After over a decade of stale and dull 2D Mario games, Nintendo delivered their most ambitious and creative project yet. Wonder is exactly what the series needed, the hype I had for this game building up to its release was unmatched, and it didn't disappoint.
The main gimmick of Wonder is the wonder flower, which changes every level in the wackiest and weirdest ways you can imagine. One of the most iconic wonder effects is in one of the first levels in the game whereupon activating the wonder flower, all the piranha plants start singing and dancing in a parade, which is just so fun and instantly gives the game so much personality. I'd love to talk about all my favourite wonder effects because there are some amazing callbacks to older games which I appreciate so much, as well as insanely outlandish effects which change the way the entire level is played, but they're something that everyone should experience for the first time on their own and I wouldn't wanna spoil that experience.
Each level offers something new, but not just with wonder flowers; another really cool concept introduced in this game is the depth and layers in certain levels. Sometimes when you go through a pipe, rather than being transported underground or to a different point in the level, you'll appear in an area behind or even in front of the normal level. I found this so cool and they utilised it very well to hide secrets among the levels, I only wish the gimmick appeared more. I often found when I was playing through a level I'd notice new enemies, even when I was so far into the game that I thought I must have seen everything by now. I found there were really no enemies that actually annoyed me in this title, unlike previous ones. For example, I used to find cheep cheeps and other fish-type enemies so annoying in other 2D Mario titles due to the fact you couldn't really kill them unless you had a power-up, and slowly swimming away from them was annoying and sometimes difficult due to slow acceleration in water, but Wonder allows for you to step on the heads of those enemies even when swimming, and traversal underwater is made faster and more enjoyable through the use of badges.
In previous Mario games, each playable character would have different characteristics, For example, playing as Luigi would allow you to jump higher than normal, but his movement on the ground was more slippery. Wonder replaces that concept with badges, which I was kinda iffy on at first but it's actually so much better because it allows them to add so many more different ways to play the game due to the fact they aren't tied to certain characters. There are 3 types of badges; one which slightly alters movement, like using your cap as a parachute, being able to swim faster underwater or using a vine as a grappling hook. Another type is more utility-based, like gaining the ability to sense flower coins and wonder seeds or turning every power-up into a fire flower. The final type is more like a challenge, such as turning your character invisible throughout the level or making you jump continuously like a spring. These badges really make the game so much more fun, at first I thought a lot of them were pretty useless, and I was gonna stick to the parachute cap badge for most of the game, but I actually found myself switching between them way more than I ever expected. In the end, I was really glad they made each character play the same to make room for more badges.
The character roster is awesome. We can finally play as Daisy in a mainline Mario game! I can't believe they haven't done this sooner, I mean it feels weird to say we had playable Rosalina before playable Daisy. The roster consists of: Mario, Luigi, Peach, Daisy, Yellow/Blue Toad, Toadette, Green/Red/Yellow/Light-Blue Yoshi and... Nabbit. I have no idea why Nabbit was a character in NSMBU, and I have no idea why he still is in this game. The only characters who don't have the same playstyle are the Yoshi's and Nabbit, as they're easy-mode characters who can't take damage, and the Yoshi's can flutter jump. I was kind of disappointed to learn Yoshi was easy mode because I would've loved to play as the guy without having a massive advantage, but it's understandable that if Nintendo had to make any characters easy mode, that it be those ones. There are some really cool accompanying characters throughout the game too, like the talking flowers which comment on things you do in the game, sometimes hinting at secrets or reminding you to turn back if you missed a wonder flower. I honestly don't know how they managed to make these guys hilarious when they sound annoying in concept, but I'm so glad they're in the game. As I mentioned before, the enemy variety in the game is very impressive, constantly throwing new enemies at you to adapt to in each course. This is why I was so disappointed when it came to the boss fights.
Each boss fight in Wonder takes place in a palace, where at the end you enter a pipe into a square room with Bowser Jr. Every single time. When I saw that there were no Koopalings in this title, I was relieved, but I'm not sure if having just 1 boss repeated every time is much better. Bowser Jr. uses wonder flowers to mix up the fight each time, which is pretty cool, but the concept still remains the same; wait for him to exit his shell and jump on him 3 times. I really miss the bosses in the original New Super Mario Bros on the DS, they were always unique and relevant to the world in which they resided, but Wonder completely lacks that, and the fact that enemy variety is so strong in every other level makes me wonder what went wrong. As well as this, the airship levels are just boring. They recycle the same wonder effect each time and there is no mini-boss fight or anything, there's just a switch you have to jump on at the end and it's extremely easy every time. This is the first of two drawbacks that stop Wonder from being a masterpiece in my opinion.
The second drawback is the post-game content. I won't go into detail for this as to avoid spoilers, but Mario games are well-known for having a lot of post-game content, but after 100%ing the game, I found Wonder was quite lacking in that regard.
Despite a couple of drawbacks, Super Mario Bros. Wonder is one of my favourite Mario games of all time and I truly believe it will pave the path for a very bright future for the 2D Mario series for the first time since 2006.
The main gimmick of Wonder is the wonder flower, which changes every level in the wackiest and weirdest ways you can imagine. One of the most iconic wonder effects is in one of the first levels in the game whereupon activating the wonder flower, all the piranha plants start singing and dancing in a parade, which is just so fun and instantly gives the game so much personality. I'd love to talk about all my favourite wonder effects because there are some amazing callbacks to older games which I appreciate so much, as well as insanely outlandish effects which change the way the entire level is played, but they're something that everyone should experience for the first time on their own and I wouldn't wanna spoil that experience.
Each level offers something new, but not just with wonder flowers; another really cool concept introduced in this game is the depth and layers in certain levels. Sometimes when you go through a pipe, rather than being transported underground or to a different point in the level, you'll appear in an area behind or even in front of the normal level. I found this so cool and they utilised it very well to hide secrets among the levels, I only wish the gimmick appeared more. I often found when I was playing through a level I'd notice new enemies, even when I was so far into the game that I thought I must have seen everything by now. I found there were really no enemies that actually annoyed me in this title, unlike previous ones. For example, I used to find cheep cheeps and other fish-type enemies so annoying in other 2D Mario titles due to the fact you couldn't really kill them unless you had a power-up, and slowly swimming away from them was annoying and sometimes difficult due to slow acceleration in water, but Wonder allows for you to step on the heads of those enemies even when swimming, and traversal underwater is made faster and more enjoyable through the use of badges.
In previous Mario games, each playable character would have different characteristics, For example, playing as Luigi would allow you to jump higher than normal, but his movement on the ground was more slippery. Wonder replaces that concept with badges, which I was kinda iffy on at first but it's actually so much better because it allows them to add so many more different ways to play the game due to the fact they aren't tied to certain characters. There are 3 types of badges; one which slightly alters movement, like using your cap as a parachute, being able to swim faster underwater or using a vine as a grappling hook. Another type is more utility-based, like gaining the ability to sense flower coins and wonder seeds or turning every power-up into a fire flower. The final type is more like a challenge, such as turning your character invisible throughout the level or making you jump continuously like a spring. These badges really make the game so much more fun, at first I thought a lot of them were pretty useless, and I was gonna stick to the parachute cap badge for most of the game, but I actually found myself switching between them way more than I ever expected. In the end, I was really glad they made each character play the same to make room for more badges.
The character roster is awesome. We can finally play as Daisy in a mainline Mario game! I can't believe they haven't done this sooner, I mean it feels weird to say we had playable Rosalina before playable Daisy. The roster consists of: Mario, Luigi, Peach, Daisy, Yellow/Blue Toad, Toadette, Green/Red/Yellow/Light-Blue Yoshi and... Nabbit. I have no idea why Nabbit was a character in NSMBU, and I have no idea why he still is in this game. The only characters who don't have the same playstyle are the Yoshi's and Nabbit, as they're easy-mode characters who can't take damage, and the Yoshi's can flutter jump. I was kind of disappointed to learn Yoshi was easy mode because I would've loved to play as the guy without having a massive advantage, but it's understandable that if Nintendo had to make any characters easy mode, that it be those ones. There are some really cool accompanying characters throughout the game too, like the talking flowers which comment on things you do in the game, sometimes hinting at secrets or reminding you to turn back if you missed a wonder flower. I honestly don't know how they managed to make these guys hilarious when they sound annoying in concept, but I'm so glad they're in the game. As I mentioned before, the enemy variety in the game is very impressive, constantly throwing new enemies at you to adapt to in each course. This is why I was so disappointed when it came to the boss fights.
Each boss fight in Wonder takes place in a palace, where at the end you enter a pipe into a square room with Bowser Jr. Every single time. When I saw that there were no Koopalings in this title, I was relieved, but I'm not sure if having just 1 boss repeated every time is much better. Bowser Jr. uses wonder flowers to mix up the fight each time, which is pretty cool, but the concept still remains the same; wait for him to exit his shell and jump on him 3 times. I really miss the bosses in the original New Super Mario Bros on the DS, they were always unique and relevant to the world in which they resided, but Wonder completely lacks that, and the fact that enemy variety is so strong in every other level makes me wonder what went wrong. As well as this, the airship levels are just boring. They recycle the same wonder effect each time and there is no mini-boss fight or anything, there's just a switch you have to jump on at the end and it's extremely easy every time. This is the first of two drawbacks that stop Wonder from being a masterpiece in my opinion.
The second drawback is the post-game content. I won't go into detail for this as to avoid spoilers, but Mario games are well-known for having a lot of post-game content, but after 100%ing the game, I found Wonder was quite lacking in that regard.
Despite a couple of drawbacks, Super Mario Bros. Wonder is one of my favourite Mario games of all time and I truly believe it will pave the path for a very bright future for the 2D Mario series for the first time since 2006.
Oshuach
7 months ago