Wednesday, February 7, 2024

New Review: Super Mario Bros Wonder delivers a creative, unpredictable, extremely weird and very fun 2D platformer



I never thought I’d see the day when a 2D Mario game would win me over to this extent, but Super Mario Bros Wonder is not only a fun, immersive, inventive, and at times awe-inspiring adventure through the brand new Flower Kingdom, but it even tops Super Mario Odyssey as the best Mario platformer this gen.

The Switch has seen a creatively-rejuvenated Nintendo release one incredible game after another, and their latest take on 2D Mario, their first since New Super Mario Bros U in 2012, proves to be one of the best 2D platformers of the year, if not in recent memory.

Nearly every decision made in the development of Super Mario Bros Wonder was the right one; the plot doesn’t feature Peach getting kidnapped yet again but instead tells a story in which she gets to be a part of saving Flower Kingdom with all the others. Freed from the constraints of having to take place in Mushroom Kingdom, and freed from the philosophy that 2D Mario has to play it safe and closely mimic games from 30 years ago, Wonder from the start feels fresh, invigorated, and genuinely unpredictable and delightful from level to level.

Flower Kingdom is an expansive one, with something like 15 hours of playtime awaiting. Each “World” you visit features plenty of levels to complete, along with a boss or two. The world map, a hybrid between 2D and 3D, has sections where you can free roam in 3D from one level to the next, which opens up all sorts of possibilities not only in terms of finding hidden secrets and levels, but in giving off a true sense of scale, atmosphere, and immersion completely missing from the previous several 2D Mario installments.

The levels themselves are creative, varied, well-paced, and just the right length. The powers are fun to use and frequently entertaining. The best new feature by far though is the Wonder Flower, which transforms each level into a psychedelic, Alice in Wonderland-like trip, in which your goal is to find each level’s hidden Wonder Seed. These sections are totally chaotic and crazy, unlike anything I’ve seen in a Mario game, and many offer a good amount of challenge to the proceedings.

Super Mario Bros Wonder offers a pretty decent amount of difficulty, with it only rarely devolving into frustration. The game maintains the Lives system, something which other modern games of this type have been doing away with, but it’s a good choice here and one that I still prefer over the various alternatives to it. The levels provide just the right amount of challenge, while still being designed to be beatable with only a limited number of lives, creating the difficulty balance that (so far) really only the Lives system delivers.

The visuals are gorgeous throughout, with the worlds appearing sharp, distinctive, and very smooth. Nintendo often has a strong command of their hardware’s strengths and limitations, and Super Mario Bros Wonder is a great showcase for that. Character animations and facial expressions are also a major improvement from any previous 2D Mario outing.

The only areas where things fall a little short are in terms of World number and the bosses; the boss battles are pretty underwhelming; though they’re generally fun, and none are frustrating to the level seen from those in Sonic Superstars, for example, I do wish that a little more was done with them. They lack the creativity seen in other aspects of the game and often feel like an afterthought.

Super Mario Bros Wonder also only features 6 main Worlds (plus an additional World-ish for the Final Boss segment of the game) for a total of 7. Though there’s still a ton of content here, along with plenty of post-game content, it’s similar to Nintendo’s shorter games during the Wii U era, which often also only had 6 Worlds, as opposed to the typical 8. My guess is that the developers just didn’t have the time, as the Switch, now having been on the market for almost 7 years, is nearing the end of its lifespan, and Super Mario Bros Wonder likely had to release in 2023.

That said, though an 8th World would have been nice, ultimately what’s here is more than enough to warrant a purchase. Super Mario Bros Wonder was one of the most pleasant surprises of 2023, a game I didn’t expect to love nearly as much as I did given my lifelong preference for 3D Mario, and the very standard, uninspired feel that 2D Mario’s had for well over a decade. But Wonder breaks through, delivering a creative, unpredictable, extremely weird and very fun 2D platformer, one with a sense of freedom and innovation that I felt even Super Mario Odyssey held back on. The Nintendo Switch continues to be a source of some of Nintendo’s best 1st party efforts in a very long time, and Super Mario Bros Wonder is no exception.


4/5

No comments:

Post a Comment