Had a lot of fun playing the entirety of Mario Wonder with someone, but it's honestly not a very good multiplayer game since the camera is always strictly tied to one player at a time which means the second player always have to keep pace with them in order to not go offscreen and get bubbled. It's never unplayable or anything like that, but a bit strange how much better the multiplayer was handled in the NSMB games.
As for the rest of the game, I thought it was pretty great! I'm not the biggest fan of 2D Mario outside of Bros. 3 (World is very good, but I find it pretty unspectacular as a whole), so probably the second best in that sub-series? Doesn't really matter I suppose, but what does matter is how fresh Wonder feels to play. It's very much a mix of Yoshi's Island and classic Mario, with more focus on exploration and finding secrets rather than platforming challenges, but unlike Yoshi, it doesn't feel completely inconsequential to just go through stages without collecting everything since the wonder flower gimmicks kept throwing surprising and almost always amusing new gimmicks at me on almost every stage, and it's also not a pain to try and find all the purple coins and hidden wonder seeds in a stage. It's also impeccably paced for a game where the player is expected to replay stages to find every secret, having them be pretty short (though never too short, I thought) and letting you skip the wonder effects in order to get through them even faster.
Also really loved the overhauled visuals and sound effects. The Poplin Kingdom is so vibrant and beautiful to experience, and the varied landscapes never stop being impressive, especially with this being a Switch game that runs at a pretty rock solid 60fps the entire game. The characters are all so expressive through their animations; you can really tell how much love and care has been put into making all of them feel distinct and fun to play as, despite them all playing exactly the same (we played as the two Toads for most of the game, by the way. Never even touched Mario.) Also really bold move to get rid of the iconic jump sound in favor of... A guitar chord? Not really sure about the instrument, but I really like the sound of it either way! The really high amount of unique enemies also have weirdly distinct sound effects to each and every one of them, really giving them some more identity than just their (admittedly often really good) designs. Mario Wonder is not a perfect game, but it is an audiovisual treat the entire way through.
But why isn't it perfect? Well, it's definitely a bit too easy for one. Like, I was never bored by the game, but it was very noticeable during the special stages – that are really just at a pretty medium difficulty outside of the final, final special stage – how much more engaged I felt when the game started actually demanding some sort of platforming skills of me. I don't think the developers were that interested in making a challenging platformer, being more interested in a relaxing game focusing on discovery, but I guess I would have liked just a bit more friction from the main game at times since some stages could feel a bit too much like I was just playing Wonder on auto pilot. This game sold extremely well so I expect a sequel will probably come at some point, and hopefully it'll take the Galaxy 2 route of retaining the core gameplay, but just adding a tiny bit of challenge to the overall experience.
The boss fights also aren't that good. For a game full of so much creativity, it's a bit disappointing to just do variations of the same boring fight against Bowser, Jr., and then a pretty anticlimactic final boss fight against Bowser (who I'm not really sure why he wanted to turn into a sentient castle.) No 2D Mario has especially good boss fights (and honestly, most 3D Mario boss fights aren't that great either), but even when they're not very good, they can at least be killed so much quicker than these ones that just drag for no reason whatsoever, and are extremely easy like the rest of the game.
But overall, Mario Wonder is a super fun game (and the tenth best of 2023, some would say) that shows how a new 2D Mario has a place in the present day, and how something new and interesting can be made with its previously pretty strictly followed formula. Looks great, sounds great, and leads to a lot of laughter when played with someone else, despite the jank of the multiplayer. Certainly wouldn't say no to getting another game in this vein, or the elephant power-up being in every Mario game from now on!
As for the rest of the game, I thought it was pretty great! I'm not the biggest fan of 2D Mario outside of Bros. 3 (World is very good, but I find it pretty unspectacular as a whole), so probably the second best in that sub-series? Doesn't really matter I suppose, but what does matter is how fresh Wonder feels to play. It's very much a mix of Yoshi's Island and classic Mario, with more focus on exploration and finding secrets rather than platforming challenges, but unlike Yoshi, it doesn't feel completely inconsequential to just go through stages without collecting everything since the wonder flower gimmicks kept throwing surprising and almost always amusing new gimmicks at me on almost every stage, and it's also not a pain to try and find all the purple coins and hidden wonder seeds in a stage. It's also impeccably paced for a game where the player is expected to replay stages to find every secret, having them be pretty short (though never too short, I thought) and letting you skip the wonder effects in order to get through them even faster.
Also really loved the overhauled visuals and sound effects. The Poplin Kingdom is so vibrant and beautiful to experience, and the varied landscapes never stop being impressive, especially with this being a Switch game that runs at a pretty rock solid 60fps the entire game. The characters are all so expressive through their animations; you can really tell how much love and care has been put into making all of them feel distinct and fun to play as, despite them all playing exactly the same (we played as the two Toads for most of the game, by the way. Never even touched Mario.) Also really bold move to get rid of the iconic jump sound in favor of... A guitar chord? Not really sure about the instrument, but I really like the sound of it either way! The really high amount of unique enemies also have weirdly distinct sound effects to each and every one of them, really giving them some more identity than just their (admittedly often really good) designs. Mario Wonder is not a perfect game, but it is an audiovisual treat the entire way through.
But why isn't it perfect? Well, it's definitely a bit too easy for one. Like, I was never bored by the game, but it was very noticeable during the special stages – that are really just at a pretty medium difficulty outside of the final, final special stage – how much more engaged I felt when the game started actually demanding some sort of platforming skills of me. I don't think the developers were that interested in making a challenging platformer, being more interested in a relaxing game focusing on discovery, but I guess I would have liked just a bit more friction from the main game at times since some stages could feel a bit too much like I was just playing Wonder on auto pilot. This game sold extremely well so I expect a sequel will probably come at some point, and hopefully it'll take the Galaxy 2 route of retaining the core gameplay, but just adding a tiny bit of challenge to the overall experience.
The boss fights also aren't that good. For a game full of so much creativity, it's a bit disappointing to just do variations of the same boring fight against Bowser, Jr., and then a pretty anticlimactic final boss fight against Bowser (who I'm not really sure why he wanted to turn into a sentient castle.) No 2D Mario has especially good boss fights (and honestly, most 3D Mario boss fights aren't that great either), but even when they're not very good, they can at least be killed so much quicker than these ones that just drag for no reason whatsoever, and are extremely easy like the rest of the game.
But overall, Mario Wonder is a super fun game (and the tenth best of 2023, some would say) that shows how a new 2D Mario has a place in the present day, and how something new and interesting can be made with its previously pretty strictly followed formula. Looks great, sounds great, and leads to a lot of laughter when played with someone else, despite the jank of the multiplayer. Certainly wouldn't say no to getting another game in this vein, or the elephant power-up being in every Mario game from now on!