After more than a decade since a proper 2D Mario was released, Super Mario Bros. Wonder is finally here! I was never big on the Maker games – most stages feel bad one way or another, but that’s just the nature of user-generated stages in general. I’ve therefore felt a lack of 2D Mario in recent years, so I’m glad Wonder has arrived. I played through it with my brother, so have that in mind when reading.

Mario and friends are in the Flower Kingdom, hanging out with their Prince, Florian. Suddenly, Bowser appears, stealing the kingdom’s castle and merging with it. As usual, it’s up to Mario and friends to stop Bowser from succeeding. On this journey, you can play as one of several characters: Mario, Luigi, Peach, Daisy, Toadette, Blue & Yellow Toads, Green & Red & Yellow & Light Blue Yoshis, and finally Nabbit. The Yoshis and Nabbit cannot take damage, but in exchange they can’t use power-ups. It’s a good line-up of characters, though with how prominent Rosalina has been over the years it’s a bit surprising that she’s not here. Anyway, I’m a bit annoyed that I can’t play as Nabbit or Yoshi without handicap, so I chose to play as Luigi most of the time, occasionally switching to some of the others to change it up. It’s nice that Mario isn’t forced on you, so I hope this sets a trend for the series going forward, even for the 3D adventures.

Gameplay-wise, it doesn’t feel too dissimilar to New U at first glance. You can wall jump and ground pound, you have that little twirl, and you run and jump like usual. However, you can now walk while crouching, you can’t perform a triple jump, and the game feels a bit snappier to play. All in all it feels good as is, but that’s not all there is to the gameplay. Badges are a new feature here, equip one to alter the game in some way. Some badges affect the world, like getting more coins from enemies, placing more blocks for you to land on, or giving you a mushroom at the start of a stage. Some badges affect your moveset, and these are the ones I went for most often. You have the crouch charge jump from Mario USA, one for each of Luigi, Peach, and Toad’s Mario USA/3D World characteristics, my personal favorite that functioned like Galaxy’s spin jump acting like a double jump, and more. A very nice system, though I wish each player could select a badge of their own. In multiplayer, you still only have the one badge. Makes it more fair I guess, but not more fun.

In addition to badges, there are of course power-ups. Fire Flower returns as it always does, and it’s accompanied by three new ones. There’s the Drill one, which allows you to defend yourself from below, while also giving you stronger attacks with a ground pound and also allowing you to dig into flat enough surfaces. A great power-up to avoid damage with. Next, we have the Bubble power-up. Similar to the Fire Flower in usability, you receive the power to shoot bubbles that you can use to either defeat small enemies, or use as platforms to jump off of to gain height. It’s neat that you can create a defensive wall in front of you, but using it to gain height is a bit overshadowed by all the badges that exist. Finally, it’s time to talk about the Elephant in the room… literally!!! Becoming an Elephant makes you three blocks tall and two blocks wide, you can run over gaps that are two blocks wise, you can store water in your trunk, and you can attack similarily to Mario 64. The attacks work similar to the Bubbles in that you can spam basically be safe from enemies from the front, but unlike the Bubbles you can destroy blocks and defeat larger enemies. Having easy access to water is nice, as some levels have secrets hidden in dehydrated plants, though it’s a bit annoying that sprinting forces you to waste a drop of water as you can only store a limited amount of it. All power-ups have their uses and none of them is overpowered, so they’re well-balanced.

Now you may be wondering, if the gameplay’s so good, how are the stages? I’m happy to report that they’re great. Typical to Mario games by now, most stages have three coins to gather (in this case, Purple 10-coins. Purple coins can be found everywhere and are used to buy badges, seeds, and standees, most of which can be seen as optional.) and they all require some amount of skill and exploring in order to find them. Some stages also have secret exits, though not as many as I thought. Proper stages also have a Wonder Flower, but more on them later. Now that I’ve mentioned ”proper stages”, you may be wondering what I mean by that? You see, there are tons of non-proper stages that have different objectives. Instead of reaching the flag pole, you may be trying out a badge in a Badge Challenge, or you may look for some coins in a Search Time stage. You could enter a KO Arena to defeat all the enemies as quickly as possible, or you could play a Break Time stage and be surprised at what you find there. Most of these non-proper stages are relaxing in the sense that you either can’t lose a life or don’t have enemies to worry about. They each also only take around a minute or two to complete, so you could think of them as minigame stages. They do good at varying up the gameplay, so I can’t complain.

To get to any stage, you must traverse the world map. This feels like if the typical point-based map like Mario 3 and World was combined with the open map of 3D World. Most of the map is linear, but some areas allow you to freely explore and find secrets therein. This structure feels like the perfect blend, so I’m very happy with this change. As for the structure in each world, it’s similar to Mario 3, where you begin your time there talking to one of its residents and have them explain the situation, after which you travel through the world in order to collect its Royal Seed. However, some of the worlds even have their own story being told during your time there. For instance, world 3 doesn’t really need help with anything, but you must clear all the trials there before the resident leader allows you to use their Royal Seed. The worlds uses the standard world themes as base, such as grasslands, desert, and lava worlds to name a few, but they have made them a bit more interesting visually. The desert world for example takes some inspiration from how similar it sounds to dessert, and so you can find various pastries and cookies in the level themes there. The levels within a world are also themed appropriately for the most part, giving it a feeling of cohesion.

Visually the game looks great. You can tell that they’ve invested in the animations, as they all look lively and fun. One thing in particular I took note of was how when you swim along the sea floor, the character you play as starts walking as if they were on the moon or, indeed, the sea floor. The game is also looks colorful in general. Where the New Mario games looked pretty basic in all regards, Wonder instead opts for more daring colors and palettes rarely seen in the Mario series for their stages. Bowser had a purple and green palette in the game so most of the castle stages had those colors in them, some stages were themed after sewers with hints of brown and green, desert stages had chocolate tiles with white frosting on them with a pink sky, and so on.

All of the new enemies are welcome as well. Even if some of them behaved like already existing enemies, like how the snails could crawl back into their shells like Koopas could in World, just having a unique design made it more fresh. There are so many new enemies in the game, and basically all of them are used in less than 5 stages. Some often showed up like the aforementioned snails, but series mainstay Buzzy Beetle only showed up in like two stages from what I remember. I think there also was one stage in particular that heavily utilized one type of enemy and one type of gimmick, and they only appeared in that one level! Having such a wide variety of enemies kept the game feeling fresh throughout, which is great.

Speaking of gimmicks, it’s time to talk about the main gimmick of the game, namely the Wonder Flowers. They’re the ”Mario on drugs” jokes turned into reality. Each proper stage has one, with some of them being hidden and some of them relying entirely on the flower. Most of the effects only show up in one or two stages, so they never outstay their welcome. One effect in particular was close however, as it showed up in three or four different stages in close proximity. All of the effects were awesome to experience for the first time and made you stare in ”wonder” at times, but at the end it made me think of Judgment. That game was awesome on a first playthrough, but the revisit wasn’t nearly as good. I did essentially speedrun it that time, but whenever the detective segments appeared they would bore me. I’m not saying that will happen with Wonder, but some effects can potentially be ”one and done” experiences. The effects are more varied and exciting that the stealth parts of Judgment so it is an unfair comparison, but it is what it made me think of. I do think that replaying the game lessens their impact as you know what they do already, and I think a big part of Wonder’s appeal is that initial reaction to them.

One disappointing aspect of the game is that it felt shorter than expected. After games like 3D World and Odyssey had so much post-game content, it felt weird having this end when it did. I guess I have no one to blame but myself, however. With that in mind though, I wonder how many proper stages this game has in comparison to previous titles in the series. Regardless, what is there is great however, no matter the amount, and that’s all that matters in the end. It’s just a bit disappointing after having been a staple for a while. The bosses were also a bit lackluster, as all of them were Bowser Jr, except the final boss which was a bit of a dud. While many have grown tired of the Koopalings, I think they'd do wonders at varying up the bosses, especially considering they could each have different Wonder effects. I also must mention Charles Martinet’s lack of involvement in the game. Having been the voice of Mario since the 64 with Luigi, Wario, and Waluigi following thereafter, it’s the end of an era. In his place we have Kevin Afghani, who voiced Mario and Luigi in this game, and has also been confirmed to be Wario in the upcoming WarioWare game. While Wario sounds noticeably different, Mario sounds nearly identical with only a few lines that sound strange, while Luigi sounds exactly like Charles’ Luigi did back in the Gamecube era. All things considered, Kevin has done a tremendous job voicing the characters, and I look forward to seeing how his voice adapts over time.

A final note: As I played the game in co-op, I have to mention the pros and cons of that. Pros include the ability to revive on other players without wasting a life, and you can also use each other as checkpoints to an extent. More players also mean more backup power-ups. Cons include less control over using enemies as platforms to reach the top of the flagpole or the like, so if you’re not coordinated you’ll miss things, and some of the later stages become nigh impossible. Should all players die at once, you’ll lose a life for each player, which can be a death sentence on more complex stages. In multiplayer, one player is treated as the leader with the camera focused on them, while the others are stuck following the leaders point of view, which isn’t an ideal camera situation.

Where would I rank Mario Wonder on my list of top 2D Mario games? I don’t think it dethrones World, which is my favorite. I’d rather play it than 1, 2, USA, and New U. It may be on par or slightly above 3, which is a great game but slightly outdated for my tastes (e.g. can’t replay levels), so Wonder is at the very least one of the best. Even if the Mario series is nearly 40 years old, this game shows that they still have the ability to make it feel fresh. I’m just glad the sterile ”Mushroom Kingdom only, Toads only”-era is over. With that said, if you have even a mild interest in Wonder, I highly recommend you play it. It probably won’t be my game of the year just based on my personal tastes, but it’s definitely in the running.