Super Mario Bros

Review game Super Mario Bros, An ode to joy.

I find that every Mario platformer game, whether it be 2D or 3D, joyfully reinvents itself to some extent, bringing me even more special joys. Following suit, Super Mario Bros. Wonder is incredibly fittingly named because, well, it’s just full of wonder. Absolutely amazing! Every frame in the game is joyful, from its vibrant colours to the talking flower that is omnipresent in Flower Kingdom and is always full of encouraging words as you run and jump through dozens upon dozens of stages that are changed by erratic and frequently amusing Wonder effects and, most of the time, Mario’s antics. Super Mario Bros. Wonder has a lot to offer, whether you play it alone or with up to three friends.

Wonder draws the eye right away. Its usual and welcome use of a wide range of colours, with a focus on vivid blues, reds, greens, and yellows, dazzles. But when it moves, it’s even more amazing. I apologise for Yoshi’s Island, but this appears to be what you would expect a legitimate Super Mario World sequel to be like if it were released in 2023 rather than 1995.

Here, animations unquestionably stand out: Elephant Mario squeezes his massive, round body into warp pipes and, awkwardly, tries to make himself as small as possible when crouching under a low row of blocks. Mario reaches back for his hat when he dashes into the pipes. Critters’ eyes bulge in fear as they run in terror from a pursuing plumber. There are a tonne more! These little details really help to make Mario’s first visit to the Flower Kingdom come to life.

As you may have predicted, Mario gets sucked into yet another one of Bowser’s pranks.

What is the Flower Kingdom? It’s next door to the well-known Mushroom Kingdom, and Mario found it to be a welcome change of pace, mainly because there were so many interesting new foes to defeat. In terms of the story, you already know: Naturally, a visiting Mario finds himself entangled in yet another Bowser prank, as the reptile utilises the Wonder powers of the land to fuse himself with the main castle of the kingdom, causing misery to all who reside within. As usual, Bowsers Junior will be your adversary, and the plot is paper-thin (for Mario).

However, it doesn’t cast a shadow over the Flower Kingdom because there are so many unique looks and interesting plot points offered by the dozens of stages spread across six main worlds, as well as the Petal Isles hub with stages of its own, that the usually unmemorable narrative is rendered irrelevant. There are usually two Wonder Seeds in each level, one at the finish and one hidden somewhere in the level. Finding a Wonder Flower that causes an unexpected event to occur is typically required to access that hidden seed. Wonder Flowers can occasionally be found hidden in blocks, hostile enemies, or secret areas. Mario may change into a rolling spiky ball, the camera may pan top-down, he and his enemies may become stretchy ink silhouettes, he may become a goomba incapable of jumping or attacking, or there may be a dance party. Unfortunately, I’m not allowed to show you most of the best ones. You can never predict what will occur next. I therefore eagerly anticipated the Wonder effects at each level. They’re so much fun to play that I had no trouble going back to find them if I missed one in a level. To put it succinctly, the Wonders are the game.

The game is, in essence, made by the Wonder effects.”

It certainly helps that every world has a completely diverse assortment of enemies, most of whom are brand-new opponents with a few deeper allusions to beloved classics like the cloud-riding Lakitus and Super Mario Bros. 2’s Pokeys. The Bulrushes are among the novices that charge at you and are not subdued by stomping. They can, however, be ridden, which Wonder deftly exploits. In contrast, the adorable and carefree Maw-Maws appear sweet, carefree, and innocent until they notice you, at which point their gaping maws open wide and, if you don’t jump high enough, will swallow you whole. Apart from their height, which makes them hard to jump over, the Mumsies, on the other hand, don’t really pose much of a threat, and I never got tired of grabbing onto their loose cloth and unravelling them until they disappeared. I hope the Flower Kingdom makes another appearance, because I don’t want this to be the only time we see these intriguing new foes.

Really, the stinkin’ badges are needed!

Badges are an additional twist to the 2D Mario formula. They are a collection of about twenty-one unlockable active or passive effects that you can choose to use in each level. By tapping the right shoulder button, you can effectively double jump with Boosting Spin Jump. Grappling Vine adds grappling hooks to Mario games; Safety Bounce allows you to escape a lava fall; and Sensor pings more frequently when you approach important items like large purple coins and (most importantly) Wonder Flowers. In addition to providing some much-needed control over how you approach stages in a way that best fits your playstyle, these badges also add a little replayability as a cherry on top.

Certain badges are acquired through purchases from stores, while others are awarded upon finishing Badge Challenge stages that centre around that specific powerup. In contrast, purchasing a badge with purple coins left me feeling unsatisfied, especially since I was never short on them. It would have been nice if every badge had a fun challenge attached to it, rather than just a few.

The integration of the online component is surprisingly smooth.”

Speaking of new features, Super Mario Bros. Wonder features both brand-new online multiplayer and the well-known four-player local multiplayer, with the online component integrating surprisingly well. Couch co-op is still the best mode in any multiplayer Mario game, so I don’t see it as appointment multiplayer gaming, but it does function, and the friend races you can start on most stages can be a fun diversion from the main platforming action. And whether you play online or on the same screen, it’s good to see Nintendo make a more deliberate effort to make multiplayer feel more like an integrated part of the platforming experience rather than an afterthought. Examples of this include the ability to turn your friends into ghosts who won’t physically obstruct your way during precise jumps or manoeuvres, and standees, which let you leave respawn points for your friends.

Conclusion

A new benchmark for the style of 2D Mario platformers is set by Super Mario Bros. Wonder. It is vibrant, lively, and exuberant. Its unpredictable Wonder Effects, which temporarily change levels into entirely different environments, also managed to surprise and delight me in ever-more inventive ways. They were irresistible and always made me smile, just like Elephant Mario, the absolute beast, did in the middle of each stage’s main course. I’m not sure I can say a better thing about Wonder than that—aside from its challenging tasks, it feels like Super Mario World for the twenty-first century.