Alright let me just get this out of the way right now. Super Mario Bros. Wonder is the best mainline Mario game since Galaxy in 2007. I am being completely serious when I say that.
It can't be understated how much I've been hoping for a new 2D Mario game. The last one was 11 years ago, and that one wasn't even good. As much nostalgia as I have for the first 2 New Super Mario Bros. games, everyone knows they overstayed their welcome. And then nothing for a decade, it's been rough. I know Super Mario Maker exists, but it's not the same, and coming from someone who didn't like Galaxy 2, 3D World, or Odyssey, I just really wanted Nintendo to finally do something with 2D Mario again. It may have taken way too long, but it finally happened!
Off the bat, this game looks amazing. The levels have so much care and detail put into them, and the characters are more animated than ever before. Compare this to New Super Mario Bros. U and it's night and day. The world just feels more alive in this game and the game is just more fun by extension. The music is also fantastic, which I am so happy to say. Though this may be because the game is new and I haven't heard the songs enough yet, but they don't stick in my head like the songs from other Mario games have.
I want to bring up the map design quickly. At first I was a little disappointed that the game seemed to have only 6 worlds instead of 8 like usual, but then I played for myself. First off, those 6 worlds are so much more expanded upon than any of the worlds in the NSMB games. These aren't just 'play 6 levels and then beat the Koopaling at the end,' far from it. You can freely explore the worlds, find things that are hidden, visit shops, and a lot of levels you can play in whatever order you want. As long as you have enough collectibles from the levels themselves, you can advance, 3D Land style.
However, there is also Petal Isles. This is essentially a seventh world. It's a hub area you return to after each numbered world, and it not only has its own levels to clear, but it's also where the final boss is you'll be spending a lot of time there. On the map it's located right in the center, and I love seeing all the worlds interconnected like this, why it took them so long to try something like this again after Super Mario World, I have no idea.
The process of getting collectibles is really fun too. Finding wonder flowers is always exciting, waiting to see what crazy new effect the game will throw at you. Maybe it'll start a musical number, change the level to a topdown perspective, throw a stampede of enemies at you, start raining superstars from the sky, anything can happen. Or if you want, you can just ignore these and finish the levels normally. You do need a certain amount of them in order to progress, but if you have enough, you aren't forced to collect them.
Stages also have a lot of replay value thanks to badges and purple coins. Badges can be earned from challenge levels or bought from shops. They all have different properties, like giving you a Galaxy style spin jump, a vine to grapple onto walls, magnifying coins towards you, improving your wall jump, letting you run faster, there are a lot of these. Finding purple coins is a great incentive to replay levels so you can buy more badges, but it's also fun to experiment and try levels in different ways.
With all that said, I really wish I could give the game 5 stars, but I just can't. Alright, time for my super nitpicky complaints, here we go.
Firstly, the multiplayer. I will say that the online component of the game is amazing, I loved that. Local multiplayer though NOPE. I'm glad they got rid of all the whacky collision that often led to stupid deaths in the other games. However, these levels are clearly not designed for multiplayer at all. I know the Wii and Wii U games got flack for their big open and barren feeling levels in order to compensate for multiplayer, but it's so hard to keep everyone on the same pace in this game. Not helping is the fucking camera. It picks one person at a time to lock onto, instead of zooming out the camera to keep everyone in view like before. Combine these together and it's a recipe for disaster. The amount of stupid deaths I had playing this is ridiculous. It was funny though, I'll give it that.
Secondly, Yoshi. Look, I'm really happy that we have more than the same 4 characters yet again. Daisy, Toadette, Nabbit, and Yoshi being playable? Sweet! Here's my problem. Why is Yoshi a dedicated "easy mode" character? I get why Nabbit is like that, but I would've liked playing as Yoshi and not having the game be braindead easy. The trade-off of having his unique moves but not being allowed to use powerups would've been fine, but he's also invincible?? I just don't understand why it had to be done this way.
And my final complaint and definitely my biggest one, the boss fights. They're bad, point blank period. First off, 2 worlds just don't even have them at all, which feels super weird. Finishing a world with no boss level just feels incomplete if you ask me. So there are only 5 bosses in the game, and every single one is a complete joke. 4 of them are reskinned Bowser Jr fights that never actually get challenging, he's barely any tougher than Boom Boom in the Wii U game, and I'm being generous. The final boss against Bowser is super anticlimactic. When I finished the game I actually said "Oh that was it?" and yeah that's not a good way to end a game.
I think the problem is that they're style over substance. They all have super cool visual effects happening, but after like 5 seconds you realize that the process of fighting them is never any different. It also just feels weird to have Kamek be so prominent in the game and never fight him at any point. This game made me miss the Koopalings and I never thought I would say that.
So yeah, I had a lot to say about this game. As much as I would love to say it's a 10/10 masterpiece of a game, especially with how much of a 2D Mario shill I am, I just can't. It has too much that annoyed me personally. I can say though that I love this game despite the issues I had and it's easily my favorite Mario game in the last 16 years! I'm very happy that this game exists and 2D Mario is back!
It can't be understated how much I've been hoping for a new 2D Mario game. The last one was 11 years ago, and that one wasn't even good. As much nostalgia as I have for the first 2 New Super Mario Bros. games, everyone knows they overstayed their welcome. And then nothing for a decade, it's been rough. I know Super Mario Maker exists, but it's not the same, and coming from someone who didn't like Galaxy 2, 3D World, or Odyssey, I just really wanted Nintendo to finally do something with 2D Mario again. It may have taken way too long, but it finally happened!
Off the bat, this game looks amazing. The levels have so much care and detail put into them, and the characters are more animated than ever before. Compare this to New Super Mario Bros. U and it's night and day. The world just feels more alive in this game and the game is just more fun by extension. The music is also fantastic, which I am so happy to say. Though this may be because the game is new and I haven't heard the songs enough yet, but they don't stick in my head like the songs from other Mario games have.
I want to bring up the map design quickly. At first I was a little disappointed that the game seemed to have only 6 worlds instead of 8 like usual, but then I played for myself. First off, those 6 worlds are so much more expanded upon than any of the worlds in the NSMB games. These aren't just 'play 6 levels and then beat the Koopaling at the end,' far from it. You can freely explore the worlds, find things that are hidden, visit shops, and a lot of levels you can play in whatever order you want. As long as you have enough collectibles from the levels themselves, you can advance, 3D Land style.
However, there is also Petal Isles. This is essentially a seventh world. It's a hub area you return to after each numbered world, and it not only has its own levels to clear, but it's also where the final boss is you'll be spending a lot of time there. On the map it's located right in the center, and I love seeing all the worlds interconnected like this, why it took them so long to try something like this again after Super Mario World, I have no idea.
The process of getting collectibles is really fun too. Finding wonder flowers is always exciting, waiting to see what crazy new effect the game will throw at you. Maybe it'll start a musical number, change the level to a topdown perspective, throw a stampede of enemies at you, start raining superstars from the sky, anything can happen. Or if you want, you can just ignore these and finish the levels normally. You do need a certain amount of them in order to progress, but if you have enough, you aren't forced to collect them.
Stages also have a lot of replay value thanks to badges and purple coins. Badges can be earned from challenge levels or bought from shops. They all have different properties, like giving you a Galaxy style spin jump, a vine to grapple onto walls, magnifying coins towards you, improving your wall jump, letting you run faster, there are a lot of these. Finding purple coins is a great incentive to replay levels so you can buy more badges, but it's also fun to experiment and try levels in different ways.
With all that said, I really wish I could give the game 5 stars, but I just can't. Alright, time for my super nitpicky complaints, here we go.
Firstly, the multiplayer. I will say that the online component of the game is amazing, I loved that. Local multiplayer though NOPE. I'm glad they got rid of all the whacky collision that often led to stupid deaths in the other games. However, these levels are clearly not designed for multiplayer at all. I know the Wii and Wii U games got flack for their big open and barren feeling levels in order to compensate for multiplayer, but it's so hard to keep everyone on the same pace in this game. Not helping is the fucking camera. It picks one person at a time to lock onto, instead of zooming out the camera to keep everyone in view like before. Combine these together and it's a recipe for disaster. The amount of stupid deaths I had playing this is ridiculous. It was funny though, I'll give it that.
Secondly, Yoshi. Look, I'm really happy that we have more than the same 4 characters yet again. Daisy, Toadette, Nabbit, and Yoshi being playable? Sweet! Here's my problem. Why is Yoshi a dedicated "easy mode" character? I get why Nabbit is like that, but I would've liked playing as Yoshi and not having the game be braindead easy. The trade-off of having his unique moves but not being allowed to use powerups would've been fine, but he's also invincible?? I just don't understand why it had to be done this way.
And my final complaint and definitely my biggest one, the boss fights. They're bad, point blank period. First off, 2 worlds just don't even have them at all, which feels super weird. Finishing a world with no boss level just feels incomplete if you ask me. So there are only 5 bosses in the game, and every single one is a complete joke. 4 of them are reskinned Bowser Jr fights that never actually get challenging, he's barely any tougher than Boom Boom in the Wii U game, and I'm being generous. The final boss against Bowser is super anticlimactic. When I finished the game I actually said "Oh that was it?" and yeah that's not a good way to end a game.
I think the problem is that they're style over substance. They all have super cool visual effects happening, but after like 5 seconds you realize that the process of fighting them is never any different. It also just feels weird to have Kamek be so prominent in the game and never fight him at any point. This game made me miss the Koopalings and I never thought I would say that.
So yeah, I had a lot to say about this game. As much as I would love to say it's a 10/10 masterpiece of a game, especially with how much of a 2D Mario shill I am, I just can't. It has too much that annoyed me personally. I can say though that I love this game despite the issues I had and it's easily my favorite Mario game in the last 16 years! I'm very happy that this game exists and 2D Mario is back!