This game is just the best designed RPG ever, isn't it? No levelling up, no intrinsic growth, even your EXP bar is repurposed into a burden to manage (hunger). Death is a natural consequence of knowledge acquisition, but saves are part of a grand web of interconnected mechanics so deeply integrated into every facet of gameplay that you're always on top if you're sharp enough, but it's never quite enough to feel safe or satisfied. Sort of takes hints from the Foddy school of thinking in that the challenge is always, to an extent, “real”, and progress is a sort of “you know it when you’ve made it” kind of thing - always under threat of going south after a couple bad turns, however. Everybody else using RPGMaker should give up honestly, there's no more up from here

Super Mario Bros. Wonder is an incredible game, a game that makes me feel the same way I did playing Mario games as a kid. This game should be the golden standard of not only 2d platformers, but video games, period.

From the minute you boot up the game everything feels amazing, from the visuals of the game to the simple things as the sound design. I'm not one to notice small things in video games, but when I do, I am completely astonished. The little touches in this game remind me of the little touches in the Metal Gear franchise, different sound effects depending on when you jump depending on if you're small, big, or an elephant, a cymbal crash when you ground pound, all these little small details just make a game like Wonder feel full of life and personality.

I simply could not get enough of this game, I played it early and I just could not put it down, completing all the games levels, getting all of the unlockable levels, badges, collectable coins, wonder seeds, golden flagpoles and more. It felt like being a child all over again. In the New Super Mario Bros. games that preceded this, getting the collectables felt like a mindless chore full of tedium. The coins were hidden in boring locations like a hidden wall, or maybe some random corner next to a pipe, little consideration for the game's main collectables made it incredibly unfun.

Wonder does not have this issue, the main collectable, the Wonder Seeds, are fun to collect. The unique mechanics in almost every level of the game make it feel super cool to just grab a Wonder Seed, and they don't overstay their welcome either. Most levels have 2 Wonder Seeds, one for the Wonder Flower and the other for when you beat the level, on rare occasions, levels will have 3 Wonder Seeds, the extra being for a level secret. The side collectables are the 10-Purple Coins, these are more akin to the Star Coins from the New Super Mario Bros. Games, however they feel far more considered and don't feel like cheap, sidelined collectables in order to check off a box showing that they have collectables. They feel rewarding, but aren't too challenging to find, always feeling like a nice treat whenever they're found.

The game's badge system is incredible to me, I found so much enjoyment in collecting the badges and using whichever one I liked the most, however I do feel that some badges should've either been part of Mario's moveset at the start or permanently unlocked as a part of his moveset, I feel this only rings true for 2 badges though, the Triple Jump and the Dolphin Kick. I also dislike how because of the badge system, all characters got their attributes stripped, (i.e. Luigi doesn't jump higher and have more traction, Peach doesn't come with a float, and the Toads aren't faster with lower jumps.) Other than that, the badge system feels incredibly fun and refreshing and allows for you to pull off so many things you would've never previously been able to do without use of a power-up or something of similar vein.

This game is an expert when it comes to secrets, every secret in this game feels expertly crafted, making you wonder how you missed it in the first place whenever you end up finding it, and the rewards for doing so are always incredible. In World 1, finding a secret unlocks you 3 more levels, and the access to the game's Special World, with the games hardest challenges. There is an entrance to the special world in each world and most of them are fun to find and give the player strong rewards like more enjoyable levels. The game is also incredible at telegraphing to the player when they've actually discovered all the game has to offer in a level or world, there is a checkmark that shows up once you've found everything in a level or the entire world, making sure you don't get completely lost looking for that last Wonder Seed.

Reports of this game's development also make Wonder feel even sweeter, knowing that the developers had no hard deadline until they felt ready to release the game, allowing them to experiment however they wanted and implement incredible gameplay mechanics and polishing the game incredibly well to the point I hadn't seen a single bug in the game. Just knowing that Nintendo allowed the developers to work their magic however they saw fit makes this game feel all the nicer to play, sharing those smiles with the developers in certain areas that they probably smiled while making too.

All in all, Super Mario Bros. Wonder is an incredible game that completely sticks the landing, sure there are tiny bumps here or there, but other than that I feel that Super Mario Bros. Wonder is the best 2d Mario game to date, one of the best Mario games in general, and one of the greatest platformers of all time. Do yourself a favorite and go pick up this incredibly wonderful game.

From what I've seen, it appears that people think this is one of the better games in the series as a whole, and I sincerely hope that's not true. This game is hardly much of an improvement on the second game, making strides in combat through the job system, but not really improving anywhere else. There's still hardly any bosses (I think I fought 8, with 4 of them being at the end of the game). There's still hardly much for story. A lot of the game is spent just traveling around collecting specific items that you're just supposed to find. I feel like it would be real dumb without a walkthrough, mostly later on once you get a ship and have basically no direction since you can go almost anywhere. Towards the end some of the enemies got kinda annoying, then they got much better, and then they sprinkled some real shitheads at the very end. One enemy has a strong spell that hits the whole party, while also being able to revive other enemies. You can encounter a team of 4 of them at once. As far as the jobs go, it was kinda cool I guess? You can't even switch jobs until you reach level 20, which is likely about halfway through the game. Even then, the casters still learn spells until like level 41-43, so switching them early just means you don't get the best spells on them. Biggest complaint has to go to the lack of any real characters. The hero is silent, but so is the party since they're all characters you recruit/create. It makes the story pretty bland, which sucks because there are actual cool events in the story.

Alrighty, so here's the end to the "Erdrick trilogy". first off, I'll say that I honestly didn't know DQ3 was so heavily loved and revered. I went into to the series very blind only knowing about slimes and this series predated Final Fantasy...that's about it, OH and that this game had a job/class system, but that's where it ends for my knowledge of this game prior to playing it.

This'll be the last time I have to say this about the graphics and artstyle...again I really like it. It's colorful, it pops out, and the monster and level designs look great, though because I played this on the DQ Collection on the Switch based off the mobile port, all three games used the same style and looks with only certain tweaks here and there to show some progression. Still, it looks great and enjoyed everything about it, but it does feel weird playing the three games and having them look VERY identical to each other like this...tis the nature of playing that kind of collection.

Usually I'd go into gameplay here, but skip that for now, because I feel explaining the music and sound ties into the same point I made above. They used the same engine when making these three games for the collection, so a lot of sounds and music while very good and this game had more tracks and the music was spread out much better...it still shares some of the same sounds and some of the tracks with the others. Again, very good music, probably the best of the three.

Alright, here's the bulk of what makes this game great. The job/class system aka the Vocation system. I complained before that one of the things DQ1 and DQ2 lacked was customization, the characters had set roles and were as bare boned as mages and knights...that's about it. DQ3 opened the door to thieves, warriors, martial artist (my favorite) and more. This brought me back to Final Fantasy and made the gameplay soooo much more fun. I mean yes, it's still like the prior games, turn based battles, dungeons, towns, yada yada, no real change there, but to now have 4 characters in which 3 can be whichever Vocation you want with different equips and spells and rules for what they can do. This made the game twice as good than it had any right to be.

I'm not done though...see on top of this new Vocation system, characters have personalities which effect their stat growth, which is VERY important because as I said before 3 characters can be created and given Vocations, but the main character can not. They are given Hero as a Vocation and mostly work like the main characters of DQ1 and DQ2, so their personality is important, because you can build them how you want stat wise, but they can't change Vocation and they rely on gear and the stat growth more than the others. All this leads to a very interesting and engaging party building experience. Granted everything is still in the same bubble as the past two DQ games, but this system makes it feel soooo much grander.

Whew, now to the story. This one's kinda hard to talk about because I think it has the same problem as the prior two games for the most part, though it does fix that near the end. The story for the most part is pretty non existent aside from, "Hero go save the world from the big evil." but if you have any interest in this series I urge you to play this one for the story...I know that sounds weird to say, but the little bits of story sprinkled into the whole adventure does make up for itself near the end and I feel it makes the story worth it.

So, the cons for this game...I honestly can't really thing of too many issues the game has overall, but I will list the few nitpicks, just because it is worth expressing.

- In order to understand the Personality system you HAVE to use a guide, otherwise you'll be barely utilizing it properly. You can still beat the game without knowing any of it, but you're missing some of the fun of stat building proper.

- While by the end the story was worth it, I really wish it had a little bit more depth earlier.

I absolutely loved this game, there's not too many games where I would go to work and think about the game and could wait to get home and play it like this game. It's earned it's reputation as one of the best RPGs.