Reviews are out.

I know we expect good things but these reviews are like super good. 93% between 76 reviews at the moment. Which is a bit higher than the highest scoring New Super Mario Bros. game, the original at 89%.

Hope everyone has their Fire Flowers ready. Because Friday is gonna be LIT!

I can't wait!

I reserved this from our library pretty early on so the question becomes will I be one of the ones to get one of the 19 copies on order, or will I be one of the 55 on the wait list!

Time shall tell. Really looking forward to playing it, though.

I'll get to dive in starting tomorrow. Very excited!!

Damn... I was just going to play a bit last night but I played a lot. This game is GOOD. It feels like on a whole other level from the NSMB games. I liked those well enough but they always felt a bit restrained. This feels like a true blowout of ideas.

It's kind of doing for me what Dread did for Metroid, raising the 2d games back up with the 3d games in my eyes.

I've only played the first four levels, but it's good so far. Haven't had my mind blown yet, but I really appreciate the wonder effects or whatever they call them. The singing piranha plants in the second level was absolutely lovely.

EDIT: A few highly subjective observations. The Bulrush enemies are cute as fuck. I'm so happy the soundtrack doesn't sound like that AI-generated Smooth McGroove type rendition from the trailer. Luigi's face looks weird to me in the character select screen. Not elongated enough or something. But I love that all the Yoshis have slightly different voices.

Also, I've quickly grown to accept the talking flowers' voices. Didn't feel them in the trailer and still don't see the point, but I don't mind them. Tried setting the spoken language to Japanese, and hooo boy, after that I was very happy with the English speaking flowers.

I actually love the talking flower voice! It gets pretty meta too, which is funny. Like "Why are you going THAT way?" when I went towards what looked to be a dead end but actually had path to a little secret area.

@Zero
I was literally at that exact point just now. Fantastic level! I love that they've got some more challenging levels this early on. I mean, they're not exactly kaizo hard, but then again, they shouldn't be.

This game just… makes me happy. I really dig it. I’m also really glad that the new voice actor sounds nearly identical. The kid is in his mid twenties so he’ll probably be voicing the character until I die.

I can't stop playing this damn game. Send help.

EDIT: Alright, I'm just gonna come out and say it. Bubble Flower > Elephant Fruit.

Super Mario Wonder feels like a bit of a budget flex to me. like a "what can we, Nintendo, do that these smaller teams cannot? Oh yeah, 100 levels with some crazy unique custom scripted event in every single one".

its very good btw

— Tyler Glaiel (@TylerGlaiel) October 22, 2023

I love the alien environments in this game! I often wonder what possibilities there are for game environments other than the traditional "grass, desert, snow" biomes that we have in the real world. SMBW answers with weird triangle ridges covered in pink flowers, and rhythm blocks floating in space. It's awesome.

I just unlocked my first Expert Badge last night. This game is hilarious.

@Secret_Tunnel

What "zero budget indie platformer" is better than Mario, exactly? I don't quite understand this tweet. And I don't mean that in a mean way, I genuinely have not heard of some non-Mario platformer that everyone is saying "wow, this is as good as what Nintendo does."

I think there are plenty of Metroidvanias that can be classified as that-good, but Mario isn't one of those. Who is topping Mario, either AAA or Indie?

EDIT: Or even "close to as good as." It's fine if no one is doing it better, but I've not even heard of a Mario style platformer that is close-to.

I think that is kind of an odd comment too. I mean, there are some indie platforms that I LOVE but few are even trying to do what Mario does (a relatively chill platformer with a bunch of different creative ideas constantly), they're usually doing their own thing. For instance, I'd rate Celeste very highly but it's more in that genre of difficult twitch platformers, very different from Mario.

I haven't even beaten the game yet, but I'm already having that feeling of "oh no, this game is too short, it can't end yet", simply because I constantly want to see more. I'm ready for a sequel or DLC worlds or whatever, whenever. And I'm not even as in love with this game as many others seem to be. Don't get me wrong, though, the game is absolutely brilliant.

Also: Damn, the enemy roster in this game is pretty amazing. I love how many new enemies they've created, even at times when they could have been lazy and just adapted a pre-existing enemy type and called it a day.

Also also: Still warming up to the soundtrack, but for some reason the more moody tracks have been home runs for me this time around. This one is my jam.

@J.K. Riki

Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze Celeste and Pizza Tower are better, but not Mario Style. I struggle to think of many Mario style indie games, mainly because they would be slow and bland. Hipsters opening their fancy restaurants in the gentrified neighborhood aren't really aspiring to make a plain cheeseburger, you know?

Are there any games, period, that feel the same as 2D Mario. I'm at a loss here.

You people are crazy. There are plenty of games like 2D Mario! Like, uh...

...

Got the final badge this morning, which I believe is the last thing to earn in a 100% file. It's goofy and unexpected and mostly pointless, which is perfect.

Great game! I'm glad I didn't watch any trailers (other than the initial reveals) for this and TOTK. Discovering in-game that TOTK was going to be Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts on steroids was a gob-smacker, and Wonder is full of surprises by nature. Things like the new powerups and the badge system and the multiplayer ghosts were fun in-game reveals that would have been less impactful if I'd watched the trailers. I can't recommend the media blackout highly enough if you're already 100% sold on a game after its debut trailer. (Although, maybe if I'd paid closer attention to the Sonic Superstars pre-release footage, I wouldn't have been so let down...)

I'll probably loan the game out to a few people before playing it again sometime next year. I mostly stuck with the swimming badge for a more "pure" experience my first time through, and I'll definitely try out the more useful badges (and not-so-useful Expert badges) next time. Might be nice to try out Yoshi as well.

r_hjort said:

Alright, I'm just gonna come out and say it. Bubble Flower > Elephant Fruit.

Agreed! The other new powerup is my least favorite, but it's still pretty great. I'm glad the series has moved away from aerial powerups like the tanuki suit and propeller hat and squirrel suit and such. The games are better off with more thoughtful platforming aids like the bubble flower.

J.K. Riki said:

What "zero budget indie platformer" is better than Mario, exactly? I don't quite understand this tweet.

Yeah there's not really any indie platformers that are trying to be Mario that I'm aware of. I DO think there was a question after the Mario Maker games of, how much can a new 2D Mario game really stand out after Nintendo's given players a massive toolset to make their own creative levels? SMB Wonder feels like it was made specifically to answer that question, giving every stage a zany set-piece and tons of enemy/obstacle variety and a ridiculously polished presentation.

r_hjort said:

Also: Damn, the enemy roster in this game is pretty amazing. I love how many new enemies they've created, even at times when they could have been lazy and just adapted a pre-existing enemy type and called it a day.

I really like the way they've created new enemies to replicate alternate versions of existing enemies. For example, the Koopa Troopas act like they did in SMB 1-3 where they'll shake out of their shell if you hold onto it for too long. But then Nintendo also created these new snail enemies that act like the Super Mario World Koopa Troopas that get evicted from their shells for good when you first stomp on them.

Finally beat everything and got everything. Great game, but I feel a bit conflicted about a lot of it. I love the unbridled creativity in all of the levels, but despite that I don't really feel like going back to very many of the levels now that I've seen what they have to offer. There's something about the general gameplay flow that I can't quite put my finger on. I also feel like the elephant transformation is a bit of a dud, the bosses outside of the final one are kind of forgettable and while the soundtrack is fine I think it's a bit of a disappointment after 3D World, Odyssey and even Mario Maker 2. But hey, even so this is a banger of a game.