Onward and upward! - A Super Mario Bros. Wonder Thread

HPRshredder · 24 Jun 2023, 00:02

I am obsessed.

This is the most excited I've been for a game since maybe "Zelda Wii U". This gives me an itch to play that reminds me of when I wanted to play Wind Waker after playing OoT on the 3DS and just longing for a copy.

I love what they've done. I love the animations. I love the style. The game makes Mario look similar to clay-Mario from the first and last issue of Nintendo Power. I love that characters stretch their limbs out in joy at the top of their jump arcs.

I'm in love with the talking flowers. They crack me up. They're fun and funny and I look forward to seeing if they're in the whole game or if they're only in the Flower Kingdom and have counterparts in later kingdoms.

I love that they've broken the NSMB mold and managed to create something different. The designs for Yoshi, Peach, Daisy, Mario, Toad, Luigi: all delightful. The whole game looks delightful. The music sounds like freedom and radiates positivity.

I expect this will be my GOTY.

malyzar · 24 Jun 2023, 00:46

Yeah! Pretty stoked. Glad they are getting a little weird again.

Genuinely surprised by Elephant Mario (even though that's arguably not the strangest thing in the trailer). I first saw an image of that on Cohost and assumed it was a fan creation, lol.

Dan · 24 Jun 2023, 07:54

I'm glad they've moved on from the NSMB aesthetic. It was excellent when it first landed on the DS but this is such a needed update to the look. I honestly wouldn't mind if this is the new look for the Mario crew going forward, there's something cozy and nostalgic about it.

Probably the most excited I've been for a new mainline Mario game since Odyssey

breakfastcowl · 24 Jun 2023, 23:45

Looks ridiculously fun. AND FURTHERMORE........ Daisy!

Fruitality · 28 Jun 2023, 09:44

This was so refreshing to watch!

I love how the animation and weird visuals envoke the promotional illustrations and artwork for SMB 1/2/3/World. It's so expressive.

I might have to hear longer versions of the music tracks to get used to it (wah, wah!)

But still, I think this is exactly what I want to see from a refresh SMB. The movement looks great too compared to the floatyness of NSMB.

Can't wait to see more.

HPRshredder · 26 Oct 2023, 03:45

So, I'm about halfway through. I wanted to come back to this now that I've played a bit.

While I don't believe the game is bad, it's sadly not gripping me like I was hoping it would.

I'll still finish it. And maybe I'll feel something different as I get closer to the end. It's happened before, and I do change my mind on games pretty frequently once I've had some time to digest.

If I had to give an early hypothesis as to why it's not clicking, I think it would boil down to 1.) Unfulfilling powerups. I just don't enjoy being an elephant and the bubble ability is lackluster to me. Fire flower should be my least favorite, not my favorite. 2.) A lack of difficulty. I haven't experienced the slightest pushback, so it kind of feels like a chore to beat and like I'm just going through the motions. 3.) Wonder effects. They have neat ideas packed into them, but it feels like a sampler. It's not what I come to a Mario game for, and they're not really *fun* to me, just surprising and unexpected.

The positives for me are excellent music and sound design, gorgeous animations, and stunning visuals. The optional challenges like jumping and climbing to the beat are nice, but I'd like to see more actual challenge in the real levels. The castles also don't feel like castles to me, but rather regular stages. As a castle enthusiast, this is a disappointment.

That's two partial misses from Nintendo this year for me (TotK and SMBW) and one surprise hit (F-Zero 99, my current GOTY).

andrewelmore · 26 Oct 2023, 06:36

Interesting, I kinda had the opposite experience! I don't generally enjoy Mario games much--even the NES games when I was a kid were some of my least favorite NES games, not to say that they're bad, they just didn't do it for me--and I'm having a blast with Wonder so far? I can only take it in small doses of a few levels at a time, but I'm really enjoying it. I like that they removed the time limit, which has been great for exploration and finding the weird wonder flowers and all that. I love the keyframing work in the animations, I feel like it's hugely improved the playability over their last several outings. The kinesthetics feel so much better, the physics are so much more predictable, and I think the badges do a good job of abstracting the old SMB2 concept of different attributes on different characters into something modular, even if a few of them are a bit too fiddly for me. Agreed with TotK though, that one crashed straight into a snowbank for me. I spent like 40 hours trying to like that game before I finally gave up. But this isn't a TotK thread, haha.

HPRshredder · 27 Oct 2023, 04:27

andrewelmore wrote: ↑26 Oct 2023, 06:36 Agreed with TotK though, that one crashed straight into a snowbank for me. I spent like 40 hours trying to like that game before I finally gave up. But this isn't a TotK thread, haha.

Well I'd love to have a conversation with you about TotK sometime then! I really enjoyed BotW for reference, though. So, this isn't carryover from me previously disliking the prior entry.

My personal favorite 2D Mario games are Super Mario Bros 3, and Super Mario World. I haven't played SMB2, NSMB, or NSMB2, but I have played NSMB Wii and NSMB U. I think 3 is a really special game. It's the pinnacle of 2D Mario for me. I think, overall, I might prefer 3D Mario, but 3 and World make it a close call. I think there's a chance my feelings for Wonder will change, but so far it's in the bottom half of my 2D experiences. Not firmly anywhere yet, though. I'll probably play some more today but I'm trying to finish editing a video

andrewelmore · 27 Oct 2023, 07:11

HPRshredder wrote: ↑27 Oct 2023, 04:27
andrewelmore wrote: ↑26 Oct 2023, 06:36 Agreed with TotK though, that one crashed straight into a snowbank for me. I spent like 40 hours trying to like that game before I finally gave up. But this isn't a TotK thread, haha.
Well I'd love to have a conversation with you about TotK sometime then! I really enjoyed BotW for reference, though. So, this isn't carryover from me previously disliking the prior entry.

My personal favorite 2D Mario games are Super Mario Bros 3, and Super Mario World. I haven't played SMB2, NSMB, or NSMB2, but I have played NSMB Wii and NSMB U. I think 3 is a really special game. It's the pinnacle of 2D Mario for me. I think, overall, I might prefer 3D Mario, but 3 and World make it a close call. I think there's a chance my feelings for Wonder will change, but so far it's in the bottom half of my 2D experiences. Not firmly anywhere yet, though. I'll probably play some more today but I'm trying to finish editing a video

I also liked BotW! I have . . . Extremely complicated feelings about TotK but overall I just think the end result of a lot of the refined minutiae in its different design decisions ended up resulting in a very different experience that just wasn't working for me unfortunately.

I've always felt like there's something I'm not "getting" about Mario games. They've never really managed to do much for me? SMB2 was my favorite NES entry, so maybe I've just always wanted those games to be weird and different. And I kinda feel like Nintendo agrees, given how much they've tried to use each new game as a platform for design experimentation. I think 3D World/Land were fascinating. Each level felt like someone had one or two really strong ideas that they wanted to flesh out into one very well composed and unique level, and it was just a string of those. It can be exhausting in long sessions, but if you just want to see a handful of super creative levels that are fun and weird and different, they were pretty good for that, I think? I feel similarly about Wonder, I guess. It's those games, but in 2D. Each level feels like one of the coolest things you might find on itch.io that week, or something. It's rare for me to praise Nintendo's output, but my time with Wonder so far has just been delightful.

I will say, however, that Mario himself is still a black hole of personality. It's not like other games that have come out this year where I'm just thinking about them constantly (Armored Core, Baldur's Gate, Bomb Rush Cyberfunk, etc.). It's just a fun little toy to goof around with after work while I drink some tea and let a record spin or whatever. A "fun little toy" that I also have an immense respect for, haha. I want to be clear, this is not me coming to a defense or anything. Far be it from me to take a bullet for a corporation of any kind, let alone one whose work I haven't had much of any personal connection to for the last 20+ years.

breakfastcowl · 27 Oct 2023, 10:12

So from what I'm reading here... should I wait to jump into this till it hits the $30-35 price point at some pawn shop?

HPRshredder · 29 Oct 2023, 06:54

breakfastcowl wrote: ↑27 Oct 2023, 10:12 So from what I'm reading here... should I wait to jump into this till it hits the $30-35 price point at some pawn shop?

The good thing about Nintendo games is that if you buy them and don't love them enough to keep them, they're super liquid. You can sell them for almost retail and quite quickly. Their ability to hold their value means you'll likely never see it for $30, but you can buy it for $55 and then sell it for $55 on eBay once you're done.