You're a Wonder! Super Mario Bros. Wonder Review
"Life's full of surprises." - Talking Flower
Written by Tink Edwards
Content Warning: This review contains personal anecdotes relating to the death of an animal. If this is a difficult subject for you, please skip down to “The Review” section below. Thank you for reading!
The introduction to my game review is difficult to read. It wasn’t easy to write, either. But I felt compelled to tell a bit of Harriet’s story in hopes that, by writing all of this down, I can heal and maybe comfort others who have dealt with tragedy and might be having a difficult time. So, without further adieu, and with a genuine heartfelt “thank you” to you, the reader, and especially to my friend Harriet, this is my review of Super Mario Bros. Wonder.
“You’re a Wonder!”
Harriet came to us a few years ago, wandering into a little alleyway between the abandoned apartments next door. At first, she was hesitant to get close to us. We fed her and admired her from afar. She was a beautiful gray and white Wegie with a unique fur pattern across her nose that looked just like a Mario mustache. One day, after weeks of being standoffish, she approached my partner, purring, and nuzzled her head against my partner’s leg. After that, Harriet was our cat.
Harriet was an outdoor cat. We tried to bring her inside, but it didn’t go well. She did NOT get along with other cats, so she’d fight with our two girls, Lilly and Little. And any time we opened the door, she would run outside. She spent most of her time in our driveway, basking in the sun. We knew the risks of having an outdoor cat, but we had grown attached, and she seemed happy.
“Life’s full of surprises.”
One day in October, I left the house to grab lunch. When I came back, I noticed she wasn’t in the driveway. I pulled in as usual, but my blood ran cold when I felt a little bump under my tire. She must have darted across the driveway as I pulled up. I rushed out of the car to see Harriet standing there. I breathed a sigh of relief, but then Harriet tried to walk and fell. We called the local veterinarian hospital, and they urged us to bring her in. So we gently loaded Harriet into a box and took off.
We hoped Harriet was fine and had some bruising or a minor fracture. She was acting normally, purring as we pet her head on the drive to the hospital. When we arrived, the veterinarian gave us the horrible news – Harriet’s femur and pelvis were shattered.
I broke down. I hadn’t sobbed like that in years. Decades, maybe. I couldn’t formulate sentences. My partner had to communicate with the doctors. She was so much stronger than me, enduring the mess that I made. We ultimately made the tough decision to have Harry (our affectionate nickname for Harriet) put down.
Losing my little friend destroyed me. I wouldn’t hear her happy little meow in the morning as I fed her before I went to work or have her greet me after a long, tough day at the office ever again.
“Quiet days can be nice too.”
In the week following the accident, I had a difficult time coping. I didn’t want to eat. I’d break into tears while sitting at my desk. I kept replaying the incident over and over in my mind, imagining things I could’ve done differently. I even used my work’s counseling service for the first time. Things were bad. I did have an outpouring of love from friends and family. That got me through those early days.
I was in a dark place when Super Mario Bros. Wonder was released the Friday after Harriet left us. I wasn’t sure if I even wanted to play. It felt as though I didn’t deserve to enjoy video games. But I pressed through the feelings of guilt and fired the game up that evening. And I can say without an ounce of hyperbole that playing Super Mario Bros. Wonder was the most therapeutic experience I’ve had with a piece of media.
The Review: “It’s kinda catchy!”
Nintendo has been in a 2D Mario rut. Not sales-wise. Good lord, no. The NEW Super Mario Bros. game series has sold millions of copies, and they all have favorable reviews. But with the release of Super Mario Maker 1 and 2, Nintendo made these styles of Super Mario games irrelevant. Why bother making another NEW Super Mario Bros. game when the community has made thousands of levels for people to enjoy?
So imagine my surprise when Nintendo announced Super Mario Bros. Wonder, and it looked incredible. Wonder looked to shake the franchise up for the first time in nearly thirty years. Director Shiro Mouri and longtime Mario producer Takashi Tezuka promised to give fans something the series hadn’t delivered in a long time. The promise of… Well, wonder, along with a fresh coat of paint, had Mario fans frothing at the mouth to play the game. Does it live up to the hype? Yes. Yes, it does. Let’s talk about it!
“You don’t see that every day.”
Right off the bat, Wonder is a visual treat. Gone are the plastic-y, stiff character models from the NEW Super Mario Bros. series. Now, every character has tons of unique animations. There is a life to them that the previous games lacked.
Remember the cover of the first issue of Nintendo Power? The one featuring a clay model of Mario, vegetable in hand, being pursued by the villainous Wart? Wonder reminds me of that. When Mario jumps, he gets a bit of air under his hat, making it momentarily pop off his head. When Mario stands on the edge of a platform, he peers over the edge – something Sonic the Hedgehog has been doing since at least 1992. He’s also joined by Luigi, Peach, blue and yellow toads (whose names are Bucken-Berry and Ala-Gold, by the way), Daisy, Yoshi, and Nabbit, with the latter two characters being invulnerable to damage, creating a defacto accessibility mode for younger players.
The sound design and OST are good but could be more memorable. Outside of the new character voices (and the lack of Charles Martinet as the titular Mario Bros.), the overall sound design could have been better. Regardless, and perhaps because I was in an emotional place while playing, I didn’t mind the lack of a new, melodic Mario tune. Koji Kondo and the musical teams at Nintendo have spoiled us for years with songs like Gusty Garden Galaxy’s theme and Jump Up, Super Star! So I suppose it IS a little disappointing not to have something like that here, but what we get is good enough not to be an issue.
“That’s a lot of Piranha Plants…”
The game isn’t particularly challenging, and I thought that might be detrimental to my enjoyment. But I am pleased to report that the game’s creative level design and increasingly goofy Wonder Flower mechanics create an engaging experience despite the lack of difficulty. For the uninitiated, each level of the game contains an item called a Wonder Flower, which completely changes the level when picked up. The Wonder Flower sequences introduce quirky new game mechanics that sometimes completely change the level layout.
For instance, early on, there’s a piranha plant level that’s pretty standard. Dodge the fireballs the plants are spitting at you, avoid being chomped by the piranha plants ducking in and out of pipes, etc. However, magical things happen once you collect the level’s Wonder Flower. The rest of the stage is a musical number performed by singing piranha plants! And it is a sight to behold. The rest of the game is jam-packed with moments like that, so I don’t feel too bad “spoiling” that bit.
For longtime Mario veterans, there are some challenges sprinkled throughout the game. There are unique levels akin to Super Mario World’s Star Road if you want to add some difficulty. But the point of the game is in the spectacle instead of the platforming challenge that some players crave. Hey, we can always hope for DLC that gives the die-hards a little more to nibble on.
Super Mario Bros. Wonder introduces some new power-ups, and thankfully, they’re some of the most interesting the series has to offer. I won’t spoil them, but the promotional materials for the game heavily emphasized one addition – Elephant Mario. It’s a bizarre image, seeing your favorite Mario character morph into an elephant and exclaim, “WOWIE ZOWIE!” Bizarre but welcome.
The elephant power-up is also super useful, as you can melee attack enemies directly in front of you and store water in your trunk for puzzle-solving. You also become heavier, and Nintendo has created some fun weight-based puzzles specifically designed to work with the elephant power-up. There are many different kinds of power-ups, including ones only available through Wonder Flower transformations, so keep an eye out and have fun when they pop up.
“We’re gonna have so much fun!”
Super Mario Bros. Wonder has an online multiplayer mode that, in my opinion, excels better than any platformer’s multiplayer has in the past. Playing with friends and strangers online could be a chore in the NEW Super Mario Bros. games and Super Mario Maker. There was always a high chance that one of your co-players had a bad Internet connection, and that would often slow the game down at best and straight up break it at worst. And that worst-case scenario happened a lot.
With Wonder, online multiplayer is much more passive, so you’re no longer beholden to players with bad Internet. If you activate the online mode, you will see player ghosts playing with you in the level. Instead of waiting on players or catching up to that person who is always speedrunning every level, you can play at your own pace. You can also help the players by either reviving their ghosts by running into them or leaving a cardboard cutout on the ground that acts as a revival totem. A ghost player can touch the totem you left to return to life. Likewise, if you die and return as a ghost, the game gives you a few seconds to catch up to another player or find a totem.
I used the mechanic quite a bit during my playthrough, and now I don’t want any other kind of multiplayer in platformers going forward. It’s perfect. – Note: I did not play local multiplayer, so I cannot speak to its performance or fun factor. Sorry about that!
“Something feels… Off…”
If you can call it that, the game's only real detriment is the repetition of boss concepts. There are a lot of “jump on this thing three times to win” encounters, but Nintendo does a good job of adding little quirks and variations to each fight, so it never feels the same. The exception is the occasional level requiring you to run across the stage and hit a button. These stages are designed to be easy wins for younger players, so I can’t be too harsh on them. And there are only a few throughout the game.
Final Thoughts: “It’s gonna be all right.”
When I finished Super Mario Bros. Wonder, I was grinning from ear to ear. The entire experience of playing the game is one I won’t soon forget. I’m sure my recent trauma enhanced the game’s effect on my mood, so this review may read as if I am overly embellishing the positives while downplaying the negatives, but I genuinely don’t feel like that’s the case. Who knows, the joy I felt while running through the levels collecting Wonder Seeds might’ve been even greater had I not been through the ringer leading up to its release. All I know is I appreciate this game and cherish my time with it.
In 2016, I lost someone very close to me, and Stardew Valley ended up being a cathartic, almost therapeutic experience for me. Super Mario Bros. Wonder is that for me now. While it might not be a perfect experience, it was the perfect experience for me. I’m giving Super Mario Bros. Wonder an emphatic 5/5.
I dedicate this article to my little pal Harriet, whom I miss every day.
