Super Mario Bros. Wonder is a tough game to review because it objectively does nothing wrong -- it’s fun, accessible, and boasts so much eye candy, you’d think the devs were on something when they coded it. But as a lifelong fan of both the platformer and Mario games, I couldn’t help feeling like it was intrinsically stuck in the past - as though there was something stopping it from straying too far from that pre-established blueprint Miyamoto wrote back in 1985.

Of course, a series should never abandon its roots, but in a world where the 3D Mario titles have consistently innovated post-64, it’s admittedly disappointing to see its side-scrolling Bros. accompaniment not do the same post-Mario World, Fans may call me crazy given that these criticisms are normally-leveled at the New SMB subset; however, the truth is I’ve always felt the macro franchise, as a whole, was just as guilty of stagnation, and unfortunately this latest release did little to quell those preconceptions.

On the surface, Wonder appears completely discrepant from its forebears, but take a closer look and you’ll see there’s actually very little in the way of genuine DNA swaps: levels are largely the same desert/water/lava/ice motif we saw aplenty in the OG trilogy; stages primarily operate on the X-Y axis; secrets are still accessible by randomly-placed pipelines; bosses remain the same lame “jump on X three times” template; and even the story continues that tiring retread of Bowser conveniently discovering a new power source (and yes, I know that latter point will come across as excessively-whiny, but compare this to other Nintendo franchises like DKC, Zelda, and Kirby which at least swapped up the antagonist every other entry).

Regarding the new power-ups, they ain’t all that groundbreaking either - bubble flowers are reskinned fire flowers, while the much-touted elephant suit is literally limited to spraying water and breaking horizontal blocks ( things that were pioneered in DKC3 almost 30 years ago…). The Drill Cap stands as the most unique addition to the game, allowing Mario to tunnel into adjacent walls & floors, but as the name implies, it’s restricted to subterranean stages, rendering it severely-underutilized compared to its brethren.

Supplementing this are several design choices I thought were outright regressive from the past, the biggest being the presence of badges. These tokens grant supplements to Mario and co.’s movements, theoretically changing-up the gameplay for better & for worse depending on which one you choose. The problem is, in creating them, Nintendo outright-stripped standard abilities you had in previous Mario games, making it a bit frustrating for older gamers used to a full set of tools - the crouch jump, spin jump, vertical wall leap, speed boost, and Peach and Luigi’s semi-floating being among the casualties. Don’t get me wrong, Wonder does have some fresh concoctions; I just doubt the majority of gamers will utilize them in light of it making the game harder than necessary (the spring hop and wall latcher coming to mind).

Chances are you’ve heard of the eponymous Wonder Seeds laden in most levels, their touch causing all manner of psychedelic changes within, and look, I’d be lying if I said the visuals weren’t dope (you really do wonder what manner of drugs Mouri distributed to his staff during development); however, I personally never felt like you were undergoing some radical gameplay change during these sections, the lion’s share of them being either imagery swaps of standard templates, Mario Maker-esque rail levels, or transformation stages wherein you turn into an enemy like a poor man’s SM Odyssey.

Again, I don’t want it to seem like the game is bad - Wonder is, equitably-speaking, a great title, and considering every generation gives us a new batch of potential Mario fans, it’ll definitely serve as a wonderful (no pun intended) introduction to the franchise. But for longtime enthusiasts like myself expecting something different from Bros.-past, I think it’s fair to say, at this point in time anyway, that Nintendo has no interest in doing that. This is their, for lack of a better term, “safe” series where, much like GameFreak and Pokémon, they want people to know what you see is what you get - a modernized, but ultimately nostalgic, rendition of the classic SMB template.

Ironically, the one area where more was done that I actually felt would’ve actually benefited from a regressive set-up is the story as I kid you not when I say this game has more dialogue than every single Mario Bros. game combined, and it’s as trivial & repetitive as you can imagine. I get that you need a basic framework, but the way Wonder constantly reminds you about its pointless story or pointless characters, it honestly comes across like someone at Nintendo actually thought highly of the writing.

Outside of running-and-bounding across levels, Nintendo has thrown-in three additional stage types to peruse in each world: first are Break Times, or short excursions built around a gimmick; second are KO brawls, in which you’re tasked with clearing out squads of enemies; and third are Badge Challenges, wherein you, as the name implies, try out a badge in a handcrafted course. They’re fun enough diversions, but understand you’re maybe getting a couple minutes of enjoyment from each.

Graphically, Wonder is a phenomenal game, building on the HD palette New Super Mario Bros. U pioneered back in 2012 via brighter hues, motion-based environments, and even some well-done dynamic luminescence around fire. Much like Daedaelic, Mario games have always had a distinct art style, and Wonder continues that trend whilst evolving some of my favorite aspects from the franchise in the process ala superb facial expressions and minor animation work that’ll unfortunately be underappreciated (i.e., seeing a goomba’s scared reaction to his friend being eaten by a Yoshi!).

Voice acting in the Mario titles has always been restricted to the grunts & giggles of its cast, and here it’s as fine as it’s ever been. My only complaints would be Yoshi’s inflections appearing higher-pitched than normal, and all the Popplins sharing the same VA (and, you know, sounding & looking like discount Toads).

SFX is kind of disappointing given the strange decision to both use instrumentals for most actions and rehash standard stock noises Nintendo concocted long ago. With the former, static pounds are rendered as drum riffs; leaps, string plucks, and fireballs some sort of bleated note amongst others. With the latter, expect Starmen and Goalposts et al. to resound like they always have since Super Mario World.

Thankfully, the OST by Shiho Fujii, Sayako Doi, Chisaki Shimazu, and the legendary Koji Kondo remains exceptional. Going in, I expected nothing but a platter of classic Mario themes (i.e., your orchestral motifs & proud horns), and to be fair there are a good chunk of those in here; however, there’s just as many, if not more, unique tunes crafted for the game, with some of my favorite ones including: the snake charmer melody of Sunbaked Dessert, pan flutes of Shining Falls, the alternating xylophone & digitized blurts of Fungi Mines, the seafaring voyage of Lava Theme, the 80s synth revamp of Bowser’s Castle, and the masterpiece that was A Night at Boo’s Opera. The more nostalgic among you may recognize short callbacks to prior titles, like Isle Delfino in Bouncy Tunes, Slider in Coins Galore, or Super Mario World in Wonder Token Tunes, all of which add-up to a thoroughly-enjoyable medley of tracks for old and new ears alike.

In the end, though, the best music wouldn’t change what I said at the beginning - if you’re tired of the Mario Bros. formula, Wonder won’t amend things for you. It’s a terrifically-constructed enterprise ripe with multicolored energy and hallucinogenic fervor, albeit wrapped in an overly-familiar skin. Make your decision accordingly.


NOTES
-I genuinely don’t understand why Nintendo continues to put lives in the Mario games when losing them does nothing save forcing someone restart a level (a facet that, itself, is rarely going to happen). Can they really not think of any substitute purpose for collecting coins?

-Much has been made about the Talking Flowers, and they’re surprisingly not annoying, often having a singular line before disappearing from view. Still, I couldn’t get over Mick Wingert giving them a Petey the Pistol-esque voice (for you younger readers, basically he sounds like the Map from Dora the Explorer).

-Speaking more on the music, I loved how the majority of Wonder Flower shifts had their own leitmotif rather than just an altered version of the base level’s cues.

PART 1: OK, MAYBE I HATE COMPETITIVE TEAM GAMES

Before I start this review, I want to use this Part to yap for a bit, so if you are not interested in it, just skip to Part 2! Where I’ll actually start talking about my actual experience with the game.

Around 4 years ago, when I quit playing League of Legends I kept seeking another competitive team game that would tick the same boxes for me, but every game I would try one out I would either end up disliking them or not taking them seriously enough to actually consider them my “main game”. Which would result in me dropping them, and moving on to the next shiny thing, but what they all had in common is that I disliked playing with other people, League left this mental scar on me where now I think every random player I meet online is one mistake away, whether it's from me or them, from flaming the fuck out of me. This happened with Paladins, Apex, Overwatch, Dead by Daylight, Hell, it even happened to me in the Versus mode of Left 4 Dead 2, where stakes couldn't possibly be lower.

Eventually, I started gaslighting myself into thinking that all Multiplayer games fucking sucked now, and the constant tryhard mindset was to blame for it. Of course, there are clear exceptions, like Splatoon or competitive games where it's just 1vs1 where I can blame either myself for my mistakes or my opponent for doing something I didn’t know how to play around.

During the same time I stopped playing League, I was getting deep into Final Fantasy XIV, while I have plenty of things to say about it, I’ll save them for whenever I review it in the future. The point is that when I started participating in endgame content, which is for the most part, PVE Focused, I found myself having that same fun I was looking for in multiplayer games that I had been seeking for a long time. The joy of sharing a clear with your team and cheering and being way more patient with each other, went far beyond than just being relieved of having ended a stressful match that was barely won.

This is something I also noticed while playing Souls games, Left 4 Dead 2 co-op campaigns, Phasmophobia or Lethal Company with my friends, and when I recently got into Helldivers 2, I was completely aware of this epiphany by now. Multiplayer games don’t actually suck, competitive team ones do, and it's now a new age for me, where I will use this realization to get into games I’ve never thought were for me, hell, maybe I’ll actually try getting into Monster Hunter despite my initial reluctance towards those series.

Now, let’s have a nice cup of Liber-tea over Helldivers 2.

PART 2: DEMOCRACY MANIFEST

When Helldivers 2 gameplay was first revealed I remember two key things about it, one of my friends was excited about it because it was a wild glow up from its predecessor, and it had this footage where the people playing it had one of those cringey scripted voice chat interactions. But for some reason I cannot find it on YouTube, I swear it happened at The Game Awards, but I’m starting to think it's my own case of Mandela Effect.

However, things started changing once the game actually dropped, and it seemed like its growth in popularity happened overnight. The next thing I learn, the game is having so many people trying to play it that the servers cannot keep up. This is something unprecedented, and it actually prompted me to take a look, what was going on over there that had everyone so fired up? And so I started checking out some streams, it’s a 4 player co-op third-person shooter where you can fight either Bugs or Robots. On the surface, I thought it was nothing special, then I caught a glimpse of the players using the in game Stratagems and throwing them around, making things blow up and causing as much collateral damage as possible, my interest was starting to get piqued, who doesn't like to cause a big explosion? But the biggest thing to accompany all of it, was the Galactic War system with its Major Orders, where every couple of days every player in the game is tasked with working towards a common goal to be rewarded with currencies and sometimes new purchasable weapons. Apparently, this is led by a guy called Joel over at Arrowhead that acts like a real-time DM and sends out the orders depending on what the players were doing.

But what really, REALLY convinced me that I had to buy the game, was the Malevelon Creek arc, where the community tragically lost control of this particular planet to Automatons, it was a massacre, tons of brave Helldivers and Super Citizens were slaughtered in the process, but the playerbase wouldn't stand by it, and vengeance was sworn on that day. It wasn’t until the Major Order to take it back was given where the players valiantly fought in the name of DEMOCRACY to bring it back to our side, and it was done at a speed that neither devs nor players could have even predicted.

This is something I had to take part of, there was one issue, however. At the time I was busy playing other games, so despite buying it, it wasn’t until recent weeks that I started playing it a lot more, it is one of my biggest regrets to not have been part of this when player counts still soared over 500k every day, but it still warms my heart to log in and see over 100k still playing actively. One of my most common fears with live service games is that at any moment where failure starts to be shown, it's only a matter of time when the publisher says it's time to turn the lights off, and all that time invested gets flushed down the toilet (RIP Knockout City and Rumbleverse, I still think about you two now and then), but Helldivers 2 seems like its here to stay, and I’m happy to be a part of it, to be spreading justice and freedom for as much as I can. To hopefully one day participate in a Major Order as iconic as The Battle for Malevelon Creek

If there's something I had to complain about the game is how some types of enemies are extremely obnoxious to fight against (I fucking despise Chargers and Hulks), and that Arrowhead has a weird philosophy when it comes to weapon balancing, I don't consider myself an expert in game design, but at the end of the day, this is still a PvE game, one that can become really fucking tough at times, if anything I think everything should be busted, so there’s no meta to be enforced by whatever toxic players might be out there and everyone can play their own way.

To wrap things up, on top of my brief rant about Competitive Team Games, there’s another type of game I dislike a lot nowadays and that’s not a controversial opinion, we are all tired of Live Services, games that don’t respect their customers and that think we all have unlimited time, games where just playing them isn’t enough. Gone are the 7th gen days when games would drop with a weirdly, yet charmingly designed Multiplayer mode whose servers barely worked in favor of rotating shops and time-limited Season Passes that unlock only fluff most of the time. Make no mistake, Helldivers 2 also has some of these tropes, but it appears that this time it remembered it still has a box price, so what would be the point of time gating battle passes and having absurdly expensive cosmetics? None, get all of that shit by playing, go out there, kill some bugs and bots, get that rising feeling of power when your Helldiver starts maniacally laughing because you kept firing for a full mag. Drink of the cup of Liber-tea.

It is Layton, so it's nothing spectacularly different from what you may have already experienced in the series. That indeed is true, but this game even flaws at following the same formula from older games, some puzzles feel tired in their concept, because many of them try to present a solution that is "outside of the box" in that the statement from the puzzle is nothing but a trick that you must not fall into. This really gets tiresome sometimes and does feel overused. The story fleshes out Layton's past, which was unexpected, but the finale falls short from being a truly memorable plot because the pacing was nothing like well-distributed.