Super Mario Wonder

Welcome to what might be the most psychedelic Mario experience ever created. Super Mario Wonder was released in 2023, and I would be happy to state it has rapidly become one of my favourite Mario platform games. It is tremendous quirky, colourful, fun, full of humour, and gorgeous to look at. There are some marvellously creative levels, and some new game mechanics that breath new life into the format.

Mario and his trusty companions have to journey across the Flower Kingdom, seeking wonder seeds so that Mario can break the seal around Bowser’s Castle, which the villainous turtle has merged with. The seeds throw some wacky changes to levels at you, ranging from a simple change of colour scheme, to far-reaching effects and some very strange goings-on! There are levels that require you to jump to the beat, some scary race-against-the-poison-floor levels, and as is by now a staple of the Mario games, plenty of stuff to find if you are prepared to explore.

It’s faintly unusual to see a formula so tried-and-tested given a makeover that can feel both comfortingly familiar, and brand new, but this is what Nintendo achieved with Super Mario Wonder. Using the Switch’s hardware, they have added some detailed animations to characters and enemies, which are, in a word, adorable!

Pure chaos!

Super Mario Wonder also has a sort of online system. You can’t directly play with others online, but you can see them bouncing around the level, and you can cooperate with each other by rescuing another player’s ghost if they die, and by setting up waypoints to do the same thing. It’s a cute way of creating a friendly community within the game.

Super Mario Wonder is not flawless, but it is a huge load of joy. It’s probably the best Mario platformer I’ve played since Super Mario World. 8/10.

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