Mario Wonder can feel like such a fresh game. So many new enemies, colourful ideas, the wonder flower really shakes things up. Playing some of the harder levels, you can tell the designers got inspiration from the fan levels of Mario Maker. So much energy back to back. The final boss is rather fun. And the new voice cast (except maybe Daisy's) is rather solid.

However, there are some parts for me that hold it back from being perfect. Small one out of the way: I wish you could use more than one badge per level. Yes they'd have to remap some buttons for that to work but imagine the combos you could do when combining two or three.

Now for the two big ones: after the innovative boss fights seen in 3D World and Odyssey, we're back to NSMB-DS with Bowser Jr being the main reoccurring boss. How does NSMB-DS have more original bosses than this? And while most of the world themes feel different it's still the same grass, desert, jungle, lava, etc format we've seen too many times. The last area is the only original one and it's fairly short.

I still had fun, it's still feels more new that the past two "New" Super Mario Bros games, but if there were more levels per world, original locations and bosses this could have easily been the 2D Mario equivalent to Odyssey: something that shakes up the formula and breathes new life into the familiar gameplay format.

(Also I turned off the talking flowers two levels in not sorry.)