COUNTDOWN: Top Ten Switch Games I Played in 2023 #3 Super Mario Wonder
It’s time to talk about the elephant in the room. Of course any new entry in the at this point iconic side-scrolling series of Mario games is something to be excited about. And once hands on impressions and previews began trickling in, it was sounding as though Wonder played like the Switch’s answer to SMW2: Yoshi’s Island (on most days, my personal favorite game of all time). Or even some kind of return to form; the direct follow up to the great Super Mario World we’d always dreamed of. If I kinda, maybe squint real hard enough I can sorta see the latter. Which makes me wonder:
Man, can you imagine if Nintendo had had the goombas big enough to just call this thing Super Mario Bros. 5!?
Going back over the notes I jotted down during my (ahem 100% ahem) playthrough, it’s pretty clear that this one wasn’t quite working for me for the first good chunk of playtime. A lot of nitpicks and gripes are listed, things like there not being any Yoshi stages where you can ride on him despite him being there already as a playable character. I was bothered by the amount of unnecessary and unskippable cut scenes which really hurt momentum. The Bowser Jr. battles felt as though they’d be mini-bosses in a better game. There’s no triple jump (The F!?). Clever gameplay mechanics are tossed aside just as quickly as they’re introduced. That the entire thing felt like I was playing a portable SMB game with a home console visual polish. And most disappointing of all: The soundtrack.
Whenever a new first party Nintendo game is released, I am just as excited to hear new compositions as I am to play the game. And though my tune changed overall regarding many initial complaints, it’s a real bummer that the entire OST offers in my opinion only one truly new “classic” musical track:
But I’m glad that I didn’t write anything up about this game before seeing it totally through to completion because it really does turn a corner at about the halfway point. It finally starts to open up itself up, presenting a strong replayable challenge that was ultimately highly satisfying to complete. And outside of that one (admittedly critical) audio blow, everything else presentation wise here is top notch Nintendo. The visuals are stunning with great and often hilarious animation, the controls are as expected impeccable and the whole things feels fun.
But to be blunt, they’re so good at this that this is the kind of game Nintendo should be releasing in their sleep and doesn’t remotely approach being chiseled into the Mount Rushmore of Mario games. Super Mario Wonder is a surprisingly minor installment in Nintendo’s revered platforming legacy and is an example of how a little Nintendo polish can go a long way.
During the production of Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s island Shigeru Miyamoto once famously said (or infamously didn’t say) of the success of Donkey Kong Country that it “proves that players will put up with mediocre gameplay as long as the art is good.” Well, Super Mario Wonder is certainly not in the same league as Yoshi’s Island, maybe it’s closer to DKC. But that’s still great company to keep and Wonder is absolutely one of the best video game playing experiences of 2023. If for nothing else than hopefully putting a nail in the coffin of the New series.
But the triple jump? Yeah, Nintendo I’m gonna need that back next time.
