[10/22/2023]
This is what I've been waiting for, baby. 10 years since the last new 2D Mario, and like 17 since the last great one with New Super Mario Bros. on the DS. If that game wasn't so important to me growing up, this would have dethroned it.
Super Mario Bros. Wonder is the wake-up call for many a person who thought that 2D Mario would never escape New™ Hell. From the moment you expose your eyes to it to the very end of the 100% journey, it's like the team saw everybody complaining about the New series and chose to give them exactly what they wanted, right down to omitting the word in the title.
I figure I can start with the first thing you see: the artstyle. Mario and the crew (12, by the way! first playable appearance of Daisy in a mainline game as well but I'll let it slide) have new life to their movements, the whole game reminds me of that one Van Gogh-esque stage from New Super Mario Bros. U, and every single creature from the playable characters to the small talking flowers shows some sort of emotion. Goombas react in fear when you stomp one of their brethren and most enemies start freaking out if they see a fireball or bubble coming towards them. I'm not going to call the New series "soulless", but I am going to say that it now looks extremely basic compared to Wonder, as opposed to it looking just basic in the years prior.
Mario games live and die on their level design, and this game's lively as can be. No two levels ever utilize the same enemy or mechanic as their main gimmick with the exception of the obligatory challenge levels. The poison jungle theme continues to be my favorite in a 2D Mario since 2006 (except you NSMB2 fuck you for merging it with the beach world). Each level is then further distinguished with the Wonder Flowers. They're optional, but you'll be missing out on some of the most creative level design in a Mario game yet if you skip them. While some Wonder effects are reused, the levels they're reused in are distinct enough for them to stay fresh. The levels themselves are split into different categories, from your traditional stages ending in the iconic flagpole, to bite-sized challenges to spice up the journey, to arenas where you need to defeat all enemies onscreen, to puzzles that demand you remember you have a brain to decipher. It's like the team saw the shit people were making in Super Mario Maker and took notes on how to fully realize these ideas.
The Super Mushroom and Fire Flower return, and the latter's got a couple of adjustments to help make it feel better. You can now hurl fireballs while crouched, and you're no longer limited to just 2 of them anymore. The three new power-ups, too, are fun. The Bubble Flower is worthy of being a mainstay among its Fire and Ice counterparts; the bubbles' purely lateral movement alongside the abilities to go through walls and be a temporary platform to bounce off of give it insane flexibility. The Drill Mushroom is good as-is and has the potential to also be a mainstay, functioning as a way to hit enemies from below like a Spiny helmet from SMM and deal multiple hits with a Ground Pound faster than usual in addition to its ability to dig into the ceiling and floor to avoid danger, but I feel like another movement-related ability could have helped it and the level design using it. Maybe something like Ground Pounding the floor resulting in digging deeper than usual before slowly returning to the surface, or running into a wall at full speed to drill into the wall to reach otherwise blocked off areas. It's a power-up all about movement, but it's scratching the surface of what it could be. The Elephant Fruit is this game's gimmick power-up. You know the ones. They only appear in one game and rarely return, even in spinoffs (looking at you, Cape Feather, Superball Flower, Carrot, Propeller Mushroom, Gold Flower, Super Acorn.) You're larger, can do pretty wide melee attacks, and can toss out water if you have some. Melee attacks are a property that other items have had before, and throwing water serves few purposes if you don't care about coins. It's cool, but not cool enough to return as its niche use is level specific. The Super Leaf can already do melee and fly. It's why all the other flying items never return. The Elephant Fruit will probably share the same fate.
With a game with this many new mechanics and enemies, the boss fights are bound to be the most unique we've seen since NSMB. Nah, have 4 Bowser Jr. fights where you jump on him (more than three times, wow!) and 3 Bowser-themed comveyor belts where you approach it and jump on a switch like it's 1985. This is the weakest part of the game for me, and this sentiment isn't unique at all. I was hoping that the game took a Yoshi's Island-esque approach where the new enemies or some variant of it are the bosses, or where said enemy gains the Royal Seed (the game's MacGuffin) like another game that I'll get exiled for mentioning and creates effects throughout the world they occupy. The one sign we're hot (cold? it's been 11 years) off the presses of the New series. At least the final boss fight rocked.
All in all, this game fucking rules and is the best Mario game we've gotten since Galaxy. I like the Mario franchise a perfectly normal amount to have beaten this game in 2 days and to have written this little about it.
This is what I've been waiting for, baby. 10 years since the last new 2D Mario, and like 17 since the last great one with New Super Mario Bros. on the DS. If that game wasn't so important to me growing up, this would have dethroned it.
Super Mario Bros. Wonder is the wake-up call for many a person who thought that 2D Mario would never escape New™ Hell. From the moment you expose your eyes to it to the very end of the 100% journey, it's like the team saw everybody complaining about the New series and chose to give them exactly what they wanted, right down to omitting the word in the title.
I figure I can start with the first thing you see: the artstyle. Mario and the crew (12, by the way! first playable appearance of Daisy in a mainline game as well but I'll let it slide) have new life to their movements, the whole game reminds me of that one Van Gogh-esque stage from New Super Mario Bros. U, and every single creature from the playable characters to the small talking flowers shows some sort of emotion. Goombas react in fear when you stomp one of their brethren and most enemies start freaking out if they see a fireball or bubble coming towards them. I'm not going to call the New series "soulless", but I am going to say that it now looks extremely basic compared to Wonder, as opposed to it looking just basic in the years prior.
Mario games live and die on their level design, and this game's lively as can be. No two levels ever utilize the same enemy or mechanic as their main gimmick with the exception of the obligatory challenge levels. The poison jungle theme continues to be my favorite in a 2D Mario since 2006 (except you NSMB2 fuck you for merging it with the beach world). Each level is then further distinguished with the Wonder Flowers. They're optional, but you'll be missing out on some of the most creative level design in a Mario game yet if you skip them. While some Wonder effects are reused, the levels they're reused in are distinct enough for them to stay fresh. The levels themselves are split into different categories, from your traditional stages ending in the iconic flagpole, to bite-sized challenges to spice up the journey, to arenas where you need to defeat all enemies onscreen, to puzzles that demand you remember you have a brain to decipher. It's like the team saw the shit people were making in Super Mario Maker and took notes on how to fully realize these ideas.
The Super Mushroom and Fire Flower return, and the latter's got a couple of adjustments to help make it feel better. You can now hurl fireballs while crouched, and you're no longer limited to just 2 of them anymore. The three new power-ups, too, are fun. The Bubble Flower is worthy of being a mainstay among its Fire and Ice counterparts; the bubbles' purely lateral movement alongside the abilities to go through walls and be a temporary platform to bounce off of give it insane flexibility. The Drill Mushroom is good as-is and has the potential to also be a mainstay, functioning as a way to hit enemies from below like a Spiny helmet from SMM and deal multiple hits with a Ground Pound faster than usual in addition to its ability to dig into the ceiling and floor to avoid danger, but I feel like another movement-related ability could have helped it and the level design using it. Maybe something like Ground Pounding the floor resulting in digging deeper than usual before slowly returning to the surface, or running into a wall at full speed to drill into the wall to reach otherwise blocked off areas. It's a power-up all about movement, but it's scratching the surface of what it could be. The Elephant Fruit is this game's gimmick power-up. You know the ones. They only appear in one game and rarely return, even in spinoffs (looking at you, Cape Feather, Superball Flower, Carrot, Propeller Mushroom, Gold Flower, Super Acorn.) You're larger, can do pretty wide melee attacks, and can toss out water if you have some. Melee attacks are a property that other items have had before, and throwing water serves few purposes if you don't care about coins. It's cool, but not cool enough to return as its niche use is level specific. The Super Leaf can already do melee and fly. It's why all the other flying items never return. The Elephant Fruit will probably share the same fate.
With a game with this many new mechanics and enemies, the boss fights are bound to be the most unique we've seen since NSMB. Nah, have 4 Bowser Jr. fights where you jump on him (more than three times, wow!) and 3 Bowser-themed comveyor belts where you approach it and jump on a switch like it's 1985. This is the weakest part of the game for me, and this sentiment isn't unique at all. I was hoping that the game took a Yoshi's Island-esque approach where the new enemies or some variant of it are the bosses, or where said enemy gains the Royal Seed (the game's MacGuffin) like another game that I'll get exiled for mentioning and creates effects throughout the world they occupy. The one sign we're hot (cold? it's been 11 years) off the presses of the New series. At least the final boss fight rocked.
All in all, this game fucking rules and is the best Mario game we've gotten since Galaxy. I like the Mario franchise a perfectly normal amount to have beaten this game in 2 days and to have written this little about it.