonder surprised me when it was announced. I decided to give another chance for the series, as New Super Mario Bros U and New Super Mario Bros 2 were incredibly stale. Good lord, am I glad I made that decision because this is the best multiplayer and family game of 2023!
I’ll skip over the story since it's a Mario platformer. Instead of rescuing Peach or Daisy, or even the fairy princesses from Super Mario 3D land, we’re rescuing the entire Flower Kingdom (neighboring the Mushroom Kingdom) from Bowser’s shit again (with a mysteriously absent adopted family of Koopalings or twin Boom Booms).
Mario, Luigi, Blue Toad, Yellow Toad, Toadette, Peach, Daisy, Nabbit, and even four flavors of Yoshis are all playable in this game. I love the variety of options players have in their characters, especially when considering you only have two Toads in the other games to choose from; said characters in this game have tons of personality oozing out of every animation and voice line, but I stuck with Yellow Toad, as yellow is my favorite color.
As for the character’s powers…well actually, there aren’t any. No, Luigi doesn’t have a high jump, peach can float, or toad is fast. Everyone except Nabbit and the Yoshi’s are the same, but we’ll get to them. Since Mario has no power, the developers wanted to make everyone more uniform and fair, but you could’ve just…given Mario power. I’m not talking about Cappy from Mario Oddysey, Spin Jump from Mario Galaxy, or even F.LU.D.D. If you don’t want to add new mechanics, just give Mario passive buffs, like giving him the option to equip a second badge for himself. I don’t know, its a very disappointing feature of this game, but the platforming is still fun!
Nabbit and Yoshi cannot use powerups but can never die from attacks. Yoshi’s also have a tongue grab and the flutter jump. This essentially makes them the easy mode (or little sibling mode) for an already easy game. I did not play these characters as that would be mind-numbingly lame, but I appreciate the option nonetheless.
As mentioned earlier, all the characters can run, jump, store one powerup, ground pound, spin jump, and even spin stal just like in the New Super Mario games. Super Mario Wonder adds another set of features. Firstly, all characters have emotes they press with X, and if you crouch and press X you set up a standee. These two features are for online play, as you can revive other people with your standee and others can revive you with yours. When you die in multiplayer, you become a ghost and have 5 seconds to fly to your teammate or another standee to revive and not lose a life.
Now, admittedly, I did not play online since I didn’t want to play, but I did play locally and I can attest that it is MUCH better than the previous New Super Mario games. For starters, no one can bump into each other or grab each other. I am aware that there were cool tricks to do in the old games, but the features mainly resulted in accidental grabs, purposeful trolling, and complete frustration with your team members throughout the entire experience. The camera is also a little better, but it feels frustrating for a camera to randomly switch to one person’s control, a person who is not good at the game. I wish there was a manual switching mode, but its not too bad to get used to.
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the main mechanic of the game: Badges! You and your other team members share a badge that you can all use the power of separately. You can only equip one badge, and they come in different variations. There are the Action badges, the Boost badges, and the expert badges. Please note that I did not use all of the badges in my playthrough
Action badges give players a new move for platforming. The Float Cap is the first badge you get and its a great way to extend the horizontal distance from your jumps. I used this exclusively until I got the Dolphin Kick badge. It is the OBJECTIVE best badge for the water levels in the game, as it actually makes them engaging and fast. Previous water levels were lame because you moved at a snail’s pace, awkwardly dodging obstacles in an unnatural upward angle. The dolphin kick propels you forward in a boost that can also break bricks, so you can see why it makes great underwater movement. Back onto land, I eventually got the high jump, which, while not too fancy of an addition, it still acts as a good movement option for those who want to get to higher places without needing a running start. However, the triple jump works better because you can get higher jumps just like in the New Super Mario games by jumping repeatedly, but you don’t have to move. You can jump in place, which is amazing since navigating the level was always tricky to get this jump off. The Speed Boost badge is similar to the high jump in that it gives a boost to mario’s base movement, but the buff is so nominal that you won’t notice it at all, nor will it matter at all.
The wall jump is also neat as a small boost to vertical distance, but if you have enough skill, the Hover Cap and Grapple Rope can perform this wall climb infinitely. On the subject of wall climb, the Grapple Rope is pretty neat in concept, but because you can’t aim it in different directions, it is limited by your character’s angle. Metroid this ain’t! The Squat Jump gives Mario a higher jump than…the High Jump, but because you have to stop your momentum to do it, or awkwardly carry your momentum mid-squat. The last Action Badge is quite possibly the best one: The Boost Spin Jump. It replaces your mid-air Spin Stall with a full Spin Jump, which makes for a great way to carry momentum, as well as gain horizontal and vertical distance. This was the last badge I ever needed for my entire playthrough when I finally got it. It’s that good.
Next is the Boost badges, or those that I rarely used in my playthrough. The Coin Reward badge gives extra Coins when you defeat enemies. Gold Coins are ONLY for extra lives and cannot be used in the shop, so even though I appreciate an easier way to grind lives, its use is limited. The Auto Mushroom is neat in that it gives you the power-up when the level starts, but again this game is so easy you won’t really need it, especially in the endgame, as you get the All Elephant/All Fire/All Bubble/All Drill badges. These three separate badges automatically give you said power-ups when you pick up any other power-ups. This is pretty good if you need a specific power-up for a level’s gimmick, but most of those levels already have the power-up from said level. If you need a specific powerup in a level that doesn’t have it then I GUESS I can see the use there, but you can just go pick one up from a previous level.
The “!” Block Badge is good at giving baby players more help as well as giving players hints to secret treasure, but I never ended up using it because this game is easy and I just found most of the treasure on my first try just exploring a level normally. The same reason applies to the Sensor Badge for its ability to alert the player to hidden items. Still neat. In terms of more useful Boost Badges is the Recovery Badge, which saves you from one death from a bottomless pit, and resets every time you touch the floor. Again, good for babies or speedrun potential. The Magnet Badge attracts Gold Coins and Flower Coins, which are essential for bonus stages or for grinding Purple Coins. The last one is fun, but much less useful. The Rhythm Badge gives you Coins for when you jump on the beat. Again, fun, but there are better ways to grind the already less useful Gold Coins.
The Expert Badges are the last set of badges since they come from hard levels and they can be used for challenge runs of the game. The Spring Badge makes your character jump constantly, but if you hold the jump, you can get the highest jumps in the game. This is fun for some platforming and challenges, but I don’t like not staying on the ground. The Jet Run badge makes all of your running into a full-on sprint, and whenever you run off the ground, you have a half second of continued running, kind of like in those old Loony Tunes cartoons. I DEFINITELY WANT to try a challenge run with just this badge, or at least see speedruns with it.
The last two are completely lame. The first is the Sound Off badge, which is given as the final reward for 100% of the game. The reward? The sound effects are replaced by Japanese men mimicking the sounds. I mean, it's cute, but I would’ve preferred something more game-breaking fun like flight or a way to select any Power-up at any time, like Wishes Mode in Spark the Electric Jester; I would also do for Power-ups from previous games like Propeller Hat. Last is the Invisibility Badge that makes your character invisible and undetectable by enemies. There is no point EXCEPT for challenge runs, because you can easily defeat enemies in this game. Just..never use this.
Now for the worlds Mario and the gang will explore in the Flower Kingdom. Pipe-Rock Plateau is World 1 in Super Mario Wonder. A very typical grassy field area, but it has a lot of fun highlights like the Hoppos, Bullrushers, and the singing Piranha Plants. This world also acts as an introduction to level progression. There will be some linear areas, but there are some areas that can be traversed in any level order, so long as you get enough Wonder Seeds. There are also shops where you can spend the purple Flower Coins, but not the Golden Coins. You can buy badges, extra lives, Standees gambling and even some Wonder Seeds. Pro tip, save your money for the Wonder Seeds and badges, as you won’t need extra lives for this easy game and Standees won’t matter except for online play and completion.
Super Mario Wonder has Wonder Seeds that can be collected on every level, with most of them being locked behind Wonder Flowers. There is one Wonder Flower on most levels, and touching it activates a completely wacky hazard pop-up. It can range from Shooting Stars, moving platforms, or even turning into some of the enemies in the game like Goombas and Slimes! It is a really fun way to add a memorable gimmick to every level, so I don’t even want to spoil it here.
World 2 is Fluff-Puff Peaks, which acts as the snow and sky world of this game. There are tons more bottomless pits here, but it makes for fun platforming challenges like in “Pole Block Passage” and especially in “Jump! Jump! Jump!”. This is also where you see more of the Break Time and Badge challenge levels. The break time levels are easy 1 minute levels that are quite fun, while the Badge Chalenge levels are some of the best levels in the game, as it really shows the creativinty from the developers in teaching players how a badge works and creating fun challenges. My favorite badge challenge level is the Jet Run II, but i’m getting ahead of myself.
Some worlds either end with fighting Bowser Jr., or in an anticlimactic free giveaway. Either way, you get a Royal Seed that you can use to unlock Bowser’s Catsle once you get all 7. Bowser Jr. castles are fun for a boss leadup, but I swear with how little bosses are in this game, they are so easy. Jr. deploys wonder powers, but they are never anything that drastically change his attack plan of randomly spining arround. Its a damn shame they aren’t as good as the other New Super Mario games.
World 3 is Shining Falls and probably my favorite World in this game purely for its aesthetics. The backgrounds are straight out of abstract paintings, and they shine beautifully when on dark backgrounds. Too bad this world doesn’t end with a boss.
The Petil Isles act as a beach area in between each world. You complete a couple of levels here before you move on to the next full world. Beach levels have always been fun, but with the Dolphin Kick, they are some of the best in the series. I mention the Petil Isles now, because, after Shining Falls, you can choose the order of World 4, 5, and 6. I chose 4, 5, and 6 for my local multiplayer playthrough, while I chose 5, 4, and 6 for my single-player one.
World 4 is the Sunbaked Desert, which is your average desert level with some original additions. You actually get to explore inside palaces and inside hidden dungeons. I actively got stuck on “Color Switch Dungeon” and “Secrets of Shova Mansion”. This is probably my least favorite World, but it is not bad by any means.
World 5 is the Fungi Mines, which acts as a beautiful Mushroom forest in the beginning, until you go deeper and find ancient ruins with hidden exits. Just like with Shining Falls, it ends anticlimacticly with just saving the miners trapped. Oh well, its still pretty.
World 6 is Deep Magma Bog, which acts as the final World until Bowser’s Castle. I am honestly glad they did a Lava world that wasn’t tied to a final world or to Bowser, as it gives more creativity in design when it's not tied to evil castles. You get to explore tons of magma caves, with my favorite one being the “Dragon Boneyard”. Even though this world is more linear, it still has tons of options in terms of level progression.
Bowser’s Castle is..honestly the most disappointing world in this game. 4 great levels with a rockin' theme, but that's it?!?! I just wish this section lasted longer before the final battle. As for the final battle? It’s alright. You have to jump into a big red button 10 times, then that's it. I remember New Super Mario games doing that but with a fakeout twist, like when Bowser grew large in the Wii game. A floating head with hands….gee Nintendo, REAL original stuff there.
The Special world comes back in this one. Instead of needing all of the Star coins like in previous games, you just need to find hidden exits to them. This world has some of the best-designed Wonder Flower sections because it really pushes the limit of the level of design. Shoutout to the sequel to the Piranha Plant March being really good. You can also buy all of the Standees without gambling here, but you may have to grind, yes GRIND, for Flower Coins if you did not save your money. The final levels are some of the best in the series with, the first one challenging you on all of the previous Wonder Flower gimmicks, while the last Badge Chalenge acts as a gauntlet of the hard version of every Badge Chalenge. I liked them a lot, but the final levels from other games like Mario Oddysey, Mario 3d World, and Mario Galaxy felt harder and more conclusive.
The last thing I’ll cover is the power-ups. The Elephant power-up, which gives the characters a swinging trunk as a melee weapon kinda like the Tanooki Leaf. You can also store water in your trunk for three squirts of water that can interact with certain level gimmicks. It's pretty fun, but I prefer Tanooki, Cat, and Boomerang any time of the day because they give you a good melee attack AND movement option. The Fire Flower works as usual in this game, so I can skip over that, but rest assured it is still good. The Bubble Flower is my favorite power-up in this game because you can shoot three bubbles at a time. The bubbles act as platforms you instantly bounce off of, so if you are good at carrying forward momentum and precise platforming, you can cheese a lot of levels by skipping all of the hazards. My least favorite power-up is the Drill Mushroom, because other than fun platforming sections and finding treasure, it doesn’t offer anything in terms of attacks. While you can use it defensively to hide from enemies, most of the time a good offense is better because this game is so easy.
So that is my full review! All in all, its is a very fun game that is sometimes held down by how easy it is. I truly wish for a new game in this style, or maybe a Hard Mode DLC, or even A Mario Wonder Maker in the future, because a new era of 2d Mario is upon us!
I’ll skip over the story since it's a Mario platformer. Instead of rescuing Peach or Daisy, or even the fairy princesses from Super Mario 3D land, we’re rescuing the entire Flower Kingdom (neighboring the Mushroom Kingdom) from Bowser’s shit again (with a mysteriously absent adopted family of Koopalings or twin Boom Booms).
Mario, Luigi, Blue Toad, Yellow Toad, Toadette, Peach, Daisy, Nabbit, and even four flavors of Yoshis are all playable in this game. I love the variety of options players have in their characters, especially when considering you only have two Toads in the other games to choose from; said characters in this game have tons of personality oozing out of every animation and voice line, but I stuck with Yellow Toad, as yellow is my favorite color.
As for the character’s powers…well actually, there aren’t any. No, Luigi doesn’t have a high jump, peach can float, or toad is fast. Everyone except Nabbit and the Yoshi’s are the same, but we’ll get to them. Since Mario has no power, the developers wanted to make everyone more uniform and fair, but you could’ve just…given Mario power. I’m not talking about Cappy from Mario Oddysey, Spin Jump from Mario Galaxy, or even F.LU.D.D. If you don’t want to add new mechanics, just give Mario passive buffs, like giving him the option to equip a second badge for himself. I don’t know, its a very disappointing feature of this game, but the platforming is still fun!
Nabbit and Yoshi cannot use powerups but can never die from attacks. Yoshi’s also have a tongue grab and the flutter jump. This essentially makes them the easy mode (or little sibling mode) for an already easy game. I did not play these characters as that would be mind-numbingly lame, but I appreciate the option nonetheless.
As mentioned earlier, all the characters can run, jump, store one powerup, ground pound, spin jump, and even spin stal just like in the New Super Mario games. Super Mario Wonder adds another set of features. Firstly, all characters have emotes they press with X, and if you crouch and press X you set up a standee. These two features are for online play, as you can revive other people with your standee and others can revive you with yours. When you die in multiplayer, you become a ghost and have 5 seconds to fly to your teammate or another standee to revive and not lose a life.
Now, admittedly, I did not play online since I didn’t want to play, but I did play locally and I can attest that it is MUCH better than the previous New Super Mario games. For starters, no one can bump into each other or grab each other. I am aware that there were cool tricks to do in the old games, but the features mainly resulted in accidental grabs, purposeful trolling, and complete frustration with your team members throughout the entire experience. The camera is also a little better, but it feels frustrating for a camera to randomly switch to one person’s control, a person who is not good at the game. I wish there was a manual switching mode, but its not too bad to get used to.
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the main mechanic of the game: Badges! You and your other team members share a badge that you can all use the power of separately. You can only equip one badge, and they come in different variations. There are the Action badges, the Boost badges, and the expert badges. Please note that I did not use all of the badges in my playthrough
Action badges give players a new move for platforming. The Float Cap is the first badge you get and its a great way to extend the horizontal distance from your jumps. I used this exclusively until I got the Dolphin Kick badge. It is the OBJECTIVE best badge for the water levels in the game, as it actually makes them engaging and fast. Previous water levels were lame because you moved at a snail’s pace, awkwardly dodging obstacles in an unnatural upward angle. The dolphin kick propels you forward in a boost that can also break bricks, so you can see why it makes great underwater movement. Back onto land, I eventually got the high jump, which, while not too fancy of an addition, it still acts as a good movement option for those who want to get to higher places without needing a running start. However, the triple jump works better because you can get higher jumps just like in the New Super Mario games by jumping repeatedly, but you don’t have to move. You can jump in place, which is amazing since navigating the level was always tricky to get this jump off. The Speed Boost badge is similar to the high jump in that it gives a boost to mario’s base movement, but the buff is so nominal that you won’t notice it at all, nor will it matter at all.
The wall jump is also neat as a small boost to vertical distance, but if you have enough skill, the Hover Cap and Grapple Rope can perform this wall climb infinitely. On the subject of wall climb, the Grapple Rope is pretty neat in concept, but because you can’t aim it in different directions, it is limited by your character’s angle. Metroid this ain’t! The Squat Jump gives Mario a higher jump than…the High Jump, but because you have to stop your momentum to do it, or awkwardly carry your momentum mid-squat. The last Action Badge is quite possibly the best one: The Boost Spin Jump. It replaces your mid-air Spin Stall with a full Spin Jump, which makes for a great way to carry momentum, as well as gain horizontal and vertical distance. This was the last badge I ever needed for my entire playthrough when I finally got it. It’s that good.
Next is the Boost badges, or those that I rarely used in my playthrough. The Coin Reward badge gives extra Coins when you defeat enemies. Gold Coins are ONLY for extra lives and cannot be used in the shop, so even though I appreciate an easier way to grind lives, its use is limited. The Auto Mushroom is neat in that it gives you the power-up when the level starts, but again this game is so easy you won’t really need it, especially in the endgame, as you get the All Elephant/All Fire/All Bubble/All Drill badges. These three separate badges automatically give you said power-ups when you pick up any other power-ups. This is pretty good if you need a specific power-up for a level’s gimmick, but most of those levels already have the power-up from said level. If you need a specific powerup in a level that doesn’t have it then I GUESS I can see the use there, but you can just go pick one up from a previous level.
The “!” Block Badge is good at giving baby players more help as well as giving players hints to secret treasure, but I never ended up using it because this game is easy and I just found most of the treasure on my first try just exploring a level normally. The same reason applies to the Sensor Badge for its ability to alert the player to hidden items. Still neat. In terms of more useful Boost Badges is the Recovery Badge, which saves you from one death from a bottomless pit, and resets every time you touch the floor. Again, good for babies or speedrun potential. The Magnet Badge attracts Gold Coins and Flower Coins, which are essential for bonus stages or for grinding Purple Coins. The last one is fun, but much less useful. The Rhythm Badge gives you Coins for when you jump on the beat. Again, fun, but there are better ways to grind the already less useful Gold Coins.
The Expert Badges are the last set of badges since they come from hard levels and they can be used for challenge runs of the game. The Spring Badge makes your character jump constantly, but if you hold the jump, you can get the highest jumps in the game. This is fun for some platforming and challenges, but I don’t like not staying on the ground. The Jet Run badge makes all of your running into a full-on sprint, and whenever you run off the ground, you have a half second of continued running, kind of like in those old Loony Tunes cartoons. I DEFINITELY WANT to try a challenge run with just this badge, or at least see speedruns with it.
The last two are completely lame. The first is the Sound Off badge, which is given as the final reward for 100% of the game. The reward? The sound effects are replaced by Japanese men mimicking the sounds. I mean, it's cute, but I would’ve preferred something more game-breaking fun like flight or a way to select any Power-up at any time, like Wishes Mode in Spark the Electric Jester; I would also do for Power-ups from previous games like Propeller Hat. Last is the Invisibility Badge that makes your character invisible and undetectable by enemies. There is no point EXCEPT for challenge runs, because you can easily defeat enemies in this game. Just..never use this.
Now for the worlds Mario and the gang will explore in the Flower Kingdom. Pipe-Rock Plateau is World 1 in Super Mario Wonder. A very typical grassy field area, but it has a lot of fun highlights like the Hoppos, Bullrushers, and the singing Piranha Plants. This world also acts as an introduction to level progression. There will be some linear areas, but there are some areas that can be traversed in any level order, so long as you get enough Wonder Seeds. There are also shops where you can spend the purple Flower Coins, but not the Golden Coins. You can buy badges, extra lives, Standees gambling and even some Wonder Seeds. Pro tip, save your money for the Wonder Seeds and badges, as you won’t need extra lives for this easy game and Standees won’t matter except for online play and completion.
Super Mario Wonder has Wonder Seeds that can be collected on every level, with most of them being locked behind Wonder Flowers. There is one Wonder Flower on most levels, and touching it activates a completely wacky hazard pop-up. It can range from Shooting Stars, moving platforms, or even turning into some of the enemies in the game like Goombas and Slimes! It is a really fun way to add a memorable gimmick to every level, so I don’t even want to spoil it here.
World 2 is Fluff-Puff Peaks, which acts as the snow and sky world of this game. There are tons more bottomless pits here, but it makes for fun platforming challenges like in “Pole Block Passage” and especially in “Jump! Jump! Jump!”. This is also where you see more of the Break Time and Badge challenge levels. The break time levels are easy 1 minute levels that are quite fun, while the Badge Chalenge levels are some of the best levels in the game, as it really shows the creativinty from the developers in teaching players how a badge works and creating fun challenges. My favorite badge challenge level is the Jet Run II, but i’m getting ahead of myself.
Some worlds either end with fighting Bowser Jr., or in an anticlimactic free giveaway. Either way, you get a Royal Seed that you can use to unlock Bowser’s Catsle once you get all 7. Bowser Jr. castles are fun for a boss leadup, but I swear with how little bosses are in this game, they are so easy. Jr. deploys wonder powers, but they are never anything that drastically change his attack plan of randomly spining arround. Its a damn shame they aren’t as good as the other New Super Mario games.
World 3 is Shining Falls and probably my favorite World in this game purely for its aesthetics. The backgrounds are straight out of abstract paintings, and they shine beautifully when on dark backgrounds. Too bad this world doesn’t end with a boss.
The Petil Isles act as a beach area in between each world. You complete a couple of levels here before you move on to the next full world. Beach levels have always been fun, but with the Dolphin Kick, they are some of the best in the series. I mention the Petil Isles now, because, after Shining Falls, you can choose the order of World 4, 5, and 6. I chose 4, 5, and 6 for my local multiplayer playthrough, while I chose 5, 4, and 6 for my single-player one.
World 4 is the Sunbaked Desert, which is your average desert level with some original additions. You actually get to explore inside palaces and inside hidden dungeons. I actively got stuck on “Color Switch Dungeon” and “Secrets of Shova Mansion”. This is probably my least favorite World, but it is not bad by any means.
World 5 is the Fungi Mines, which acts as a beautiful Mushroom forest in the beginning, until you go deeper and find ancient ruins with hidden exits. Just like with Shining Falls, it ends anticlimacticly with just saving the miners trapped. Oh well, its still pretty.
World 6 is Deep Magma Bog, which acts as the final World until Bowser’s Castle. I am honestly glad they did a Lava world that wasn’t tied to a final world or to Bowser, as it gives more creativity in design when it's not tied to evil castles. You get to explore tons of magma caves, with my favorite one being the “Dragon Boneyard”. Even though this world is more linear, it still has tons of options in terms of level progression.
Bowser’s Castle is..honestly the most disappointing world in this game. 4 great levels with a rockin' theme, but that's it?!?! I just wish this section lasted longer before the final battle. As for the final battle? It’s alright. You have to jump into a big red button 10 times, then that's it. I remember New Super Mario games doing that but with a fakeout twist, like when Bowser grew large in the Wii game. A floating head with hands….gee Nintendo, REAL original stuff there.
The Special world comes back in this one. Instead of needing all of the Star coins like in previous games, you just need to find hidden exits to them. This world has some of the best-designed Wonder Flower sections because it really pushes the limit of the level of design. Shoutout to the sequel to the Piranha Plant March being really good. You can also buy all of the Standees without gambling here, but you may have to grind, yes GRIND, for Flower Coins if you did not save your money. The final levels are some of the best in the series with, the first one challenging you on all of the previous Wonder Flower gimmicks, while the last Badge Chalenge acts as a gauntlet of the hard version of every Badge Chalenge. I liked them a lot, but the final levels from other games like Mario Oddysey, Mario 3d World, and Mario Galaxy felt harder and more conclusive.
The last thing I’ll cover is the power-ups. The Elephant power-up, which gives the characters a swinging trunk as a melee weapon kinda like the Tanooki Leaf. You can also store water in your trunk for three squirts of water that can interact with certain level gimmicks. It's pretty fun, but I prefer Tanooki, Cat, and Boomerang any time of the day because they give you a good melee attack AND movement option. The Fire Flower works as usual in this game, so I can skip over that, but rest assured it is still good. The Bubble Flower is my favorite power-up in this game because you can shoot three bubbles at a time. The bubbles act as platforms you instantly bounce off of, so if you are good at carrying forward momentum and precise platforming, you can cheese a lot of levels by skipping all of the hazards. My least favorite power-up is the Drill Mushroom, because other than fun platforming sections and finding treasure, it doesn’t offer anything in terms of attacks. While you can use it defensively to hide from enemies, most of the time a good offense is better because this game is so easy.
So that is my full review! All in all, its is a very fun game that is sometimes held down by how easy it is. I truly wish for a new game in this style, or maybe a Hard Mode DLC, or even A Mario Wonder Maker in the future, because a new era of 2d Mario is upon us!