Wonder Flower gimmicks are cute until they turn repetitious, which they do by the end of World 2. The badges largely make up for a lack of platforming aptitude which, as a seasoned gamester, means I have to play the game wrong to accommodate their use. But I'm not gonna unlearn my Mario skills so I don't remember to use them outside of when they are clearly necessary for side objectives like an over-polished immsim. You mean I should use the Dolphin badge on the levels right after I got it? Wowee Zowee!

Broadly speaking this feels like an attempt to teach the kids that grew up with the Switch what Mario is about. The hypersleek UI elements, mountains of spoken text as a replacement for other markers of design intent, the badges, the Wowee Zowee, the oodles of characters, the gacha elements of the standees, the multiple currencies (and decimalisation of Flower coins to further litter the field with shinies), the little emojis, the lack of points. These additions and subtractions are by no means bad but I won't lie, it feels a little like I'm playing a AAA game from the 2020s. Because I am. It's hard to read Wonder as a creative reinvention and reinvigoration of Mario because I know it took thousands of people to make this. That every decision was subject to board meetings and focus groups. It's the same problem as your New Super games -- the formula must be adhered to. And even if the formula changes, it's still a formula. Nothing wrong with that, but it's not what I look for at this point in my life.

I'll keep playing it, I'll probably finish it. It's like a Coca-Cola Creation, y'know? You see it on the shelf, you think 'what the hell do '+XP' or 'Starlight' taste like, the first sip is novel and enchanting, before long you're still drinking Coke. If I want true innovation, I'll reach for the local-made can of kombucha flavoured with some berry I've never heard of before. Like Haskap. Uhhh, for the purposes of this analogy I guess the random shit I pick up on Steam and itch.io are the kombucha.

And I gotta say, I'm sorry but I can't hear the Mario Gang say Wowee Zowee without having flashbacks to Game Grumps Kirby Super Star Part 2 where Jon and Arin argued for like a minute straight over whether or not Arin had said Wowee Zowee before. Back then life was so simple. I was so young. Games held so much potential. Eleven years, gone in the blink of an eye. In another life, I'm the Mario Wonder kid, growing up on a Switch. Who could have known things would turn out the way they did, that I'd be the person I am today...

Feels like a rebrand to cover up some controversial past half the time.

WOAH JUST LIKE GAME GRUMPS 😱

man, minecraft USED to be a great game in my opinion but mojang have really, really soured the experience in my opinion.

i still play both modern and older versions of minecraft, and i tend to play modern versions more just because it's most convenient usually (to find mods for, servers for, friends play it, etc.), but man, modern minecraft and what came before just aren't the same games. somewhere along the line their vision changed and the additions they added aren't as great or impactful as they once were. i can understand since adding features to the world's biggest game must be quite a daunting task. but they just don't do it like they used to.

the game's entire atmosphere has shifted too, with it being less focused on surviving and mining than it is just finding some generated structures and making farms to recover all of your shit once you die (although this could just be due to me knowing more about the inner workings of the game's mechanics now).

i much prefer the older more lonely feeling minecraft where there weren't much goals besides just building whatever the fuck you wanted and not everything needed a purpose, of course i'm aware you can still do that in modern versions it just seems a lot less efficient when there are a bunch of other micro things i could be working on like automating stuff.

the slow, subtle erasure of C418's great soundtrack is also quite depressing but hey ho what can you do? overall i'd give the newer versions 3.5 stars and probably give the older versions a very high 4.5 teetering on 5 stars, it's for this reason i gave the game 4 stars, just in the middle; again i visit both versions fairly frequently and love both, i just think the direction the game has been headed in for a while now isn't great - but at it's core, minecraft is still there, and that's what matters.