Super Mario Bros. Wonder Devs Reveal Unused Wonder Effects

gamerant.com:

The developers behind Super Mario Bros. Wonder recently shared some unused Wonder Effect designs at this year’s Game Developers Conference. The latest mainline Mario platformer launched on the Nintendo Switch in October to rave reviews and record-breaking sales figures, with many praising Super Mario Bros. Wonder for its colorful graphics and imaginative additions to the classic 2D Mario formula.

Some of the most prominent of these new additions are the Wonder Effects, which activate whenever the player collects a Wonder Seed and alter Super Mario Bros. Wonder’s levels in surreal ways. Each stage has a different Wonder Effect, with Mario’s classic green Warp Pipes rising and lowering as the player moves across them, Piranha Plants breaking into song, and Super Stars suddenly raining down from the sky being just a few of the zany effects players can come across.

As it turns out, there are a few Wonder Effects that didn’t make it into Super Mario Bros. Wonder, and they might be even more bizarre than the ones that were included. The game’s developers were present at GDC 2024 (via The Gamer), and they spoke about some of the ideas that were ultimately left on the cutting room floor. According to sound director Koji Kondo, one of these unused Wonder Effects would have briefly turned Mario and the level around him into live-action versions, with Super Mario Bros. Wonder’s music and sound effects being hummed by the plumber himself.

This wasn’t the only scrapped Wonder Effect idea shared at GDC. Another would have transformed Mario into a retro-style sprite inspired by the original NES Mario games, with his head growing to gigantic proportions. This would have made dodging enemies impossible, so the player would have had to simply charge their way through the level as blocks broke off Mario’s head with each foe he bumped into. The development team ultimately found that the effect of Mario losing his head ruined the feature’s visual appeal, hence why it was cut from Super