Super Mario Bros. Wonder Review
thesixthaxis.comMario is a bit like a video game Jessica Fletcher. Just as murders always conveniently seem to happen around that fictional author, trouble follows Mario wherever he goes, and it’s pretty much always Bowser or Bowser Jr. shaped. That’s exactly what happens in Super Mario Bros. Wonder as Mario and all his Mushroom Kingdom pals decide to wander on over to the nearby Flower Kingdom and pay Prince Florian and the locals a visit. Big ol’ Bowser turns up, zooms in on his Koopa Clown Car, touches the Wonder Seed that everyone’s marvelling at, and promptly turns into an evil castle. Yes, really.
What follows is an immediately familiar adventure across the Flower Kingdom, running, jumping, bouncing off enemies and generally going from left to right on the screen. This is a Mario side-scroller to its core, and we’ve been here countless times before, but Wonder marks a significant shift, an effort to rejuvenate the gameplay compared to where we last saw it with New Super Mario Bros. U – that game first came out over a decade ago!
More immediate is the renewed visual flair that is shown throughout Super Mario Bros. Wonder. The NSMB era looks plain, boring and flat in comparison, and while the backdrops aren’t going to surpass games like Ori and the Will of the Wisps for wow factor, there’s a pleasing gloss and shine to them that’s appealing. Instead it’s really the character that’s imbued to the game through the animations. As Mario heads into a pipe, his hat flies off and a hand comes back out to grab at as it spins; in elephant form, characters have to squeeze themselves in and out of pipes; there’s fun poses that they take as they pick up power-ups. There’s countless small visual touches that are a simple joy to behold.
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