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Review: Super Mario Bros. Wonder

Written by Euclidian Boxes

“The world is made up of four elements: Earth, Air, Fire and Water. This is a fact well known even to Corporal Nobbs. It’s also wrong. There’s a fifth element, and generally it’s called Surprise” – Terry Pratchett

It’s fair to say 2D Mario games have been plodding along without too much excitement for some time now. The New Super Mario Bros. games were all very competent but not particularly exciting. Super Mario Maker 1 and 2 offered innovation, but were fractured by their very nature. The inventiveness lay in the 3D Mario games; Galaxy, 3D Land and World, Odyssey and Bowser’s Fury. But with Super Mario Bros. Wonder, Nintendo have given us a 2D Mario that wows for the first time since the SNES.

The big new feature is the addition of Wonder Flowers. These are found in almost every level, certainly all the main stages, when one is grabbed, – something – will happen. There’s no way to predict what it’ll be, other than it’ll almost certainly be delightful.

I would describe some of these effects, but part of the fun is being surprised by them. There were times where I was grinning at the audacity of Nintendo because of what had happened once I touched a Wonder Flower. There are a couple of repeated effects, but these are vastly outweighed by the anything goes approach.

Nintendo have opened up the structure of the game too, with the world map being slightly more open than usual. It’s not as freeform as Bowser’s Fury, but you have more choices for the order you approach them, especially in the 3D World-esque open parts of the map. There are also plenty of secret exits for levels and handily the overview of your progress marks 100% levels with a tick, so you know which levels to revisit rather than scouring every corner on the off chance there’ll be a hidden treasure.

Now to talk about the elephant in the room, literally, as a new power up makes its debut, one that gives Mario and company pachyderm powers. I really enjoyed experiencing the elephant power up, but found the new drill and bubble power ups fairly underwhelming. I think the problem is they’re outshone by the wonder effects and badge system.

When you start a level, you can pick a “badge” that bestows a variety of additional abilities, of which I found these more pervasive than the previously mentioned new power ups. Perhaps there are people out there who found the bubble power up useful, but I am not one of them.

Super Mario Bros. Wonder offers a full multiplayer experience, and it has changed a fair bit from previous games. You’ll no longer bounce off each other in levels or throw each other into pits. I found it more enjoyable and less chaotic this way. If one player picks Yoshi, then others can ride on them, but that’s about it for direct interaction. There is a bit of a problem where the camera focuses on just one player, which can leave everyone else trailing behind, but generally it works as well as multiplayer Mario can.

The other multiplayer facet is the Dark Souls style online feature. Turning this on, you’ll see other people running around the map and levels. This can be useful, if you die you’ll turn into a ghost and touching one of these online players will resurrect you. Watching them can also help you find secrets, seeing a transparent Luigi climbing a non-existent vine is a good clue to a hidden blocks location. You can drop standees as fixed resurrection points for other players if you’re feeling charitable. You get heart points for helping people but these are only an indication of how supportive you’ve been, they don’t serve another purpose.

I’m sure a lot of people will have strong opinions on the new voice cast for the Mario games, but I can’t say the differences had a big impact here. I could probably do without them yelling “Wowie Zowie” but otherwise everything is pretty charming, even the talking hint plants, which looked like it could be grating when first revealed.

The animation and expressiveness of all the characters and enemies has been taken to another level over previous games. Little touches like grabbing their hats when going through pipes or expressive Goombas all add to the sheer charm of the game. There’s a lot of new enemies too, with only the very core of Mario staples returning.

Verdict

Super Mario Bros. Wonder is an absolute gem of a game, with peak 2D platforming rivalling the highs of Super Mario World and Yoshi’s Island. The fairly lacklustre new power ups and being left wanting more levels are my only complaints. There’s a suspicious spacey corner of the map that seems ripe for Rosalina DLC, hopefully Nintendo have plans for more. But even if they don’t, Wonder is one of the best games in a year that was already stuffed full of great titles. I think its future “classic” status has already been cemented.

Where to Buy

#AffiliateLinks – Prices correct at time of publishing.

Credits

Written by John Edwards

Edited by Mark McAllister and Jen Griffiths

Graphic Template by Paul L. Russell

A copy of this game was provided by the publisher for this review.