After nearly 40 years of the “Super Mario Bros.” video games, “Super Mario Bros. Wonder” seeks to recapture the feeling of being new. The “Super Mario Bros.” series involves jumping across platforms toward goals. While these games can be enjoyable experiences, many have found that they had become repetitive, without having made effective use of many interesting ideas in the series’ past few titles. But recently, “Super Mario Bros.” got an exciting new entry!
On October 20, “Super Mario Bros. Wonder” was released for the Nintendo Switch system. In this new title, users can play as one of 12 different characters (the most playable characters of any “Super Mario Bros.” game) and experience many features new to the “Super Mario Bros.” series. These features include adding badges that change how the characters function with different badges equipped, as well as offering an optional way to play parallel to other users over the internet. With “Wonder” being part of the game’s name, it focuses on an element called the “Wonder Flower,” which changes the environment and how the game is played in unexpected manners.
How do these elements factor in?
The online mode, which requires subscribing to Nintendo’s online service to use, puts “Player Shadows” into the playing environment. These “Player Shadows” represent other online users, and can either feature their current location and behavior (“Live Player Shadows”), or act as a recreation of the route that player took when they played previously. These “Player Shadows” aren’t just for show, they serve exciting and useful purposes. Either of these types of “Player Shadow” can set sign-like standees of their character at their location in an environment. If a user’s character is knocked out, they may make contact with a “Player Shadow” or one of their standees to be revived, allowing users to not solely rely on checkpoints for retaining their progress in an environment. “Player Shadows” and standees can also allow users to play in parallel, or even offer hints to in-game secrets. Users can either mingle with random “Player Shadows” online or choose to play only with friends.
While seven of the 12 playable characters function as expected, and the remaining five are more distinct, they can all help players to have some identity while playing online. The last five of these characters cannot be hurt by normal means, at the cost of not being powered-up by most in-game items. Four of these five characters also feature mid-air flutter-kicks to help with aerial traversal, and other users on the same device may ride on these characters’ backs.
By equipping a badge, the user may change an element of the game. Each badge offers a new action the character can perform, supports the user, or greatly changes how a character behaves with both benefits and drawbacks. Badges can be switched out between environments, as well as when the user’s character has been knocked out. Experimenting with these variations can often be enjoyable and may increase the user’s ability to succeed as well.
“Wonder Flowers” help environments that they are present in feel more dynamic. With the environments of “Super Mario Bros. Wonder” often featuring a theme, the “Wonder Flowers” often bring that theme to life. Upon collecting one, a “Wonder Seed” becomes available in that environment, and changes occur in the surroundings, or sometimes even the characters, until the “Wonder Seed” is found. “Wonder Seeds” are required to proceed at certain parts of the game, with other methods of obtaining them being available. This system rewards users looking to explore and challenge themselves, while offering routes for other users to make progress.
The “Super Mario Bros.” series’ early games may have been those that pushed to make this style of game known, but there’s great potential for “Super Mario Bros. Wonder” to be an exciting experience for many. While the variety of new game elements can be overwhelming during puzzle-based objectives, users have the option to cooperate with each other to work through these areas together. With dynamic approaches to different objectives, the ability to change how the game is played to fit one’s style, and the social experience of playing alongside others, “Super Mario Bros. Wonder” expanded beyond conventions. It is a joy to take on and explore!