It’s the McElroy brothers’ fault that I didn’t have a better time with Super Mario Bros. Wonder. For the past several months, the podcasters have been streaming the 1991 Super Nintendo classic Super Mario World on YouTube, and on Tuesday they finally beat Bowser. The reason it took them so long — more than 15 hours altogether — to finish a game that I could run through in an afternoon as a child was because of a clever conceit: One of the brothers worked the direction pad, another handled the jump button, and the third was responsible for speeding and spinning. Battling input lag, communication breakdowns, and one brother being perpetually stoned (which honestly may have been an asset), they made their way through Dinosaur Land as a team. It’s the most compelling thing the prolific podcasters have created in ages. It also made me think a lot about how brilliantly Super Mario World was designed, and it was in this headspace that I checked out the latest entry in the Super Mario franchise during an hourlong demo in Manhattan last week. It didn’t stand a chance.
Super Mario Bros. Wonder is the first side-scrolling Super Mario adventure since New Super Mario Bros. U, a generally well-received launch title for the Wii U in 2012. From my time playing, it seemed like the kind of fairly straightforward platforming adventure we’ve come to expect from the franchise’s 2-D lineup. There are a few fun additions, including new power-ups like the much-memed Elephant Mario, and ten playable characters, the largest stable in the series, most notably including the perennially overlooked Daisy. (Fans are theorizing that she will be revealed as the princess of the game’s Flower Kingdom.) But the marquee new mechanic is the Wonder Flower, a trippy power-up whose effect can best be described as “making things weird.â€
My demo involved trying out several of the game’s levels across its eight worlds, which gave me an opportunity to discover their Wonder Flowers. Each level has one — some are more hidden than others — and consuming them sets off a unique Wonder Effect. A few examples are included in the game’s trailer; the first level’s Wonder Flower makes Warp Pipes come to life, for instance. Another early Wonder Flower sets off a stampede of enemies that runs you right past the end of the level into a new area. My favorite of the Wonder Effects I experienced turned me into a Goomba, complete with eyelashes and a crown so you know it’s a girl. (I was playing as Daisy.)
It was clear how much fun it will be to track down all of the Wonder Flowers and experience their effects. One of the best things about Mario games is how well they reward players’ curiosity, and encouraging us to search every nook and cranny for hidden Wonder Flowers is a great way to reinforce that philosophy. It was a blast to play as a team in multiplayer mode, though much like in New Super Mario Bros. U, the additional players don’t add much mechanically other than being able to revive a fallen ally. The game also looks great: New Super Mario Bros. U was the first Super Mario title to be released in HD and looked a little plasticky. Super Mario Bros. Wonder has softened the palette a bit. Some of the backgrounds look almost watercolor.
Digesting my time with the game in the hours and days that followed, though, I was left with the nagging sense that the Wonder Flowers represent a growing disconnect between novelty and substance. The past 15 years (at least) of Mario titles has largely focused on introducing a flashy new mechanic that generates a lot of fan buzz but ultimately doesn’t add much to the core gameplay. Super Mario Odyssey lets you throw Mario’s hat at creatures to take over their bodies, but the most enticing moment from the trailer, showing Mario transforming into a realistic-looking T-Rex, was disappointing in practice. New Super Mario Bros 2 put a heavy emphasis on collecting coins, the least interesting part of any Mario game. Super Mario 3D World really wanted you to know about the power-up that turns you into a cat. All of these games are fun to play and got good-to-great reviews. But the simple joy of platforming starts to get muddled by the marketing-driven need to keep adding stuff.
Super Mario World is, hands down, the best game in the Mario series — and has a very legitimate claim for best video game of all time. Watching the three McElroy brothers play as one, I could see the mechanics broken down to their base elements. A good platformer tests your ability to coordinate various key inputs. Super Mario World is extremely good at keeping you engaged in that core mechanic. It throws obstacles in your way at just the right time to knock you out of autopilot. It alternately rewards and punishes you for getting clever. Shortcuts lead to more difficult levels, ensuring that you got there because you’re good at the game, not because you got lucky. In other words, the focus of the game is teaching you how to get good at the game. The focus of Super Mario Odyssey is seeing which creatures you can possess with your hat. The focus of Super Mario Bros. Wonder seems to be finding Wonder Flowers.
This is not to say that gimmicks have no place in Mario games. If anything, they’re a key element of the franchise. Super Mario World had its own gimmick — it was the first game in which you could ride Yoshi. But playing a bit of Super Mario Bros. Wonder, I got the sense that the balance was off and has been for a while. I’ve had fun with every Mario release and consider myself a fan of the franchise, but I haven’t meaningfully revisited any Mario title that came out after 2010’s Super Mario Galaxy 2. I go back to Super Mario World, a game that was released nearly two decades before that, every couple of years. Gimmicks are fun, but they have a shelf life. How fun will Super Mario Bros. Wonder be when the wonder effect wears off?