Mario Bros. Wonder director credits younger developers for new ideas
Super Mario Bros. Wonder director Shiro Mouri has credited the game’s younger development team for many of its innovations.
Wonder is the first 2D Mario game since New Super Mario Bros. U in 2012 and appears to introduce the most significant changes to the classic formula since the 1990s, with a striking new art style and ‘Wonder’ mechanic which transforms stages in surprising ways.
Speaking in the latest issue of Game Informer, which is available to purchase now, series producer Takashi Tezuka – who’s worked on every Mario game since the 1985 original – explained that Nintendo intentionally brought in a lot of younger developers to help shape the franchise’s latest reinvention.
“When looking at creating a new Mario, we actually went ahead and brought in a lot of younger people into our staff,” he said. “They’re, of course, developers, but they’re also people who enjoy playing games, and so they wanted to create something that they themselves would enjoy as players. We got a lot of different ideas and different thoughts from as many people as we could within that group.”
The feedback from the newer team members led to Tezuka and Mouri making bigger changes to the core Mario formula, the pair said. That includes removing the in-course timer and score system, letting players stomp enemies underwater, and starting back in the stage after losing a life.
Mouri credited many of the innovations to these newer developers, saying that they could more easily recognise where the franchise needed to change.
“The thing about developers who are new is that they’re not too preoccupied with ‘It was this way, so we must do it this way’,” Mouri said. “I think that there’s a good side to that in that we can really hear their opinions and
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