Super Mario Bros. Wonder is an absolute joy to play. It's not perfect and it's not the best 2D Mario game, but it's damn good and it's a great place for new Mario fans to start!
Considering this was the first 2D Mario game in a while (New Super Mario Bros. Wii U released quite some time ago) Wonder is a game that Mario fans have been eagerly awaiting, even before it was announced earlier this year. Whatever the new 2D Mario game was, people wanted it! So here it is and it's quite amazing!
No longer are you in the mushroom kingdom but now you're in the flower kingdom! And no longer are you saving a princess but you're just saving the kingdom from Bowser. In fact, you can play as one of the Princess's if you like as the game offers you the ability to play as a huge amount of different characters that you can swap to play as whenever you feel like it! I love that feature.
In the flower kingdom, you will be working to get the wonder seeds back as you platform around. These magical seeds/flowers seem to be volatile or something as when put in the wrong hands, can be very dangerous and when you collect a wonder flower, everything in the level goes nuts! You almost find yourself in an "altered state" where the tubes may start to crawl all over, bulls may rampage throughout the level, piranha plants may sing to you, huge hippos may roll around and bounce you all over the place and these examples are just in the first world! To get out of these crazy places, you need to collect the wonder seed and find your way to the exit.
Because of these seeds/flowers, the variety of gameplay within the game is huge. There are a few times where the effects repeat between different levels, but for the most part, they're unique! The team behind this game really put a lot of time and love into this one, creating a unique experience in almost every level!
The enemy variety is immense as well. The game reuses the minor characters like goombas and koopas but throughout the game, most levels will feature completely unique enemies which is crazy to think about from a programming standpoint.
The new suits are interesting, but I'm not sure they're improving upon what we've already seen in a Mario game before. They become useful in certain situations just like in past games, I think the suit that is most fun is the elephant suit as you can splash water around and break bricks with your trunk. I was a little surprised that they didn't include the ability to fly or float around like we've seen in previous Mario games. Not that this has to be in here, but it's surprising.
To compliment the new suits, they've also added badges to the game which will give your character an added ability to use. These can range from an higher jump, to faster running, to a grappling hook! I didn't find that I really needed these badges much besides the sonar badge (is that the name of it?) as it helps to detect secrets in levels and I was trying to collect everything!
I was surprised to see that the game only really had 1 ghost house in it. I haven't finished the special world yet, but I only remember 1. In the past, the Mario games would have like 1 per world!
The music in the game is... fine. When you compare it to some of Mario's other games, I don't think it even compares and it's average at best.
The sound design for some of the game is not my cup of tea either. Most of it is fine and does the job but there are some annoying sounds, like the jump sounds for the toads and princesses for example.
I'm not usually one to complain about a game being too easy but honestly, this game is not challenging until you get into the latter part of the game or even to the special world levels. I think I may have died like 5 times during my play through and defeated Bowser with 65 lives to spare. For someone who grew up playing Mario, it's not a tough game.
As a dad, I must say that I am not happy that my 4 year old son can only pick between a Yoshi or Nabbit if he just wants to bounce around in a game with me and not worry about dying. He kept telling me he wanted to play as Mario or Luigi or even a Princess and it was a frustrating experience. He also wanted to become an elephant but Yoshi and Nabbit can't become the elephant for some odd reason. Why can't you select your character and just tell the game you want "kids mode" for that character? VERY odd design choice.
Most of these gripes are very small in the grand scheme of things as the gameplay is addicting and it's one of those games for me that I kept thinking about getting back to when I wasn't playing it and that is pretty rare for me these days.
Overall, I still think that Super Mario World and Super Mario Bros 3 are better games than this one, but this is a very close third for best 2D Mario games and that is a hell of a top 3!
Considering this was the first 2D Mario game in a while (New Super Mario Bros. Wii U released quite some time ago) Wonder is a game that Mario fans have been eagerly awaiting, even before it was announced earlier this year. Whatever the new 2D Mario game was, people wanted it! So here it is and it's quite amazing!
No longer are you in the mushroom kingdom but now you're in the flower kingdom! And no longer are you saving a princess but you're just saving the kingdom from Bowser. In fact, you can play as one of the Princess's if you like as the game offers you the ability to play as a huge amount of different characters that you can swap to play as whenever you feel like it! I love that feature.
In the flower kingdom, you will be working to get the wonder seeds back as you platform around. These magical seeds/flowers seem to be volatile or something as when put in the wrong hands, can be very dangerous and when you collect a wonder flower, everything in the level goes nuts! You almost find yourself in an "altered state" where the tubes may start to crawl all over, bulls may rampage throughout the level, piranha plants may sing to you, huge hippos may roll around and bounce you all over the place and these examples are just in the first world! To get out of these crazy places, you need to collect the wonder seed and find your way to the exit.
Because of these seeds/flowers, the variety of gameplay within the game is huge. There are a few times where the effects repeat between different levels, but for the most part, they're unique! The team behind this game really put a lot of time and love into this one, creating a unique experience in almost every level!
The enemy variety is immense as well. The game reuses the minor characters like goombas and koopas but throughout the game, most levels will feature completely unique enemies which is crazy to think about from a programming standpoint.
The new suits are interesting, but I'm not sure they're improving upon what we've already seen in a Mario game before. They become useful in certain situations just like in past games, I think the suit that is most fun is the elephant suit as you can splash water around and break bricks with your trunk. I was a little surprised that they didn't include the ability to fly or float around like we've seen in previous Mario games. Not that this has to be in here, but it's surprising.
To compliment the new suits, they've also added badges to the game which will give your character an added ability to use. These can range from an higher jump, to faster running, to a grappling hook! I didn't find that I really needed these badges much besides the sonar badge (is that the name of it?) as it helps to detect secrets in levels and I was trying to collect everything!
I was surprised to see that the game only really had 1 ghost house in it. I haven't finished the special world yet, but I only remember 1. In the past, the Mario games would have like 1 per world!
The music in the game is... fine. When you compare it to some of Mario's other games, I don't think it even compares and it's average at best.
The sound design for some of the game is not my cup of tea either. Most of it is fine and does the job but there are some annoying sounds, like the jump sounds for the toads and princesses for example.
I'm not usually one to complain about a game being too easy but honestly, this game is not challenging until you get into the latter part of the game or even to the special world levels. I think I may have died like 5 times during my play through and defeated Bowser with 65 lives to spare. For someone who grew up playing Mario, it's not a tough game.
As a dad, I must say that I am not happy that my 4 year old son can only pick between a Yoshi or Nabbit if he just wants to bounce around in a game with me and not worry about dying. He kept telling me he wanted to play as Mario or Luigi or even a Princess and it was a frustrating experience. He also wanted to become an elephant but Yoshi and Nabbit can't become the elephant for some odd reason. Why can't you select your character and just tell the game you want "kids mode" for that character? VERY odd design choice.
Most of these gripes are very small in the grand scheme of things as the gameplay is addicting and it's one of those games for me that I kept thinking about getting back to when I wasn't playing it and that is pretty rare for me these days.
Overall, I still think that Super Mario World and Super Mario Bros 3 are better games than this one, but this is a very close third for best 2D Mario games and that is a hell of a top 3!