Image Credit: Giarc / GamifiedLife, LLC
A Wonderfully Bizarre Experience
There are a lot of different words I could use to describe Super Mario Bros. Wonder, the latest game in the venerable Mario Bros. series. Colorful. Whimsical. Inventive. But more than anything else, the best word to describe it is bizarre. This game could have just as easily been named Super Mario Bros. Acid Trip. It is a deeply weird game, and I absolutely loved every moment of it.
The Story
The game starts out with Mario and his various cast of friends visiting the neighboring Flower Kingdom, when of course, Bowser and his minions show up to wreak havoc. The Flower Kingdom is home to wonder flowers, which seem to possess the ability to alter reality. Bowser seizes this power to… turn himself into a castle (like I said, bizarre). So Mario and company set off to gather wonder seeds that will allow them to defeat him.
It’s not the most complicated story, and it’s best not to think about it too much – after playing through the main story, I’m still not entirely certain what Bowser’s end game really was. And why did he show up when Mario was there; Wouldn’t he have been more likely to succeed if he went to the Flower Kingdom when Mario was occupied elsewhere? And with Bowser always showing up when Mario does, wouldn’t the neighboring kingdoms treat Mario as a pariah? But let’s be honest, you don’t play a Mario game for the story anyways.
Image Credit: Giarc / GamifiedLife, LLC
The Charactors
In addition to Mario and Luigi, you have the choice of playing as several different characters, including Peach, Daisy, Nabbit, and several different colored varieties of Toads and Yoshis. Unfortunately, there’s not much difference between the various characters – they all play pretty much the same. The exception to this is Yoshi and Nabbit, who are essentially the “easy mode” characters. While they can still die by falling into a chasm or landing in lava, they are essentially invulnerable when it comes to enemy characters. The downside is that they don’t use any of the various powerups.
Image Credit: Giarc / GamifiedLife, LLC
Power Ups
And speaking of powerups, there are several new ones this time around. In addition to the classic fire flower, there’s also an elephant fruit that turns you into a human-elephant hybrid (or I suppose mushroom-elephant hybrid if you’re playing as Toad). There’s also a drill hat that allows you to burrow underground and into the ceiling and a bubble flower that allows you to shoot weaponized bubbles. The new powerups are a lot of fun to play, and in many cases allow for new ways to traverse the levels, be it traveling along the ceiling, bouncing off of bubbles, or smashing through blocks with your elephant trunk.
Image Credit: Giarc / GamifiedLife, LLC
The Real Magic: Level Design
But the level design is where Super Mario Bros. Wonder truly shines. Every level feels like its own unique experience. There are six different worlds, with a hub world in the middle. And to advance, you need to collect wonder seeds in the various levels. Each level has anywhere from one to three seeds, but usually two – one you collect for finishing the level, and one for completing an extended sequence after locating that level’s wonder flower.
This is where the acid trip really begins, and you never know exactly what is going to happen when you grab the flower. In some instances, Mario is transformed in different ways. Sometimes he inflates into a balloon. Sometimes he transforms into one of the various enemies, and sometimes he turns into a weird stretched-out-tall shadow person. In other instances, the entire level is transformed. The pipes come to life, or the piranha plants break into song, or the air turns to water and the water turns to air (effectively putting the water at the top of the level rather than the bottom). There are some effects that repeat elsewhere, but most of them are unique to each level. I found the overall inventiveness of the level design astounding.
Image Credit: Giarc / GamifiedLife, LLC
Mini-Levels & Badges
In addition, there are numerous mini-levels throughout. Some are just quick puzzles. While others are races or scavenger hunts for hidden flower tokens. Many of these mini-levels introduce the concept of badges – powerups you can change between levels that give you an additional ability. Some of the badges help your jumping (the “Boosting Spin Jump” that gives you a double jump was my go-to badge). Some help you out in other ways like allowing you to swim better or automatically giving you a Super Mushroom at the start of the course. And some of them serve to give you an additional challenge, making your character invisible or constantly hopping on spring feet. Between all the different level types and the variety of badges, there’s never anything approaching monotony.
Image Credit: Giarc / GamifiedLife, LLC
Game Length and Difficulty
It’s a fairly short game by modern standards – getting every wonder seed in every level (with the exception of the special world) and finishing off Bowser took me about 20 hours.
I felt like the overall difficulty was pretty low. Each level is conveniently given a difficulty rating from one to five stars to give you an idea of what to expect. The vast majority of the levels are rated at two or three stars, so easy to moderate difficulty. But that’s not to say there are no challenges to be had. Many of the four-star levels are quite difficult. And then there’s the special world, which has the absolute most difficult levels in the game. These are extremely tough – at the time of this writing, I still have yet to complete a mind-numbingly difficult level that has you wall-jumping to various platforms that are appearing (and then disappearing) to the beat of a background song, all while lava is steadily rising beneath you.
Image Credit: Giarc / GamifiedLife, LLC
Multi-Player
The game includes both local and online multiplayer. The local multiplayer option allows up to four people to play cooperatively, similar to the New Super Mario Bros. games. Unlike those games though, you can’t bump into (or on top of) other players. I feel like this is a good change though – while that did allow for some creative means of getting through a level, more often it resulted in players knocking each other into enemies or down chasms. The only complaint I have is that the scrolling of the level is locked onto player one, which can make things a bit more challenging for the other players.
There’s also an online multiplayer mode. But it pretty much just amounts to being able to see other players making their way through the level in a transparent ghost-like state. There is a possibility that if you die, another player can save you, but apart from that, the other players don’t really have any effect on your game. And depending on the level, it can be a bit disorienting, because while you can see the other players, the state of the level for them might be different. So, you might see them hovering in the air, or walking on platforms that exist for them but not for you. Overall, the online aspect of the game feels a bit tacked-on and unnecessary.
Image Credit: Giarc / GamifiedLife, LLC
Conculsion
Apart from the online oddness and the game’s length, there’s nothing else I can really criticize here. From the tone and humor to the creativity of the level design to the overall gameplay, Super Mario Bros. Wonder is an absolute joy from start to finish.
Image Credit: Giarc / GamifiedLife, LLC
