Super Mario Bros. Wonder
8/10
Super Mario Bros. Wonder is the latest in Mario’s adventures. Taking place in the Flower Kingdom, Mario and friends, with the aid of the Flower Kingdom’s caterpillar prince Prince Florian, must stop Bowser from achieving world domination by using the Wonder Seeds.
So, your typical Mario romp, but this romp’s not only amazing, it’s lively as well.
The art style is gorgeous. Everything looks so bouncy and lively with its more plasticine-like style. As well, the characters and animations are more expressive than ever. Now Mario and friends emote when doing certain actions, like jumping, sliding, or when they bump into a Goomba.
But it seems that using this new art style sacrificed everyone’s special ability that they accumulated over the years. All of Mario’s friends are the same control-wise (with only Yoshi and Nabbit being the unique ones out, as they can’t take damage). Luckily, this is where the new badges come into play. Badges can equip Mario and his friends with one of many abilities, like gliding with a cap, or a crouching high jump, or even a grappling hook. But you don’t need these badges for game completion: they’re there so that the gameplay can be spiced up.
Speaking of which, the new power-ups are fantastic. Elephant form can bash enemies away by using your trunk, drill mushroom can drill you underground or above ceiling, and the bubble flower captures enemies inside bubbles and activates out-of-bounds objects.
But there’s no fun in new power-ups without enemies, and Wonder delivers on that aspect well. The game introduces so many new enemies with their own unique quirks, but, sadly, some enemies are only used in a couple levels. After that, they’re never to be seen anywhere else in the game.
The opposite is true about the bosses, or should I say, the boss. Every end-world boss in this game is the same boss repeated four times. This absolutely stings; even the first New Super Mario Bros. had unique bosses for each world. Worse yet, two of the worlds don’t have bosses—the game essentially says, “Here’s your Wonder Seed for finishing the world, now get out.”
But even after these critiques, I can’t hate this game for its faults. Super Mario Bros. Wonder is an achievement for not only Mario, but current-day Nintendo. The company is finally being creative with their franchises again for the Switch generation. As we are in a new era of creativity and art style with digital media, Mario, being Nintendo’s oldest IP, definitely needed this refresh. I hope that other Nintendo IPs can get this treatment.
This game is an indication that Nintendo is back and better than ever. I hope that with the next console they release, Nintendo will strive to create the best gaming experiences ever.
Super Mario Bros. Wonder shows that they’re on the right track.