As the latest platformer (at the time of writing) starring the most famous platforming plumber there is, Super Mario Bros. Wonder was fated to get an enhanced rerelease on Nintendo’s improved Switch 2 console. This updated release is an even more jam-packed version of what was already a pretty dense game. Time to visit the Flower Kingdom once more in Super Mario Bros. Wonder – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition + Meetup in Bellabel Park.
Wowie Zowie!
Mario’s 2D platforming history is honestly considerably odder than one might think considering how iconic the games are. Between 1990 and 2006, official titles featuring actual new 2D Mario platforming were remarkably scarce as the mustachioed plumber shifted more into 3D games and spinoffs. Starting with the Nintendo DS, each new Nintendo system would get its own installment of the “New Super Mario Bros.” series, which were introduced as a welcome throwback…at least at first. By the time of NSMB’s fourth installment on the Wii U (and later rerelease on the Switch), these games really stopped feeling “new” enough to fit the title, often fitting a pretty clear mould. Nintendo even saw fit to leave it to the player to make their own 2D Mario instead, handing them all the DIY tools in the Super Mario Maker games. Super Mario Bros. Wonder almost felt like a surprise of its own given the direction the 2D Marios had been going, one that really needed to take a considerable step in another direction to carve out its own identity in the 2D Mario canon.
Outside of the core mechanics found across every 2D Mario, Super Mario Bros. Wonder is presented as a new experience built from the ground up. Although the setup for the game is conventional (i.e. Bowser steals something important, go chase him down through a bunch of level worlds), Super Mario Bros. Wonder takes place in a new neighboring region of the Mushroom Kingdom called the Flower Kingdom. The music, while still upbeat, takes a somewhat different approach, with iconic sound director Koji Kondo and his team of veteran Mario composers leaning more into pleasant string arrangements that take on a bit of a different character from Mario’s usual big band and 70’s/80’s jazz fusion flair. Familiar enemies are relatively scarce, with many of the Flower Kingdom’s flora, fauna, and sentient fungi offering twists and variations on the enemies Mario fans have become extremely used to dealing with. In order to advance through each world to collect the big object waiting at the end (the Royal Seeds), Mario needs to find enough Wonder Seeds scattered across the various levels and stages. While the Wonder Seeds resemble the green coins from Super Mario 3D World as an important collectible, they define Super Mario Bros. Wonder as an experience perhaps more than any other gameplay idea due to a particular way you obtain many of them.
One way to get Wonder Seeds is by finding Wonder Flowers. When you find Wonder Flowers hidden in many levels, grabbing them turns much of the level into an outright trip. Level design changes completely, often becoming significantly more dynamic, with many levels shifting terrain, enemy behavior, camera perspective, or some other wacky alteration. The game wastes no time in getting weird with it, with the second stage of the game, Piranha Plants on Parade, having become immediately iconic for how charming and unlike anything anyone had quite seen from a Mario game it was. The term “gimmick” gets tossed around a lot in gaming, and indeed the Wonder Flowers are Super Mario Bros. Wonder’s signature gimmick, but that doesn’t mean gimmicks can’t be compelling components of a game. While not every level will have a good one, the Wonder Flower sections are a definite highlight and give Wonder its signature identity as a platformer.
There are quite a lot of Wonder Seeds to find. Super Mario Bros. Wonder boasts dozens of levels across its several worlds, as well as many little stages that often feature bite-sized challenges that typically offer an additional seed per stage. In keeping with games like Super Mario World and New Super Mario Bros. there are also often several ways to complete a level, with different paths and exits leading to secrets and new sections to discover on the world map. Levels often have solid replay value as a result, as you might have to beat a stage multiple times to find all the additional stages and the path to the game’s special world. Although the game on the whole isn’t especially difficult even if you avoid the features that make the game easier, many of its special stages should still give you a run for your coins, especially if you haven’t yet become a Mario master after hundreds of hours of ultra-hard Mario Maker stages.
Uncage the Elephant
While the Wonder Flower level variations are what most define Super Mario Bros. Wonder as a platformer, the Flower Kingdom has some other additions to the 2D Mario canon. Beyond the classics like Fire Flowers, there are three additional power-ups to mess around with in the base game: Elephant, Bubble, and Drill Mario. Elephant makes you considerably bulkier, and you can attack with your trunk and even store water to fire off later. It also slightly alters the music when you have this power up active, a nice touch. Bubble allows you to shoot bubble projectiles which can trap/defeat enemies and can be bounced off of. Drill allows you to defeat enemies from below, break tough rocks, and burrow into the dirt. While perhaps not the most novel power-ups, they all fit well into the already excellent level design of the game, offering an experience just fresh enough to not feel like anything you can just get in some other 2D Mario game already.
You have several characters to experience Super Mario Bros. Wonder with from the jump. Mario, Luigi, Peach, Daisy, Toad, and Toadette all play about the same, while Yoshi and Nabbit are effectively the easy mode options of the game, taking into account their enhanced aerial abilities and not taking damage on being hit. Super Mario Bros. Wonder – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition + Meetup in Bellabel Park adds Super Mario Galaxy’s Rosalina and Luma as playable characters; Rosalina is able to run off edges and fall slowly with the ability to jump in midair when she does this, while Luma is strictly a second player option who can float around the screen and attack enemies to assist player one. I would have ideally liked for there to be more variety in how each character played given Luigi, Toad, and Peach often have separate toolkits from Mario, but the fundamental mechanics of how running/speed and jumping work are still rock solid no matter who you go with. Most of the mechanical variety comes in the form of the game’s unlockable badges, which either augment your movement abilities or grant passive benefits (excluding the four special “Expert” badges which change the game considerably). These can be fun to tinker with, although I mainly used the Parachute you get at the start of the game due to just how versatile and broadly helpful it is.
One of the most recognizable aspects of Super Mario Bros. Wonder is that each level is populated by these chatty talking flowers who give a sort of commentary along the way. Sometimes they’re trying to help, sometimes they offer a bit of dry commentary; they have their charming moments, but I find them love-or-hate. Personally, I enjoyed shuffling around the voice language options you have for them (of which there are many to choose from) since each language has a very different cadence and tone to them, and they give the game some charm.
Beyond the ideas and gimmicks however, I couldn’t help but feel like this game still feels more like the next iteration of New Super Mario Bros. than a truly radical new entry. Although it’s fresher than the previous two NSMB titles (2 and U), if the game had been titled “New Super Mario Bros. Wonder”, I can’t say I would have questioned it. In terms of overall gamefeel and color palette, it still feels surprisingly like a New Super Mario Bros. game at many points. And while those games weren’t bad, I can’t say I didn’t feel just a touch burned out between them and the Mario Maker games, something Wonder never quite moved past. There are a lot of iterative changes here, and Nintendo did a great job making this game feel both distinct and familiar, not to mention pretty fun, but I don’t think it feels like an especially bold new direction for Mario despite their efforts.
Meeting Up in Bellabel Park
Super Mario Bros. Wonder – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition + Meetup in Bellabel Park offers an enhanced package for Super Mario Bros. Wonder. You get your staple Switch 2 upgrades like improved resolution in docked mode, though Super Mario Bros. Wonder needed this less than other games as it ran pretty well on the original Switch and always had excellent art direction, to say nothing of the improvements the Switch 2’s Handheld Mode Boost did for original Switch games like Wonder already. There’s the aforementioned inclusion of Rosalina and Luma, who offer meaningful play differences, but they’re more of a garnish than a secret sauce to boost the game.
Now, Super Mario Bros. Wonder always had multiplayer options. They’re a bit less chaotic than the multiplayer of games like New Super Mario Bros. Wii (and I’d argue slightly less fun as a result), but they can be a fun way to experience the game with another as I would very occasionally do with my nephew. There’s also an online multiplayer component, where you can help and be bailed out by strangers the way a local co-op player could if you got hit and didn’t want to lose a life. I found this feature a bit distracting to my experience and turned it off for most of my sessions, but it’s neat that it’s there. The Switch 2 edition focuses a bit more heavily on multiplayer experience with Bellabel Park, its entire new section of side content.
The Bellabel park section features a whole side plot where you need to track down Bowser’s seven Koopaling minions, a recurring set of bosses throughout the series, to find all the Bellabel Flowers. Each of the Koopalings have access to Wonder powers, which means their boss fights are all considerably unique (and pretty decent overall), a welcome change from how similar their boss battles in previous appearances often were. In Bellabel Park, you can also do several challenge stages to get Bellabel Water, including fighting beefed-up versions of the Koopalings. Bellabel Water can be traded for either decorations or new Dual Badges, which combine the effects of multiple other badges (and thus outclass them). There’s also an all-new power-up that turns you into a flower yourself and lets you shoot flowers into the air to hit enemies above you. Beyond this, there’s also Attraction Central, a sort of theme park where you can play multiplayer with either those in the same room as you or players on your friends list online. The game even features GameShare to enable some features for others who might not own the Switch 2 version of the game yet.
While I enjoyed Bellabel Park as something of an expansion for Super Mario Bros. Wonder, the fact that it’s an additional £17 GBP/ $20 USD to upgrade from the original Switch version feels a bit steep if you’re mostly playing this game single-player. The new single-player content is completable in just a couple of hours, and getting stuff through Bellabel Water feels like going through a meager gachapon system. Needing to play locally or with online friends limits the ability to enjoy Attraction Central, which is a touch unfortunate in light of how the game has other online features that don’t require either. The new badges and power-ups are nice bonuses, but they are hardly dealbreakers for the entire experience. And considering Super Mario Bros. Wonder already performed excellently on Switch, especially by that system’s standards, the graphical upgrades aren’t exactly major gamechangers either.
Verdict
Super Mario Bros. Wonder is a pretty darn good 2D platformer that demonstrates the old plumber can still hang with the best of the modern 2D gaming world. While it leans more on gimmicks than radical departures from series conventions, it still has immense charm, strong level design, and spectacular game feel. It’s chock full of stuff to do and ways to get enjoyment out of the experience, with levels having considerable replay value thanks to the many discoveries there are to find, keeping the game in line with 2D Mario at its peak. There are a lot of great experiences starring Mario on the Nintendo Switch, but Wonder is definitely one worth fitting in your library.
The additions found in Super Mario Bros. Wonder – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition + Meetup in Bellabel Park are nice bonuses to add to an already loaded package. However, unless you expect to get a lot of mileage out of Attraction Central with your friends or family, I don’t quite think the additional £17 GBP/ $20 USD price tag makes the upgrade a must for Switch 2 owners, especially given it raises the full price of the game up to £67 GBP/$80 USD.
SUPER MARIO BROS. WONDER – NINTENDO SWITCH 2 EDITION + MEETUP IN BELLABEL PARK IS RECOMMENDED
Check out our review for Kirby and the Forgotten Land Nintendo Switch 2 Edition + Star Crossed World as well if you’re looking into platformers for the Switch 2!
Many thanks go to Nintendo for a Switch 2 review code for Super Mario Bros. Wonder – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition + Meetup in Bellabel Park.
Been playing games since my papa gave me an NES controller in the early 90’s. I play games of almost all genres, but especially focus role-playing, action, and puzzle-platform games. Also an enjoyer of many niche things ranging from speedrunning to obscure music from all over the world.
