Super Mario Bros. Wonder Review

He’s the most recognizable video game character in the world today; he’s been featured in over 200 titles since his 1981 inception; he’s starred in a cavalcade of books, comics, terrible cartoons and feature-length movies, while his iconic visage has graced clothing, bedsheets and an array of lawsuit-dodging pizzerias. I am, of course, speaking of none other than Nintendo mascot Mario - The daring, adventurous, happy-go-lucky plumber who has entertained video game fans (and consequently printed oodles of moolah) for just over four decades.

Mario has managed this unparalleled feat of consistency due to Nintendo’s understanding of the core elements that make him, (along with his colorful universe), indelible in the hearts, minds, and memories of gaming fans the world over. Times change, technology changes, even gaming changes, but Mario has been able to shift smoothly through the generations, replicating the key gameplay factors that made him such a superstar in the ’80s while both evolving and adapting to the changing horizons.

Question Blocks, Mushroom power-ups, cutesy enemies, secret worlds, and bouncy tunes, all iconography delivered with a heartwarming aesthetic and an unbridled commitment to quality. This is why every mainline Mario release - from Super Mario Bros. 3 and Super Mario 64 through Super Mario Galaxy and Super Mario Odyssey - has been a hotly anticipated, generation-defining event. The people consistently put their trust in Mario, because Mario consistently delivers the goods.

And Super Mario Bros. Wonder exquisitely continues this tradition.

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After stealing the mythic Wonder Flower, Bowser terrorizes the Flower Kingdom

Having traipsed through a gallery of genres, from RPGs and 3D worlds to kart racers and soccer titles, Super Mario Bros. Wonder sees Nintendo return the plumber and his pals to the form that first brought them to the dance: the side-scrolling 2D platformer. Super Mario Bros. Wonder represents the first 2D Mario platformer for home consoles since 2012’s New Super Mario Bros. U. And if you step beyond that sub-series, then it represents the series’ first 2D platformer for home consoles since 1995’s Yoshi’s Island.

Contrived segue? You betcha, but an apt one all the same. Conceptually and mechanically, Super Mario Bros. Wonder is closer to those 40-year-old adventures than the series has felt in some time, immediately recalling the feel and flow of such iconic entries as Super Mario Bros. 3 and Super Mario World. From its momentum mechanics to its course design, Super Mario Bros. Wonder instantly sets out its stall as both a tribute to and evolution of the halcyon days of the early ’90s.

This vibe is felt immediately upon pressing Start, with a short and adorable intro that provides scene-setting for the journey to come. During a happy visit to the beautiful Flower Kingdom - hosted by its pint-sized ruler, Prince Florian - Mario, Luigi, Princess Peach, and friends find themselves under attack from that no-goodnik Bowser Koopa, who proceeds to steal the kingdom’s precious “Wonder Flower”. This act miraculously causes the malicious monarch to merge with the Flower Kingdom’s palace, creating a frightening half-turtle, half-castle hybrid.

From his new position of dominance, floating high above the kingdom, Bowser prepares to use his newly gained “Wonder Power” to take over the whole world. Fortunately for Prince Florian and his people, The Mario Party agrees to journey far and wide, gathering the land’s Wonder Seeds in a bid to banish Bowser and free the kingdom and its Poplin populace from his sky-high tyranny.

All in a day’s work for the Mushroom Kingdom’s finest, right?

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(1 of 2) New powerups offer our heroes the ability to turn into an elephant

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New powerups offer our heroes the ability to turn into an elephant (left), or to conjure up bubbles to trap enemies (right)

In Super Mario Bros. Wonder, one to four players can choose from a roster of eight characters (although four of these are invincible Yoshi variants), before embarking on an odyssey across the Flower Kingdom’s eight worlds. Each world is comprised of several Courses, varying in length and difficulty. It is up to the player(s) to reach the end of each course and free the hapless Poplin imprisoned within. En route, the player is also tasked with seeking out up to three “Wonder Seeds”, mythic totems hidden within each stage that are then used to unlock further courses. Each world then culminates with a palace, capped off by (disappointingly repetitive) Bowser Jr. battles… Something of a misfire to not utilize the Koopalings.

Once the course gets underway, it’s typical Super Mario Bros. action, with the player dashing through each stage bashing blocks, leaping chasms, traversing through pipelines, and staying one step ahead, (or one bounce on-the-head) of Bowser’s army of minions. These baddies including mainstays such as Goombas, Koopa Troopers, and Hammer Bros. as well as an array of new and comical villains, all out to throw a wrench in the Mario Bros. plans.

Improving the odds in the player’s favor is a line of classic power-ups, including 1-UPs, Invincibility Stars, Fire Flowers, and the ever-iconic Mushroom. New abilities are available in the form of an apple that transforms the player into a water-spouting elephant and a purple flower that offers bubble-blowing abilities. These bubbles can then be used to trap enemies and even create temporary platforms. Bub & Bob say “Hi”.

Additionally, players can purchase and apply “Badges”, selectable power-ups that offer extra skills such as the Parachute Cap, wall bounce abilities, Dolphin Dashes, and even that abominable Luigi high jump from Super Mario Bros. 2. These skills can help out the chosen hero in a pinch, though their usage is more of a bonus than any sort of necessity. Veteran players will mostly find their way through each course’s hazards sans Badges, though the new feature is a welcome one, and will certainly help younger or more inexperienced players.

While much of this gameplay will sound extremely familiar to the Super Mario titles of yore, modern evolution is the key to Wonder‘s overall appeal. Anyone who has spent time with the NES and SNES classics will find themselves immediately at home with the title’s highly familiar mechanics and its encouragement of world exploration. And yet, while this gameplay feels every bit as compelling and enjoyable today as it did in the 16-bit era, Wonder successfully marries this classic action to a theme based on nothing less than absolute whimsy, wild ideas, visual stimulation, and physics-breaking silliness.

Or, to put it another way, “Wonder”.

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The world of Super Mario Bros. Wonder is positively bursting with life and character

It is this sense of awe, beauty, and creativity that imbues Super Mario Bros. Wonder at every turn, offering up exciting, engaging, and heartwarming sights and sounds as Mario and his friends make their way through the Flower Kingdom. Each course contains a hidden “Wonder Flower” which, when collected, transforms the stage in vivid, unpredictable fashion. Maybe the world goes into slow-motion, perhaps gravity takes a hike, the sky can become the floor, or the floor can become the sky, somebody could hit the lights for a stumble through the dark, or our heroes could even find themselves changing perspective on the world, Inception-style. Essentially, the Wonder Flower transforms the very laws of Super Mario Bros., in ways that can often leave the player gasping with delight.

What makes this topsy-turvy kingdom so completely endearing lies in Wonder’s commitment to creativity. The player frequently encounters fun new enemies, dazzling locales, and mid-course moments that are genuinely unpredictable. When these themes of undiluted fun and total silliness are applied to the tried-and-tested Super Mario Bros. gameplay, gaming magic is born. Wonder offers up a beautiful world, rich in color and expertly designed, then decorates its crisp, enjoyable gameplay with unique and memorable concepts.

Nintendo has doused Wonder with personality. Enemies physically react to approaching heroes, eyeing an incoming head bounce with a look of doom, or frowning as they charge into battle. The Mario Party themselves are equally charismatic, offering cute, bespoke animations as they perform tasks such as entering a pipeline. Our heroes and villains feel as vibrant as the world they occupy, with an infectious spirit that embraces the player. Special shout-out should be given to the flower guide, who pops up throughout each course to offer witticisms or cheer the player on. At first, the character’s glibness seems like it may grate, but the heart of the character is wholesome, and his words of encouragement become a delight.

Still, if all the joy has been wrung from your heart, then there is an option to mute our floral friend.

Audio plays a key role in Super Mario Bros. Wonder, not only embellishing the adventure’s atmosphere but often serving as a key rhythm to the flow of the gameplay itself. A drum roll into cymbal clash for the ground pound, Bass drops for crouching characters, and plateaus of music blocks provide a perfect accompaniment for Wonder’s excellent soundtrack. The score features great remixes of some famous Super Mario themes, (as well as hat tips to a few all-time classics), while new ‘choons arrive in the form of bass-heavy underground beats, Arabian-flavored desert themes, and what is easily the Most Metal airship theme in series’ history, featuring the hardest-shredding guitars this side of The Black Album.

It would be remiss not to make mention of Wonder’s parade of performance-based set-pieces: special stages that are designed around absolutely charming musical compositions, performed by the occupants and the structure of the course itself. To say more would certainly be to reveal too much, but these sequences are among Wonder’s highlights - moments that will stay with the player long after the credits roll.

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(1 of 2) The Wonder Flower works in mysterious and unpredictable ways

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The Wonder Flower works in mysterious and unpredictable ways (left), transforming the characters and their surroundings (right)

And when the credits do roll, what is left to do? Well, Wonder has its fair share of collectible challenges to conquer, secret rooms to unveil, and hidden courses to discover, which will provide replay value for the dedicated one-hundred-percenter. Super Mario Bros. Wonder, as a whole, is not a particularly lengthy title, (at least by modern standards), and the veteran Mario player will not have too much trouble reaching the finale in just a handful of sittings.

While Wonder is certainly no cakewalk, it doesn’t offer the same level of challenge faced during NES-era Mario, perhaps an inevitability given Nintendo’s family-focused era. Still, it’s the journey and not the destination - and thus Wonder will, like the classics before it, find itself revisited by players again and again as the years pass.

Super Mario Bros. Wonder offers players a journey packed to capacity with satisfaction and joy. I frequently found myself physically grinning during my own trip through the Flower Kingdom, and rare is the game that puts a literal smile on my face. Crucially, Wonder demonstrates a complete commitment to delivering exciting, accessible, and compelling moment-to-moment gameplay, punctuated with variety in design and showcasing frequent moments of gleeful silliness.

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The musical setpieces are an absolute highlight of the adventure

As much as it is a celebration of the Super Mario Bros. series as a whole, Wonder is equally a celebration of gaming itself. In an era of po-faced, cinematic shooters and bloated open-world adventures, Super Mario Bros. Wonder represents gaming in its purest and most spirited form. Through its gleeful, upbeat thematics, Wonder successfully conjures up the medium’s formative years, a time of lazy weekends, simpler expectations, and an audience that often chose to play, rather than debate. But this is far from a mere nostalgia trip, and while Wonder feels authentic to the gaming greats of yesteryear, it simultaneously raises the bar for generations of platformers still to come.

With Super Mario Bros. Wonder, Nintendo has, once again, delivered a beautifully designed, charmingly realized, and thoroughly joyful jaunt through another fantastical universe. Sporting razor-sharp gameplay - positively bursting with character and personality - Wonder is a celebration of gaming in its purest form, while still boasting one of the most unique and evolutionary experiences in genre history. Viva Mario! Here’s to the next 40 years.

This review is based on a retail build of the game purchased by the reviewer