Visually stunning and endlessly charming, Super Mario Brothers Wonder is – its a good mixture of mechanically fun and delightfully weird. This time around, Bowser has turned into a literal castle, intent on taking over the aptly named Flower Kingdom. As he looms over the peaceful citizens of Pedal Isles, they enlist Mario and company to take back thieir land. Each area is guarded by a fortress by Bowser Junior – very remicanet of the mini castles found in Super Mario Brothers 3.
Throughout your adventure, you will come across Wonder Seeds – unlockable flowers that will temporality changes the landacape of the level. Sometimes it will make the level easier, while other times it will introduce a new level of challenge. One level might turn the level into a race where you must outrun a wave of lava – whereas another might turn the ground into a floating cloud until you find another flower that turns the world back to normal. The levels themselves are short, most courses can be completed in two to five minutes. Two Wonder Seeds are usually found in each level, and new areas require a certain number of seeds to unlock your progress.
Periodically you will unlock badges that will give you some gameplay modifiers. There are also specific levels where you can complete challenges to unlock more badges – like an underwater level where you can earn a dolphin kick that can propel your forward and break through bricks. Other early game badges also include Mario’s hat turning into a parachute, or automatically starting each level with a Super Mushroom. The badges can be switched out and equipped at the start of each level.
From the point of view of visuals, Super Mario Wonder features a much different art style than previous entries, and that goes a long way to make this new title stand out from previous ones. The bright color palette particularly shines on an OLED switch in handheld mode, and benefits from the color pop that OLED is known for. The watercolor like art style is akin to something like Rayman Legends. Some levels will allow your character to travel into backgound and back again.
The animations are chock full of personality; Mario will grab his hat as it flies off his head when entering a pipe. Mario is briefly surround by a shield of heat when grabbing a fire flower. Super Mario Wonder makes some bold design choices. In the early levels, the Wonder Seed changes are highly creative, and in another cue from Rayman Legends, many of the areas are set to music.
Super Mario Bros. Wonder isnt a parifularly long game, and its pathway are mostly linear, you could probably main line the golden path in about five to six hours. On the tail end of the game, you might have to hunt to find enough flowers to unlock access to the final area.
you might have do to a bit of hunting to have enough flowers to unlock access to the final area. In terms of a 2D Mario, Super Mario Bros. Wonder is a solid title, especially if you have not played the last few 2D entries. It has enough depth to give it an original hook, but it lacks the more layered level design and epic feel of its 3D counterparts.
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