“I Wonder What That Low-Hanging Fruit Tastes Like”
Did you know that a new 2D Mario game just came out a few weeks ago? Did you know that I got it and played it and enjoyed it? And most importantly, did you know that I’m going to talk too much about it? Well, maybe you didn’t know the first one (unless you’ve seen the ads for it), and you definitely didn’t know about the second one (I haven’t told anyone I bought it except, like, two people; but you could probably have guessed anyway), but if you’ve been here long enough, you definitely should know that last one. It’s Mario. Of course I’m going to talk about it. If I didn’t talk about the first new mainline Mario game in… *checks Wikipedia* Jesus, six years, then what would I even be doing here, anyway?
Writing something else, probably! While I am going to be talking about Mario, the good news (for me) is that I’ve been getting back into writing again and I’ve recently written a bit of a new story. The bad news (for you) is that… well, this one’s too personal to share right now. It’s, uh, an interesting one. Somehow more personal (and more potentially upsetting, if you can believe it) than “Periphery,” so it really needs some time in the oven before I post it here. If I ever post it here, actually; it’s one that could maybe be professionally published in a magazine, if I can make it what I want to be, and they frown upon self-publishing stuff beforehand. So it’s not that I don’t want to share it, but this one needs a bit more of a… deft touch, we’ll say. And a rigorous revision process, and potentially a sensitivity reading from my family and friends. And before you ask: yes, Mom, I am ok. No, this is not a sign of a downward spiral. Not like, uh, “Periphery” kind of was. This time, I’m fine.
Ok back to Mario! Shit, yeah, I don’t think I realized that this was really the first new Super Mario game since Super Mario Odyssey (in 2017). The time span between these Mario games is longer than this blog has existed. Although I guess Mario Maker 2 came out in 2019, and Bowser’s Fury came out in 2021, so it’s not like we’ve had zero Mario in that span (unlike others who will not be named here). But Super Mario Maker 2 barely counts as a mainline Mario game, and Bowser’s Fury, while fantastic in its own right, is kind of stapled onto a re-release of a separate Mario game that came out in 2013, so it hardly feels fair to count that one, either. So it’s been six years since a “new” Mario game, and eleven years since a new, non-Maker 2D Mario game. And, honestly, after the last 2D Mario games were variations of copied-and-pasted levels and designs from 2006’s New Super Mario Bros., and then Nintendo kind of said “fuck it, do it yourselves” and gave us the most powerful-and-accessible platformer builder ever, it’s been a weird decade-plus for 2D Mario.
I mean, when your last 2D games were bland as watery oatmeal and you’ve now got millions of players paying you for the opportunity to make their own unlimited Mario levels, how the fuck would you even follow that up? What could you possibly do to make 2D Mario fresh again? I myself pondered this one for a while, thinking about what I would do if I was Nintendo and saw that practically every possible iteration of regular Mario platformer now existed somewhere, in some form, thanks to Mario Maker 2. Do they even need 2D Mario anymore? Where do you go from here? What do you do now? The answer, as it turns out, is pretty simple: do something in every level that would be impossible in Mario Maker’s limitations. Hand-craft every level to be unique and fundamentally different enough to ever be included in a standard build-it-yourself game. Make something that only people with years of experience in art, coding, and game design could do. And then put Mario in there and see what happens.
This is basically Mario Wonder’s “gimmick,” if you can even call it that: every single level has a Wonder Flower which, when you collect it, fundamentally, and sometimes radically, alters the gameplay or the level structure in some unique way. These changes are always delightful and always worth engaging with, and Mario Wonder was at its best when I was trying to get to the Wonder Flower to see whatever wacky shit would happen next. Sometimes Mario turns into a balloon. Sometimes he turns into a ball. Sometimes he turns into a Goomba! Sometimes it turns into an isometric top-down dungeon crawler! There’s flying dragons, there’s the pipes that turn into worms, there’s roller-skating Koopa-Troopas, there’s entire musical sections where the game suddenly becomes almost a rhythm platformer. The flowers sing, the piranha plants sing, the Boos sing, even Bowser sings. While some of the Wonder effects are repeated between levels, nothing ever showed up often enough (or stayed around long enough) for me to get bored of it. If anything, that’s Mario Wonder’s one big let down; there just isn’t enough of it.
Ok, let me get my griping out of the way first, and then I’ll go back to the good stuff. My biggest issue with the game could probably be summed up thusly: Mario Wonder is so focused on constant novelty that it never stops to actually explore what you could do with the stuff they’ve already got. Each level is one new thing right after another, and then you get the Wonder Flower and it’s a whole bunch of new stuff, and then you platform for two minutes and it’s done. And the game wipes its hand and says, “wasn’t that fun? Let’s see what’s next.” And I was just left sitting there half the time, thinking, “wait, that’s it?” And maybe they’re saving it for a sequel or DLC or something, but there are wonder effects that I remember thinking, “Damn, this could make some incredibly challenging platforming opportunities, I hope that they build on this in the later levels!” And then I never. Saw it. Again. Ice level with the sideways-falling snow blocks and metal Mario, I’m looking at you.
Perhaps this is a function of the game being designed from the ground up to be as accessible as possible. Especially to children. And not just like 8-12, but like even as young as 5 or 6. I’m talking, like, pre-able-to-read children. That’s the whole point of those talking flowers, right? Kids can’t read, but they sure can understand when the talking flower says “hmm, you should look at this block right here.” (And, side note, I thought I would hate the flowers but I actually kept them on the entire time because some of the shit they said was just buck wild). So the difficulty of the game is never too far above what a child could conceivably accomplish. I mean, sure, it gets harder near the end, and the secret levels have a few challenges that took me a handful of tries, but nothing in it stopped me for more than ten to fifteen minutes. And even then, maybe only two or three that did. This doesn’t make it less fun, mind you, but it did leave me wanting in the same way that the lack of exploration of the game’s own ideas did. There is nothing approaching Mario Odyssey’s Darker Side gauntlet level or, hell, even some of the regular levels in old-school Mario Galaxy/Mario 64/Mario Bros. 3. But I suspect this is intentional.
This game is intrinsically, irrevocably designed for children (a demographic I am no longer a part of) and not teenagers or nostalgic adults (a demographic I am certainly now a part of), presumably as part of Nintendo’s long-term plans to ensure they have new generations of Mario lovers. I mean, I get it. Between the end of the Wii, the weirdness of the Wii U, the PR disaster of Mario’s 35th anniversary, the early 2010’s spate of bland-ass or ill-conceived mainline Nintendo games, and how long it took Nintendo to get back into stride of figuring out what their fans want, this Mario game is almost a kind of do-over for 2D Mario, or a fresh start (so was Pikmin 4; so was Animal Crossing New Horizons; so was Metroid Dread; I don’t think these are coincidences). Mario hasn’t been allowed to be “new” or “weird” in ages. But this is different. And coincide that with the release of the Mario Movie earlier this year, plus the recent remasters (impending releases? I don’t know when they’re coming out) of Super Mario RPG and Paper Mario: Thousand Year Door (a game that fans have been asking for for over a decade), this whole thing feels like Nintendo attempting to both rebuild long-term fan trust and ensure new fans. And, frankly, they kind of fucking did it.
If my biggest complaint about a game is that it’s too easy and it doesn’t explore its own possibilities as much as it should, then that must mean it’s a pretty damn good game. And I think I have pretty high standards when it comes to games; if I don’t like it, I won’t spend my time on it. I don’t have that much time anymore, so it better be good. Sure, I could level other complaints at the game; the multiplayer is lacking compared to even New Super Mario Bros. Wii (though the online functions are cool! I voluntarily played online! With strangers!). Some of the Wonder effects don’t really do that much. Swapping characters doesn’t actually change the gameplay (except with Yoshi and Nabbit, but then again, they’re helper characters and meant for younger players). And, ultimately, levels still stick to familiar formulas established by other 2D Mario games. Levels don’t evolve in the way they do in, say, Donkey Kong: Tropical Freeze. For all its spectacle (and this game is big on spectacle), in some places the old bones still show through.
Although the one old bone that is missing, Charles Martinet as Mario’s voice, is noticeable and sad. I didn’t notice in the initial trailers that it wasn’t him voicing Mario, but I could immediately tell that something was wrong with Mario’s voice on starting up the game. And that was a kick in the feels I wasn’t prepared for. I do miss the old Mario voice and maybe I’ll write about it more sometime (but probably not; you can guess pretty well what I’d say). But I can’t really fault the game for that; whatever his reasons, Charles left voice-acting for Nintendo on good terms, so I assume it was his decision. The new Mario voice is passable, and a hell of a lot better than Chris Pratt. I just have to get used to it.
But part of the appeal really is just the set dressing! I never thought I’d see the day where a mainline 2D Mario game breaks out of the grass world-desert world-ice world-rock world-cloud world-lava world pattern we’ve had for some twenty-plus years now. But they did! Most of the worlds feel like something I’ve not seen before in Mario (with the exception of Lava world; lava is still the weakest theme of any game it’s in, and I will die on that hill), with the mushroom world especially standing out . The backgrounds are stellar, the little details and flourishes on every animation always make me smile, and the sound design is, as always, far above par. This is 2D Mario at his most lively, at his most energetic and playful that he’s been since Mario World and 6 Golden Coins. This is taking the spectacle of 3D Mario and making it work in 2D. And it really does wonders.
As always, I tend to end these reviews by contemplating what else I could possibly contribute to the discourse around these games that hasn’t already been said a million times. Or wondering why I even bother reviewing these games at all; no one who reads my blog is actually in a position where they want to go out and buy these games for themselves. And anyone who might reasonable stumble across it online is, very likely, only going to read a few paragraphs, or skim the post. But something about it is cathartic to me, I suppose. I like thinking about why I enjoy these games, what makes them tick, what I would change. And after all my weird melodramatic emotional turmoil over Mario this year, enjoying this game feels nice. (And also, of course, I needed filler material for this week; oops). I wasn’t initially going to get Mario Wonder when it came out in October; I was going to wait until December and play it at Christmas in the States. But I changed my mind on a whim, and I am glad that I did. So let’s leave it at this: Super Mario Bros. Wonder is a great game. Easily the best 2D Mario in over twenty years. And while it certainly isn’t going to be dethroning the 3D titles as Mario’s bestest bests, it signals good things for both Mario’s future and Nintendo’s outlook on their most popular franchises.
This is a good game. This is a good platformer. This is a good Mario. It is, indeed, quite wonderful. And I hope things get weirder from here.
