Review
Played on: Switch
Released: 2023
You quickly get the impression from playing Super Mario Wonder, that the developers received a lot of freedom in thinking creatively when developing the release. Think of it as Super Mario combined with Sgt. Pepper and psychedelics and you’re about there. Never has Mario's mushroom eating been more obvious.
Although I’ve enjoyed the sub-franchise of the “New” Super Mario Bros. 2D titles through the last 10+ years, they became a little stale with ideas. Ending up all looking fairly alike. Wonder is the complete opposite, a massive breath of fresh air, while at the same time living in the vein of the New SMB titles.
You quickly get the impression from playing Super Mario Wonder, that the developers received a lot of freedom in thinking creatively when developing the release. Think of it as Super Mario combined with Sgt. Pepper and psychedelics and you’re about there. Never has Mario's mushroom eating been more obvious.
Although I’ve enjoyed the sub-franchise of the “New” Super Mario Bros. 2D titles through the last 10+ years, they became a little stale with ideas. Ending up all looking fairly alike. Wonder is the complete opposite, a massive breath of fresh air, while at the same time living in the vein of the New SMB titles.
The sheer amount of colour, dreamy effects, music, visuals and weird designs on worlds, enemies and level design makes it stand out from a vast amount of Super Mario releases though. There's a lot of material here to continue the deigns into a potential next 3D Super Mario title.
The strong focus on originality pays off immediately when you boot up the game. With a brand-new visual look, running super sharp 1080p@60fps, even without HDR it pops a ton of colour on your TV. Each world, and its underlying levels, have new environments never seen before, making it super exciting to enter each level. You never quite know what to expect. There's also a bunch of challenge levels scattered across the world map to test out your skills or just have some crazy fun.
Furthermore, in every main level there's a Wonder Seed, grabbing this will warp the screen into an alternate, psychedelic, version of the level. When you’re in this weird, wavey aura, your aim is to catch a wonder seed at the end of it. Which in turn unlock levels on the main map. These psychedelic Wonder Seed trips make the music and colour schemes go completely wacko, as well as the animation of backdrops and enemies. Massive, singing and dancing piranha plants anyone?!
It’s wonderful way of adding variation within each level. Although not psychedelic like Wonder, these mid-level changes give me a throwback to Sonic CD’s time warp sign posts back on the Sega Mega CD!
There’s a generous roster of characters to choose from this time too. We have the standard selection of Mario, Luigi, and Peach, but also the likes of Daisy, whom seems set to be more standardised as an option in Nintendo titles. In addition, there are two colour variations of Toad, a large amount of Yoshis and a small rabbit-like character called Nabbit. The latter, and the Yoshis, serve as easy mode for kids as they can withstand damage and continue playing.
The strong focus on originality pays off immediately when you boot up the game. With a brand-new visual look, running super sharp 1080p@60fps, even without HDR it pops a ton of colour on your TV. Each world, and its underlying levels, have new environments never seen before, making it super exciting to enter each level. You never quite know what to expect. There's also a bunch of challenge levels scattered across the world map to test out your skills or just have some crazy fun.
Furthermore, in every main level there's a Wonder Seed, grabbing this will warp the screen into an alternate, psychedelic, version of the level. When you’re in this weird, wavey aura, your aim is to catch a wonder seed at the end of it. Which in turn unlock levels on the main map. These psychedelic Wonder Seed trips make the music and colour schemes go completely wacko, as well as the animation of backdrops and enemies. Massive, singing and dancing piranha plants anyone?!
It’s wonderful way of adding variation within each level. Although not psychedelic like Wonder, these mid-level changes give me a throwback to Sonic CD’s time warp sign posts back on the Sega Mega CD!
There’s a generous roster of characters to choose from this time too. We have the standard selection of Mario, Luigi, and Peach, but also the likes of Daisy, whom seems set to be more standardised as an option in Nintendo titles. In addition, there are two colour variations of Toad, a large amount of Yoshis and a small rabbit-like character called Nabbit. The latter, and the Yoshis, serve as easy mode for kids as they can withstand damage and continue playing.
Yoshi has his own movement style, clambering upwards in the air after a jump, but annoyingly playing him together with a friend you’ll end up on Yoshi’s back, riding him. Although this can probably be used tactically, we ended up avoiding Yoshi for coop sessions.
A lot of new and varied enemies are featured, further proving Nintendo are the masters at reinventing themselves. There's even variation on classic enemies too. Making each encounter exciting, as well as challenging Super Mario veterans into thinking anew with their attack patterns.
Just like before, there’s a neat set of power ups to help our heroes along the way, with a few new and entertaining ones. For example, turning your characters into an elephant version of themselves is not only cute and funny, but a necessity to smash up bigger enemies, blocks and spraying water on dried up plants. A drill mushroom will allow you to burrow under the surface, resurfacing with a powerful smash.
In addition, there’s also perks to choose from. Only one is allowed active at a time, but they activate moves like extra wall jumps, super high jumps, air gliding with your hat and so forth. These perks can really aid in some levels, whereas experienced players will find innovative ways of utilising them to reach places where normal moves won't.
Under the hood there’s a few tweaks to make Wonder a more enjoyable multiplayer affair too. Most obvious, compared to the New Super Mario Bros. titles, is that players can’t physically interact. Avoiding the annoyance of being pushed around by your coop partners, they simply pass by each other like they aren't there. The exception, like I mentioned earlier, being Yoshi.
A lot of new and varied enemies are featured, further proving Nintendo are the masters at reinventing themselves. There's even variation on classic enemies too. Making each encounter exciting, as well as challenging Super Mario veterans into thinking anew with their attack patterns.
Just like before, there’s a neat set of power ups to help our heroes along the way, with a few new and entertaining ones. For example, turning your characters into an elephant version of themselves is not only cute and funny, but a necessity to smash up bigger enemies, blocks and spraying water on dried up plants. A drill mushroom will allow you to burrow under the surface, resurfacing with a powerful smash.
In addition, there’s also perks to choose from. Only one is allowed active at a time, but they activate moves like extra wall jumps, super high jumps, air gliding with your hat and so forth. These perks can really aid in some levels, whereas experienced players will find innovative ways of utilising them to reach places where normal moves won't.
Under the hood there’s a few tweaks to make Wonder a more enjoyable multiplayer affair too. Most obvious, compared to the New Super Mario Bros. titles, is that players can’t physically interact. Avoiding the annoyance of being pushed around by your coop partners, they simply pass by each other like they aren't there. The exception, like I mentioned earlier, being Yoshi.
The avoidance of bumping into other players allows the chaotic four player to function better. The weird, freeze frame when somebody dies has been removed too, avoiding the stop in momentum for other players when somebody messes up.
However, there's a catch to how well multiplayer works. Annoyingly, they’ve changed the camera focus to the player which wears a crown, given to the player with the most points or finished first in the previous level. Resulting in other players being pushed out of the screen, rather than just locking the screen to all the players. Less experienced and young players which often lag behind the other, will find this very unfair.
I'd recommend playing it with someone at your same skill level, maxing out at two player if you wish to complete the game with a less chaotic experience. For a party of players, looking for some casual laughs, it’s hilariously chaos in four-player. At least for the easier levels, perfect for kids messing about, but it gets quickly tiresome when focusing on completion and complex levels.
A clear must-buy for any platformer or Super Mario fan, leaving a better impression overall on me than the New Super Mario Bros. franchise. There’s something incredible refreshing about seeing another world design entirely, outside the Mushroom Kingdom, further expanding the roster of level design and enemies in the franchise.
Although it still has some coop quirks, sadly, it's probably the best 2D Super Mario you can get on your Switch at the moment, and recommended over the New Super Mario Bros. Deluxe pack. There's a ton of content and levels to dig into!
