News 15 minute Super Mario Bros Wonder Direct August 31st at 10 am EDT

[Magic-Man]

 

[Ripfeld89]

The intro cutscene music at the start of the Direct was still an immediately noticeable leap in production quality for 2D Mario. I'm not sure if they've got live instruments in there, but it's way closer to Odyssey or Bowser's Fury than it is NSMBU.

The compositions are fun and lively, it sets the tone well for a brand new world, doesn't sound bad by any extend, but coming off of the rest of Nintendo's top tier output it's hard not to notice a difference. Incremental improvement but still weirdly behind for what was once the flagship series. Heck even the last Paper Mario went all out with its music

Personally, I have my qualms with Nintendo's tendency to build sequels around a big gimmick, because the gimmicks frequently feel unnecessary or underutilized. But like I said, I'm not convinced the Wonder Flower is really even going to come off like one of these in practice. It seems like more of a framing device for just... Having creative platformer stages.

Exactly. Just look at every single Mario platformer before the NSMB series happened, those would be considered on the level of hard reboots by today's standards. Did they separate the templates in Mario Maker for N, Wii, 2, and U? Of course not, drag and drop a different power up in the stage and it's just as good. Wonder is going leaps and bounds forwards compared to how things have been, but like I said it is undeniably living in NSMB's shadow, it still seems more like what a real NSMB sequel should've been like rather than a full fresh clean break for the franchise.

 

[Mekanos]

Just realized the elephant form storing water in its trunk and spraying it is technically iterating on a mechanic from Mario Sunshine... think I'm gonna be sick

 

[Deleted member 2]

I just mean it's technically lower fidelity than live recorded vocals and instruments, it's clearly a sample being played rather than a person singing, just like since way back in Sunshine.

Do you think this is a budget reason, or do you think it's an artistic choice they made?

 

[Bowser Sr.]

I recall some Odyssey tunes that used real instruments in the final game versions being synth when we heard them at first, though of course this would be unlikely to be the case considering this game is out like next month.

I heard a few voice clips of the new Mario on Twitter and he honestly kind of sucks when hes doing anything that isn't a Wahoo. The "it's a me" is so bad it feels like they accidentaly put a first take in the game. Hopefully he gets better or they find a new guy that can "talk while Mario-ing" properly.

 

[ILikeFeet]

Do you think this is a budget reason, or do you think it's an artistic choice they made?

When it comes to music and Mario, it's always artistic. I don't think Nintendo can keep themselves from spending on music

 

[Cheetah6442]

I recall some Odyssey tunes that used real instruments in the final game versions being synth when we heard them at first, though of course this would be unlikely to be the case considering this game is out like next month.

I heard a few voice clips of the new Mario on Twitter and he honestly kind of sucks when hes doing anything that isn't a Wahoo. The "it's a me" is so bad it feels like they accidentaly put a first take in the game. Hopefully he gets better or they find a new guy that can "talk while Mario-ing" properly.

Don't agree with this at all. He sounds mostly similar to how Charles' Mario sound, just a bit higher pitches.

 

[Ripfeld89]

If a bunch of other people hadn't pointed out that Mario sounded different I would've never even suspected that they recast, I would just assume Charles was directed to give a slightly different style of performance, it's well within his ability to do so, or maybe that it was so long since he recorded it that he just happened to not hit the exact same tone. Like just compare Tom Kenny doing Spongebob at the start to now, or any of the Simpsons cast, if you told me they were recast at some point I'd believe you. The knowledge that it's different has me listening more closely to notice the change, but I don't know what anybody's talking about calling the voice bad in any way.

Do you think this is a budget reason, or do you think it's an artistic choice they made?

It's most likely a choice, but doesn't stop it from sounding more "cheap". It's ironic how we can trace the influence of all the classic Mario tunes directly to T-Square for the most part, yet now pretty much only Mario Kart is aiming to portray that exact style of music. 2D Mario always wants to convey being "retro" and digital, but self-referentialism is just a roundabout path to stagnation.

 

[Bowser Sr.]

Don't agree with this at all. He sounds mostly similar to how Charles' Mario sound, just a bit higher pitches.

Pitch has nothing to do with it. His vocals lack energy, he enunciates the words with pretty weak flow and frankly his throat sounds like he's struggling to get the words out at the same time he does the voice. It, again, feels like they accidentaly put a bad first take in the game on every clip that isn't a ''Wahoo/Wahaa'' kinda deal. Unironically brought to mind old Mario voices in Newgrounds parodies I saw as a kid.

 

[Narroo]

2D Mario always wants to convey being "retro" and digital, but self-referentialism is just a roundabout path to stagnation.

Here-here!

A tiny bit of self-referentialism can be fun, but otherwise it's just simply the death of creativity. In fact, too much self-refentialism turns everything into a fangame, where nothing is new and everything is remixed. This was arguably the main problem with most of the NSMB series. It was very sterile, sure, but it was also "more of the same, just for the sake of it" without any of the creative pathos behind the originals. But I think I've gone off-topic.

 

[Cheetah6442]

Pitch has nothing to do with it. His vocals lack energy, he enunciates the words with pretty weak flow and frankly his throat sounds like he's struggling to get the words out at the same time he does the voice. It, again, feels like they accidentaly put a bad first take in the game on every clip that isn't a ''Wahoo/Wahaa'' kinda deal. Unironically brought to mind old Mario voices in Newgrounds parodies I saw as a kid.

Hmm, can't honestly say I agree. The energy imo is still there.

 

[JR436]

God, this looks so cool.

 

[Deleted member 2]

If a bunch of other people hadn't pointed out that Mario sounded different I would've never even suspected that they recast, I would just assume Charles was directed to give a slightly different style of performance, it's well within his ability to do so, or maybe that it was so long since he recorded it that he just happened to not hit the exact same tone. Like just compare Tom Kenny doing Spongebob at the start to now, or any of the Simpsons cast, if you told me they were recast at some point I'd believe you. The knowledge that it's different has me listening more closely to notice the change, but I don't know what anybody's talking about calling the voice bad in any way.

It's most likely a choice, but doesn't stop it from sounding more "cheap". It's ironic how we can trace the influence of all the classic Mario tunes directly to T-Square for the most part, yet now pretty much only Mario Kart is aiming to portray that exact style of music. 2D Mario always wants to convey being "retro" and digital, but self-referentialism is just a roundabout path to stagnation.

Well, I suppose all I can say is hopefully at some point you realize that your association of MIDI sounds with "cheap" is something going on in your head, and not indicative of any sort of objective quality of the music itself.

 

[MondoMega]

I'm reminiscing on my world map speculation from the reveal trailer and i'm pleasantly surprised by just how spot-on it ended up being.

I've posted my thoughts elsewhere but I should probably make them a little more readable by putting them on here. This is:

Mondo's Wonderful World Map and Level Order Ramblings!​

TL;DR? I don't think the standard world progression applies to Wonder, and levels are simply placed on the map relative to their level theme. Alternatively, what we assume is "World 1" is just the first half of the full first World. Leaning toward the first option.

---

Let's start with our the short scene showing our "first world":

The crucial initial observations from this alone:

• Grey squares are not stages, simply stopping points on the map.​
• Cleared levels are denoted by a permanently lit up blue circle; uncleared leveled are denoted by a flashing red circle.​
• At this stage of the game Luigi has only cleared the first level of the game, 'Welcome to the Flower Kingdom!'. From this level he has obtained two Wonder Seeds, and that's as many as he has up in the HUD. The second level, 'Piranha Plants on Parade', also features two wonder seeds to collect. Whether this is the standard count or the number will increase with more difficult levels (note that both are one star) remains to be seen.​
• Much like the New Super Mario Bros. series the area surrounding the level on the map somewhat lines up with what appears in the level itself.​

What you see is what you get; this "first world" only has three stages on the map. All three stages are easily noticable within the footage of the trailer itself too. In order below: the first stage we spend a lot of the trailer focused on, introducing the Elephant power-up and Wonder Flowers in a multi-faceted tutorial. We also see the Mushroom Kingdom in the background at the very start of the stage, an easy way to denote the start of the adventure. The second stage goes beyond saying, we see it on the world map. The third level, featuring the new hippo creatures, is fairly easy to place too: not just due to the shared level theme with 1-1 (which is also the case with 1-3's placement on the world map) but because the hills in the background have physically gotten closer, again much like how the level is placed on the world map.

That's all pretty weird though; a world made up of just three levels, with no fortress or castle at that, is incredibly abnormal. This next screenshot will be crucial to making sense of things though:

We see that the flower pads on the world map are used to traverse to the next section of the map. Typically I would call this going to the next world, but i'll explain why i'm not so sure. There's some other elements worth addressing too:

• The players have 14 Wonder Seeds; a lot more than the collective four you'll find in the first few levels, and I doubt the hippo level suddenly has 10 hidden away. Luckily there is a clear answer:​
• If you look into the canyon area in the background (which we'll get a much better look at following this), you'll notice that the path progressing past our Toad stand-in's House is already unlocked. This means the extra Wonder Seeds are certainly from levels later in the game; they've simply backtracked for the sake of getting this trailer shot. This is notable because...​

• We see the path locked in our close up shot of this segment of the map.​
• Not only that, there doesn't appear to be any level in this segment of the map at all, simply the "Toad" House. It seems to be a location you'll be required to visit before moving forward on the map.​
• The dotted line suddenly ends after the next grey square; nothing to suggest it continues on past that point. Which is where the final scene we see of the world map comes into play:​

• There's a stretch of map here that features zero dotted lines, with multiple stages (or other locations of note; a sign-post featuring a Wonder Seed and another at the top of the screen) with no line connecting them. How could they be accessed, unless there is a free roaming element to the map in addition to more linear segments?
  • As such, they grey square in the canyon would be the beginning of one such area, where there are multiple (optional?) levels to pick from at a time. This would recontextualise the earlier grass area as a tutorial before entering the real meat of the game; whether that be the rest of "World 1" or a more open map than usual without the typical world seperatation, simply level theme and difficulty. This is where the TL;DR from earlier comes from if you're keeping track. The progression in this game is absolutely not like a typical 2D Mario.
• Other things of note while we're here, before we get into the level theme speculation:
  • There are three visible levels up in the clouds so far, plus our two afformentioned smaller circles. Two of these stages are seemingly not connected to any path; but the last in top left is connected to a path that is not yet unlocked, as the level has not yet been completed. The path in the bottom left on the other hand appears already unlocked with no level attached.
  • There is one more icon briefly seen to the far right at the very start of this shot. I do not beleive this is a regular level though; the circle appears to be smaller like other two bonus circles, and it does not appear to be flashing in unison with the rest of the uncleared levels (as is the case with all of the clearly visible levels both in this shot and the earlier grass area shot). No clue what in particular it would be.
  • The area below the clouds appears to be snow-themed. That's in line with a few levels seen elsewhere in the trailer, which we'll get to.

This is the part i'm going to put in spoiler tags, to not take up too much of this page with an endless barrage of images. If you're satisfied with the world map sleuthing you can stop here; this part will be more about connecting together level themes out of the footage shown, starting with levels taking place in our favourite pipe mountain canyon:

Spoiler

These three levels all prominently feature the pipe mountains in the background, and also feature the same dark brown grass floor tiles (can't be seen in the screenshot I picked for the first level, but it's there). There's nothing stopping the stampede Wonder Event from being part of the latter two levels from what we know so far, but i'm assuming they are seperate for now due to the uniqueness of tree platforms (and the other two scenes already appear to have their own level gimmicks). There's one more screen that features the pipe mountains, and it's tied to two other screens in the trailer:

The first forest scene features a few pipes few and far between; appears to be further away from the mountain now, no longer within that area of the map. We've actually seen this forest on the map; going back to the shot of the cast riding flowers:

Beyond the canyons in the very background, you can see plenty of trees. To the right of that there is what looks to be a giant question block, which lines up with another set of levels spotted in the trailer:

Both of the clear desert areas appear to have a giant block motif in the background; a question mark block in the first, and some empty blocks in the second. The clear presence of sand and pyramids is another connecting factor for these two scenes. One unrelated note I have here that applies to some earlier screens too: the bottom of the screen is darkened when the pit below is bottomless, as seen in the Toad screenshoot. Pretty simple visual indicator to tell you when going downward is not a good idea.

There's so many levels, and there's not as much to sepculate about with map placement from here on, so i'm going to do a bit of a lightning round with the final batch, with short comments underneath the barrage of images. Are you ready? I wasn't, since I ran into the image limit while making this and had to combine all of these into a single picture. Whoops!

• Two beach levels with the same notable background structure. We haven't seen where this goes on the map yet, but the two stages are clearly connected to one another.
• Two levels clearly taking place high above the clouds; possibly in the cloud segment of the world map shown earlier. The first screen has white mounds peeking out of the clouds; that would line up with the snow world below, but also look closer to the pyramids from the desert. Not 100% sure.
• These two levels both feature the same type of clouds and background structures, just far closer to the player in the second example. Not sure what the level theme is supposed to be there, but clearly not anything natural.
• Two scenes with snow present. The second also has gears present in the background. Maybe they are connected to the prior level theme; a mix of the traditional snow level theme with a factory / mechanical theme? Kirby already did that, but it would still be fun if accurate.
• We're into the leftovers now:
  • The first underground area we see. The small peek at the surface at the start of the cliff appears to have icicles, so I want to place this as part of the snow area, but i'm just not certain.
  • Another screen that appears to be underground; with poison, a lot of pipes and some overgrown plantlife. No easy clue to go off.
  • This area with giant mushrooms fits in thematically with the look the canyon and desert but doesn't have any notable background features from either. Not sure where to place it for that reason.
  • An interior scene; has a door and that foreground pipe mechanic. Doesn't tell us anything about where it could go on the map; certainly doesn't fit any area we can visibly see in the trailer.

and our grand finale:

This scene outside of Bowser's flying castle. Given the presence of a Wonder Effect I can't use the pallette to place where example this takes places, but to me it seems like it takes place in the clouds moreso than any other setting we've seen. The boss fight against Bowser Jr. naturally takes place inside this castle; but I don't think it needs to be in this particular location. We don't know enough about the game to make a definitive call on that.

Whew; that took awhile. There's a lot to see in the trailer; way more than I realised in the first viewing at least. Hope this was at least entertaining to read!

There's one thing that I did consider but didn't mention though; the NSMB tradition of 1-2 having a secret exit. Turns out, it does!

From other coverage of the demo we've learned that secret exits are back, and they do give you a seperate Wonder Seed from the main exit; see here. Strangely the path here isn't reflected on the World 1 map, and i'm not quite sure where it may lead. There is another green pipe later in the map, with an obvious path leading toward it, but the 1-2 pipe isn't visible on the map screen so i'm not sure this one would be either.

One more round of map speculation before I go though; all about Petal Isles. It's a strange concept in theory; an "extra" world in the middle of the others that connects them all together, you can see the connective paths to each main world branching off from the central isles, with no paths directly between each world. From the close up it's pretty much confirmed; you'll need to go through a bit of Petal Isles to get from World 1 to 2. Though, take note of the open level paths here in spite of the level nearby not being completed, even going past the World 2 entrance to the next island over:

What if the map is even more open than the designated open areas, and after World 1 you can complete the following Worlds in a more varried order? That's the implication i'm getting from how this map is structured. These major collectibles displayed on the below in-game map, what i'm going to call Grand Wonder Seeds for lack of a better term, may be there to ensure that all worlds are cleared before you are given access to the final area (inside the Bowser-possessed castle?). The other solution for the eighth area would be a post-game world, which is also possible (the castle instead being considered a part of Petal Isles?). Not confident either way, but i'm not sure that World 6 is where the main game ends despite the lava theme.

Those Grand Wonder Seeds are also shown on the world summary screen earlier in the post, which is also where we can see there are 8 areas on the selection menu (represented by 8 dots). With the game denoting stage difficulty for individual levels, World 1 already having at least one stage that makes it to 4 star difficulty, and everything else established in mind, it seems to suggest a fairly different progression system from your typical Mario game.

One miscalaneous note that may or may not be relevant to the "is World 6 the final main game world" speculation: the path does continue after the castle in this shot. It may be a fake-out point like the original NSMB's first World 8 castle (or World Castle in 3D World) that leads to the rest of the world with the final castle at the end; or it may be a shortcut out of the world back to the Petal Isles. Impossible to tell from this shot alone, though i'm pretty confident in the game ending at Florian's castle.

 

[Cheetah6442]

I'm reminiscing on my world map speculation from the reveal trailer and i'm pleasantly surprised by just how spot-on it ended up being.



There's one thing that I did consider but didn't mention though; the NSMB tradition of 1-2 having a secret exit. Turns out, it does!

From other coverage of the demo we've learned that secret exits are back, and they do give you a seperate Wonder Seed from the main exit; see here. Strangely the path here isn't reflected on the World 1 map, and i'm not quite sure where it may lead. There is another green pipe later in the map, with an obvious path leading toward it, but the 1-2 pipe isn't visible on the map screen so i'm not sure this one would be either.

One more round of map speculation before I go though; all about Petal Isles. It's a strange concept in theory; an "extra" world in the middle of the others that connects them all together, you can see the connective paths to each main world branching off from the central isles, with no paths directly between each world. From the close up it's pretty much confirmed; you'll need to go through a bit of Petal Isles to get from World 1 to 2. Though, take note of the open level paths here in spite of the level nearby not being completed, even going past the World 2 entrance to the next island over:

What if the map is even more open than the designated open areas, and after World 1 you can complete the following Worlds in a more varried order? That's the implication i'm getting from how this map is structured. These major collectibles displayed on the below in-game map, what i'm going to call Grand Wonder Seeds for lack of a better term, may be there to ensure that all worlds are cleared before you are given access to the final area (inside the Bowser-possessed castle?). The other solution for the eighth area would be a post-game world, which is also possible (the castle instead being considered a part of Petal Isles?). Not confident either way, but i'm not sure that World 6 is where the main game ends despite the lava theme.

Those Grand Wonder Seeds are also shown on the world summary screen earlier in the post, which is also where we can see there are 8 areas on the selection menu (represented by 8 dots). With the game denoting stage difficulty for individual levels, World 1 already having at least one stage that makes it to 4 star difficulty, and everything else established in mind, it seems to suggest a fairly different progression system from your typical Mario game.

One miscalaneous note that may or may not be relevant to the "is World 6 the final main game world" speculation: the path does continue after the castle in this shot. It may be a fake-out point like the original NSMB's first World 8 castle (or World Castle in 3D World) that leads to the rest of the world with the final castle at the end; or it may be a shortcut out of the world back to the Petal Isles. Impossible to tell from this shot alone, though i'm pretty confident in the game ending at Florian's castle.

Wait, Grand Wonder Seeds? Where? Also the volcano world is world 7 technically since Petal Isles is both a world and a central hub.

 

[MondoMega]

Wait, Grand Wonder Seeds? Where?

On the map screen above the world names, and in the course summary screen alongside the regular Wonder Seed tally.

Also the volcano world is world 7 technically since Petal Isles is both a world and a central hub.

It'll be called World 6 in-game though since Petal Isles is not numbered; in the Direct they were careful to say 6 worlds and 7 areas, the latter count includes Petal Isles and the former doesn't.

---

One thing I didn't think to check before; the Japanese Direct shows a very difficult game status from the English footage:

World 1 has not yet been completed here, and the levels in the top right of the map have not yet been unlocked. The button to access the Kingdom Map is also not present yet (clearly because they have not yet accessed the wider world map). Despite that, there is still a second dot present on the world selection though. Unless you can walk past the castle and access Petal Isles before clearing World 1, this may imply the last dot is some sort of tally screen rather than an additional world on top. It does make things more inconclusive though so i'm not going to read too much into the dot in either circumstance anymore because of it. Still hoping for a fun post-game space world regardless.

16 main courses in the first world (Mario's head icon is covering one) is really wild though, stressing that again.

 

[Phendrift]

On the map screen above the world names, and in the course summary screen alongside the regular Wonder Seed tally.



It'll be called World 6 in-game though since Petal Isles is not numbered; in the Direct they were careful to say 6 worlds and 7 areas, the latter count includes Petal Isles and the former doesn't.

---

One thing I didn't think to check before; the Japanese Direct shows a very difficult game status from the English footage:

World 1 has not yet been completed here, and the levels in the top right of the map have not yet been unlocked. The button to access the Kingdom Map is also not present yet (clearly because they have not yet accessed the wider world map). Despite that, there is still a second dot present on the world selection though. Unless you can walk past the castle and access Petal Isles before clearing World 1, this may imply the last dot is some sort of tally screen rather than an additional world on top. It does make things more inconclusive though so i'm not going to read too much into the dot in either circumstance anymore because of it. Still hoping for a fun post-game space world regardless.

16 main courses in the first world (Mario's head icon is covering one) is really wild though, stressing that again.

You might be right about the tally, with that in mind I’m thinking the magma isn’t the final biome, but whatever “surprise” comes after it is still considered world 6, since we’ve seen worlds have multiple biomes.

Post game world dots will be added as they’re unlocked for sure if they’re there. No reason to have them there before.

 

[Cheetah6442]

---

You might be right about the tally, with that in mind I’m thinking the magma isn’t the final biome, but whatever “surprise” comes after it is still considered world 6, since we’ve seen worlds have multiple biomes.

Post game world dots will be added as they’re unlocked for sure if they’re there. No reason to have them there before.

Nah, I think there'll be a World 7(well World 8 technically since like I said before, Petal Isles is both a hub and a world). That image of the dark purple-ish gloomy Castle that was shown in this thread a few pages back seems to take place after the volcano world. That tells there gonna do move that's sorta similar to 3D World.

 

[Cheetah6442]

I'm reminiscing on my world map speculation from the reveal trailer and i'm pleasantly surprised by just how spot-on it ended up being.



There's one thing that I did consider but didn't mention though; the NSMB tradition of 1-2 having a secret exit. Turns out, it does!

From other coverage of the demo we've learned that secret exits are back, and they do give you a seperate Wonder Seed from the main exit; see here. Strangely the path here isn't reflected on the World 1 map, and i'm not quite sure where it may lead. There is another green pipe later in the map, with an obvious path leading toward it, but the 1-2 pipe isn't visible on the map screen so i'm not sure this one would be either.

One more round of map speculation before I go though; all about Petal Isles. It's a strange concept in theory; an "extra" world in the middle of the others that connects them all together, you can see the connective paths to each main world branching off from the central isles, with no paths directly between each world. From the close up it's pretty much confirmed; you'll need to go through a bit of Petal Isles to get from World 1 to 2. Though, take note of the open level paths here in spite of the level nearby not being completed, even going past the World 2 entrance to the next island over:

What if the map is even more open than the designated open areas, and after World 1 you can complete the following Worlds in a more varried order? That's the implication i'm getting from how this map is structured. These major collectibles displayed on the below in-game map, what i'm going to call Grand Wonder Seeds for lack of a better term, may be there to ensure that all worlds are cleared before you are given access to the final area (inside the Bowser-possessed castle?). The other solution for the eighth area would be a post-game world, which is also possible (the castle instead being considered a part of Petal Isles?). Not confident either way, but i'm not sure that World 6 is where the main game ends despite the lava theme.

Those Grand Wonder Seeds are also shown on the world summary screen earlier in the post, which is also where we can see there are 8 areas on the selection menu (represented by 8 dots). With the game denoting stage difficulty for individual levels, World 1 already having at least one stage that makes it to 4 star difficulty, and everything else established in mind, it seems to suggest a fairly different progression system from your typical Mario game.

One miscalaneous note that may or may not be relevant to the "is World 6 the final main game world" speculation: the path does continue after the castle in this shot. It may be a fake-out point like the original NSMB's first World 8 castle (or World Castle in 3D World) that leads to the rest of the world with the final castle at the end; or it may be a shortcut out of the world back to the Petal Isles. Impossible to tell from this shot alone, though i'm pretty confident in the game ending at Florian's castle.

Going back to what you said, I think there is going to be one more world(ala 3D World's World Bowser) before you are able to reach Castle Bowser(yes, that's the official name).