Super Mario Bros. Wonder Devs on How it Took Inspiration from 3D Mario Games
The Super Mario franchise’s line of 2D mainline platformers hasn’t quite been on the same level as its flagship 3D entries over the last couple of decades, but with the New Super Mario Bros. series firmly in our rearview mirror and the upcoming Super Mario Bros. Wonder making lofty promises, there’s plenty of excitement surrounding the 2D Mario line’s future once again.
Mario Wonder has enjoyed near-universe critical acclaim from critics in the lead-up to its release, and it seems it owes quite a bit of its success to the success the Mario franchise has consistently found with 3D platformers.
Speaking during a recent Ask the Developer interview published by Nintendo, veteran producer Takashi Tezuka said that one of the main driving philosophies for Mario Wonder’s development was to craft an experience that, similar to Super Mario Odyssey, would allow greater freedom and a greater range of options, so that it could be enjoyed by players of all skill levels in different ways.
“Compared to 3D Mario games, 2D Mario games may seem to have less visual variation and be more challenging to complete,” Tezuka said. “But then we made a small discovery when developing the smartphone app Super Mario Run. One of the development team members who wasn’t that skilled at Mario platformers told us, ‘I want to see more of the game, but I can’t progress because I’m not that good at this type of game.'”
“We didn’t think it was that challenging, so we hadn’t realised you’d feel discouraged from continuing the game if it felt too difficult,” he continued. “So we started to think about what we could do to make players want to advance. Then we thought, maybe there isn’t enough freedom. For example, I feel that Super Mario Odyssey is designed so
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