Games worth discovering

I HAVEN'T PLAYED A MARIO GAME IN OVER 20 YEARS!

2K View2023-10-22

Super Mario Bros.™ Wonder

9.3

ActionPlatformer

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Super Mario Bros.™ Wonder (Reviewed)

Developer: Nintendo

Publisher: Nintendo

Released: October 20th, 2023

Price: $60 USD

Super Mario has been Nintendo's most recognizable character since the 1980s and far into the twenty-first century, hopping up and down and bouncing off a Goomba or three and Koopa Kid in order to save the princess and the Mushroom Kingdom.

I understand what is probably on your mind right now as you're thinking.

"You haven't played Mario in over 20 years!?"

This would be accurate. Super Mario Sunshine, known to few to be one of Nintendo's most worst Mario games (due to camera controls) is the last one I ever touched with my two hands! I liked it, it was pretty great. But I did say the same for Star Fox Adventures and it seems like a lot of the people I meet, think they suck.

*Gasps*

You can clearly see that comparing the two is like comparing a spoon to a fork. I have a lot to say about this game, considering that the last game I played before Sunshine was the original Super Mario Brothers in 1996 and Super Mario World shortly after.

I don't look at many Nintendo games, but I've been thinking about returning back to where it all began for me. I used to be a huge fan of Star Fox 64. I still am and still play it today and other Nintendo games, but as I got older, I only played a few of them.

Story

Bowser is up to his old tricks
The story takes place in a place called the Flower Kingdom while Mario and friends are off visiting, and Bowser starts terrorizing this new kingdom that I quite honestly have no idea about since I am more familiar with the Mushroom Kingdom.

Bowser then steals and uses some of the kingdoms power in the form of a flower and merges with the Princes Castle sealing himself away behind 5 Piranha plants that cannot be removed without collecting the 5 Royal seeds that will gain you entry.

It seems simple, but getting there is no easy task, as you must solve a large amount of tough and enjoyable puzzles to locate these royal seeds in each region of the kingdom in order to bring an end to Bowser's reign of terror, but not once and for all.

He'll always be back!

Presentation

It's so great to see so many familiar faces
Sure. It's not like Mario and his pals haven't been present. It's just that I've never been in a position or desire to revisit a series as old as this one. I recall sitting in front of the old-school television with my grandparents and cousins, blowing into cartridges and living the simple and pleasant life, devoid of responsibilities and anxieties.

I adore Yoshi, and I can still do a pretty great impression of them. I'm overjoyed that I can play as them instead of simply riding them and throwing them down a pit to save my own skin, which I would always try to avoid with the original game.

It's so much more vivid than I had imagined!
I'm used to seeing the originals at a very low 8bit resolution. So the first thing that I noticed was how much color and depth there was in each level, the background, the foreground, secrets nearly everywhere you went. I can't help but soak it all in!

The sensations of the world coming to life are incredible!
The world blends together so seamlessly until you see something like a Pipe, which I have always known to be a way to transport you to the next stage or into hidden locations, suddenly stand upright after interacting with the Wonder Flower and worm its way around the stage assisting you in reaching high areas and locations that could not be reached due to my lack of understanding of how this game works.

Wonder Flowers initially scared me
I know it sounds silly, but I was concerned as my screen was wrapped in a blue wave as the world around me shifted and distorted the creatures and objects.

I felt as if I were having a fever dream before I was able to comprehend what happened. I'm definitely out of the loop with recent Mario games and what all of these Flowers and Seeds are, but the first thing that came to mind was that Mario or any of the selectable characters you choose we're getting as high as a kite to the point where giant plants and other creatures were magically coming to more life than they already were and breaking into song or taking you on magical journeys.

I couldn't help but to just stop and simply be in awe of how much this series has changed over the last 20 years. While the musicals and vibrant visual aspects were capable of holding my attention for extended periods of time, the same could be said of the actual soundtracks; they all sound so catchy that even as I write, I notice myself humming a bunch of the melodies from previous stages, and it really makes me want to hop right back on, which I have been doing throughout this article.

The only issue

The Talking Flower
This is practically the only thing in the game that feels strange and weird enough that I had to disable it. The talking plant was highly off-putting to me as a retro gamer who hadn't seen or interacted with the series in quite some time, or rather it was really difficult to take the game in a fun aspect when I kept yelling "Shut up! You're ruining it!" mostly due to the fact that everyone else speaks in sounds.

I honestly can't say this is a problem because... You may solve that by going into the settings and manually tweaking the in-game options to select text only.

What a great feature!

Gameplay

Thought it would be boring!
I didn't give it much thought. I expected to play the game and feel that it was too jaded for my need for action & tension and that it didn't have the content to keep me interested. More or less, I thought it would play exactly like the originals, walk to the right, bounce on a few enemies and jump on a flag, while being flipped off by Toad, telling me that the Princess was in another castle. Oh, how wrong I was.

Is Mario usually this much fun, how exactly is it this much fun?

Is it the many different types of minigames that actually test you in enjoyable and non-punitive ways that make you feel rewarded rather than frustrated? Perhaps it's the colors, the style, the personalities, or the bright and happy music. Whatever it is. It works, and I am glad that it does, I feel silly for not coming back sooner.

I have no prior knowledge to back it up, only my childhood and a few videos I have seen others play in the past, but seeing it leaves me feeling like it isn't fun. You have to sit down and actually play it with your own hands to find out that it is more than just a game, but a fun experience you need to experience first hand or with your friends!

I sit down and think about it, but there's always that nagging sensation in the back of my mind that it's not going to be fun. But it's always entertaining. This game, and Mario in general, is proof of that. It has always been entertaining and will continue to be for many years to come because Nintendo understands how to engage their audience with enjoyable platforming, story and characters.

I keep moving forward, not for the sake of it, but because I am having so much fun.

I spent far more time than I should have in each world because I was so enamored with them, and I didn't want to look up how I was supposed to finish each and every secret location, making me feel very accomplished rather than frustrated, or even when I overestimated what I needed to do when the solution was so simple.

Conclusion

I need to reconsider what I believe to be entertaining and engaging.
I feel like I have only scratched the surface and that I haven't discovered anything yet during my slow-paced re-entry into this series. I am definitely taking my time.

I don't recall much of my childhood in terms of my mental capacity to what I regarded to be enjoyable and what I considered to be dull, but what I do remember is that as I grew older, my mind was shaped and molded in a negative way by addiction and the fear of missing out through a lot of the games that I surrounded myself with.

It's not that I don't enjoy a lot of the games I play, but a lot of the games I do play on a daily basis impact me by including things like "LIMITED TIME EVENT!" or flood my senses with Adrenaline and Dopamine for doing absolutely nothing at all.

This makes it increasingly difficult to get away from these games and play others because my need and desire for this easy stimulus is constantly overwhelming me to the point where I normally fall asleep if it isn't present in the game that I'm playing, no matter how hard I try to stay awake. I need it to go above and beyond to engage me. '

This game is not only entertaining, but it has sparked in me a desire to stay away from games that I know are praying on me with techniques and keep myself in the realm of actual fun and fascinating gameplay that I can grin at, rather than gripe and feel annoyed with. I haven't played a lot of Nintendo games over the years.

I am ready to return and rediscover what I have been missing all these years.

This concludes my views of this game; while my opinions may be met with criticism, that is what distinguishes gamers; you don't have to like the same things as others, nor do you have to agree with them. If you want to catch me on one of my streams or locate me on social media, you may do so at the following locations, I'm always playing something new.

- Pawkt