SUPER MARIO WONDER

Once again, Nintendo has sprung a leak the week before one of their major titles is set to be released and, due to this, I can bring you my initial thoughts on it as you fire up your copy on this launch day. I don’t know who out there is ballsy enough to risk the wrath of Nintendo by putting this stuff online but, you a real one.

I’ve played through about half of Super Mario Wonder by the time you’re reading this and so far, it has been an absolute joy. Like most post-Super Mario World titles (and, for my money, Super Mario World is probably the closest game to this in terms of structure and that all important ‘feel’ of the famous plumbers weight and momentum), Super Mario Wonder is endlessly creative, throwing new ideas at you constantly, rarely reusing concepts for levels and, in the handful of times it does, remixing them or bumping the difficulty in a meaningful way. It keeps you in this constant sweet spot of testing your Mario ability and throwing stuff at you that you've never seen previously, forcing you to dig deep into your Super Mario muscle memory and fly by the seat of your dungarees as you tackle the challenge put in front of you.

It’s genius, but it is a genius that has made up the backbone for many years now. From the word go, Mario’s momentum and your ability to manipulate it through running and jumping is all you need to complete every level in this game and it’s such a strong base that the designers can throw anything into the mix and you’ll always have some idea of how to tackle it. It’s what every platform game really aims for and something Mario games both 2D and 3D are the absolute best at. No surprises that Super Mario Wonder nails this, then.

What it brings to the table, however, are new ways to add things to Mario’s moveset that can allow different approaches to levels and control the difficulty in a way that is far more interesting than simple setting things to ‘easy mode’ and also Super Mario Wonder doubles down on the whole ‘throwing new concepts at you’ thing with the brilliant Wonder Seed pick up that is found in every level. This is where the real Mario Wonder experience lies.

First of all, you’ve got these new ability badges that you can unlock as you play through the game, which fall into two categories - either granting Mario new abilities or simply giving him a little perk that might make life a little easier in a small way. So, for instance, in the case of the former, you can get badges that give Mario his Mario 64 triple-jump, allows him to use his cap to glide distance or swim much faster underwater. The beauty of these is you can choose whichever you want, there’s no restrictions, so if one of them compliments your strengths or covers for a weakness, it gives you a slight advantage. Some of them have more practical uses - the aforementioned badge that allows you to swim faster can be used to reach places underwater that Mario can’t without if, for instance, so some are required to reach certain secret areas - with figuring out which badge is best for completing specific jobs and pulling it off making any replay of a level a bit more compelling. The other type of badge is far more basic - a little buff or a boon like starting with a Mushroom or other powerup or perhaps a one-time recovery from falling down a pit - but are used to control the difficulty for less-skilled players without actually changing the level design or removing stuff.

The Wonder Seeds are the real genius of Super Mario Wonder. Collecting one of these on each stage (after sometimes having to work quite hard to find them in the first place!) causes everything to go completely tonto. In the original footage shown for the game it simply looked like things got a bit trippy but the actual way these sections ‘remix’ the gimmick that the level has been based around, it’s almost like the level before you collect the seed is like a warm up act before the main event, getting you used to things before the Wonder Seed rips the rug out from underneath you. One early example is a level that introduces a bull type enemy that you can bait into rushing at you, destroying any brick blocks that are in its path. You spend the initial moments of the level setting up how they attack and how they break bricks then the rest of the first half using this knowledge to break bricks hiding secrets and navigating the stage. When you collect the Wonder Seed, you’re suddenly running from (and eventually, on top of) a fucking STAMPEDE of them, as they smash their way through the rest of the level. Unfortunately, it is impossible to talk about the Wonder Seed sections without really ruining their brilliant surprises, so you’ll have to take my word for it when I say “expect anything”. When you collect the Wonder Seed, all bets are off.

Obviously, not every level’s gimmick or Wonder Seed section is a complete banger but the hit rate is well over 90% so far and in the handful of levels that didn’t hit quite as hard, at the very least will make you smile and go “that was cool” and if that is the absolute worst a game can get, you know you’re playing a top, top title. It’s all the usual Mario review clichés you’ve heard a thousand times. You know, the “One level in Mario Wonder has a throwaway idea in it that lesser games would base their entire campaign around” - that sort of thing. It’s all true, again.

As a little aside, I’ve been playing this game using the Switch SNES controller and with Mario’s momentum feeling most like Super Mario World, it is a really natural fit and, when I was struggling with a tough stage, switching from the Pro Controller to the SNES one actually made me play better - the dpad is far, far better and more reliable. Highly recommend doing this, if you have the chance.

When Breath of the Wild and Mario Odyssey came out in the same year, Breath of the Wild of course won most Game Of The Year nods and, here in 2023, I imagine Tears of the Kingdom will do the same. The thing is, Tears of the Kingdom is better than Breath of the Wild and Super Mario Wonder is far, far closer to being the better game than Odyssey was to Breath of the Wild. An absolute belter and, as I said upon the release of Tears of the Kingdom, Nintendo once again remind us what a real 10/10 game looks like.

Oh, once again - for those of you who are simps for billion dollar corporations who are going to whine about me ‘getting to play it early’ because I found it on the internet and had the smarts to get it up and running on my Switch, here’s the copy I bought too. Nintendo still got their fifty quid. Relax. Piracy is still the most important aspect of videogame preservation.)

THANKS FOR READING.

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