I finally 100 percent Super Mario Bros. Wonder and I had a fun filled time doing it. Now that the game is behind me, I wanted to talk a little about my experiences with what I consider to be the best Nintendo Switch game of the year!
It felt like an age ago since we got a 2D Mario game, New Super Mario Bros U Deluxe does not count as it was a port of a Wii U game from several years later and to be honest, one of the weaker New Super Mario Bros games at that. From the first trailer, Super Mario Bros. Wonder looked like it would be a blast and it more than lived up to it. The game just oozes that classic Nintendo charm, the new voice actor for Mario is fun and I think this is probably the most personality we have seen from Mario and his friends in a 2D game like this.
The new Flower Kingdom is awesome! The new enemies, the Poplins and Prince Florian are awesome, I actually wish that we got to see a bit more of Prince Florian as he was such a cute and fun character. The plot is your typical Mario plot with Bowser causing trouble and Mario and his friends having to save the day. I do like how Bowser JR has a bit more of a starring role and his Wonder design was something I thought was really cool.
Where Super Mario Bros. Wonder shines is the gameplay, this is just a fun game to play plain and simple. I liked how they had Yoshi and Nabbit for less experienced players, but I wish that they had an option that let us play as those two characters without the assists as I would loved to have seen Elephant Yoshi! I will say that this is not the most challenging Mario game and even the “harder” levels that you lock were doable after a couple of tries. Plus the game gives you new abilities that can help you out. For the most part, I used the one that allowed you to glide as I found it the most useful.
The vast amount of badges that the game has are there to make up for there not being a ton of power-ups. Out of the new ones, the elephant power-up is the most fun. I love how goofy and silly it is and it just has a ton of personality. The bubble and drill power-ups were okay and useful in specific situations, but I would never pick them over the elephant one. I was kind of surprised at how much I used the old classic fire flower. I cannot remember the last Mario game where the fire flower felt as useful as it does here!
One little nitpick I have is that some of the levels are so much fun I wish that they lasted longer. The one with King Boo doing his opera is awesome and a top ten Mario level of all time for me, but it felt like it was over way too soon. The Wonder gimmick of a level changing styles is fun and I was amazed at just how Nintendo was able to have so many of these and not have them become stale. I also felt that World 6, Deep Magma Bog went on a bit long, it was not bad by any means, but it felt like the most drawn out section of the game.
Getting Super Mario Bros. Wonder and Sonic Superstars so close together was a real treat, both games are fantastic! I hope that Nintendo does not just go onto the next Mario game, I would love to see a Super Mario Bros. Wonder 2, expanding on the fun stuff that they did here.