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StarTopic Super Mario Bros. Wonder |ST| It’s a Wonderful Extra Life

chocolate_supra said:
I literally just now found a whole cluster of levels I missed, which I only found because I got an "all wonder seeds collected!" message for world 2 but not for world 1, so I went looking.
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Update: make that two whole clusters of levels I missed
 
OMG yall wtf

I found them

I joked about it the other day but they're actually in the game

wonderfalls-tv-show-social-featured.jpg
 
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omg this Metal Mario music in world 7, that was a pleasant surprise

I'm really glad that for world 6 and 7 the last world wasn't a lava world and they brought in something entirely different for 7
 
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Djehuty said:
i saw a video titled "super mario wonder is mario land 3"

and yeah i kinda agree, its not as creative as those two which threw all the old stuff out the window, but in terms of creativity its the only 2d mario that compares to those 2
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Almost wish they'd called it Wonderland instead of Wonder just to really drive it home because yeah, so far this game feels like the closest thing we'll ever get to a Mario Land 3 (I know Mario Land 3 exists and it's Wario Land 1 but that doesn't count)
 
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Well, one thing's for sure, Water levels still aren't Mario's strong suit. Just finished World 1, which was amazing, probably the best World 1 in any platformer period, and to be welcome immediately by water levels in the beginning of World 2 was funny. I usually think water levels are a meme complaint but outside Mario 1 they kinda are a deserved criticism in how they're handled in 2D Mario games.

I find it funny that in a game all about making 2D Mario iteratively better, they introduce a badge to make Mario's swimming more like Donkey Kong's in Tropical Freeze, only it's still worse than Tropical Freeze by far because it's a badge and the cool-off period is particularly unwieldy ... making me wonder ... why not just implement the swimming from Tropical Freeze at that point? (yes, I know the answer, wouldn't fit with Mario blah blah blah).

This isn't trolling by the way. I'm sure I'll love the world. Just found it funny cause those two levels were the worst so far since the tutorials.
 
Djehuty said:
i saw a video titled "super mario wonder is mario land 3"

and yeah i kinda agree, its not as creative as those two which threw all the old stuff out the window, but in terms of creativity its the only 2d mario that compares to those 2
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As a lover of the Land games, I don't agree with that at all. It's much more in line with World. The Land games are wacky but it's not like Mario 3 and World were lacking surprises or secrets. You ride a shoe in 3 and World didn't even have a goomba until towards the end, and when they show up they look weird.
 
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Just beat the game. Loved the final boss even though I kinda dreaded another Master Hand rehash but it proved me wrong there, it was delightful.

This is a game that I'm gonna have to play multiple times to cement my opinion on, as I did with 3D World. It's competing against SMB3 and SMW, some of the most nostalgic and foundational video games of all time for me. But overall I loved it. I think it stands out as the NSMB team's redemption arc while also proving they were always very talented, just under creative restraints. I still have a lot to do for 100% so I'm looking forward to that. The way boss battles are handled is gonna be a longstanding complaint with this game and the new power-ups were a mixed bag, but the Wonder Flowers truly made it feel unique in a way 2D Mario hasn't in over 30 years. The future of the series seems pretty bright from where I'm sitting.
 
For all my complaints about bosses, castles, Bowser etc. I will say I do love the makeover that Castles and Airships got into… neon green magic factories or whatever. They look super cool, reminds me of how 3D World gave Bowser’s worlds a carnival/circus style makeover.

The more we keep deviating from lava the better! If we’re stuck with Bowser I hope he’s got a new theme every game
 
AngryAlchemist said:
Well, one thing's for sure, Water levels still aren't Mario's strong suit. Just finished World 1, which was amazing, probably the best World 1 in any platformer period, and to be welcome immediately by water levels in the beginning of World 2 was funny. I usually think water levels are a meme complaint but outside Mario 1 they kinda are a deserved criticism in how they're handled in 2D Mario games.

I find it funny that in a game all about making 2D Mario iteratively better, they introduce a badge to make Mario's swimming more like Donkey Kong's in Tropical Freeze, only it's still worse than Tropical Freeze by far because it's a badge and the cool-off period is particularly unwieldy ... making me wonder ... why not just implement the swimming from Tropical Freeze at that point? (yes, I know the answer, wouldn't fit with Mario blah blah blah).

This isn't trolling by the way. I'm sure I'll love the world. Just found it funny cause those two levels were the worst so far since the tutorials.
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If you didn't try it yet, holding a shell improved the standard swimming experience for me, similar to how I feel holding a shell improved Super Mario Galaxy's swimming.

I agree, though: the badge reminded me of Tropical Freeze, but I felt clumsy with it and didn't feel that way in Tropical Freeze.
 
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Overall, this game reminds me the most of Donkey Kong Country 2. The individual level gimmicks that still fill connected. The stories each world creates. The willingness to go balls to the walls when needed. It's pretty refreshing.
 
Okay, I need to stop playing for tonight. 50+ deaths in
The Final-Final Test: Badge Marathon
and I'm only halfway through. At least I have the first half down to a science. Thanks the heavens that the shops start selling bundles of 99 lives by this point in the game.
 
OctoSplattack said:
Okay, I need to stop playing for tonight. 50+ deaths in
The Final-Final Test: Badge Marathon
and I'm only halfway through. At least I have the first half down to a science. Thanks the heavens that the shops start selling bundles of 99 lives by this point in the game.
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Yeah, a couple of the postgame levels have eaten my lives like candy. I can tell once I get deeper in I'm gonna get my butt whooped.
 
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Managed to make it to the 4th area. I appreciate the shorter levels because I'm still making progress and getting the green check stamp is very quick if you missed something
 
ermitron2 said:
Managed to make it to the 4th area. I appreciate the shorter levels because I'm still making progress and getting the green check stamp is very quick if you missed something
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Yeah I actually like the shorter levels. Gives a Mario 3 vibe imo
 
Chauzu said:
My 2 wishes for the sequel:

  • make each character unique and add a bonus collectible to each stage for them
  • rather than just one badge, let us stack them
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Would it be a good idea to make the overworld also an adventure on his own (top-down platforming to reach to the next level)?
I would like to have different kind of bosses in each castle and decent castle music. + bring the flying powerup back.
The current levels are less horizontal based, which was more a focus on super mario bros 3. Don't remember mario world how much flying was been used.
 
The takes about the game being uniquely “broken” due to certain badges or power ups are woefully uneducated on the history of 2D Mario lol
 
xtoc said:
Would it be a good idea to make the overworld also an adventure on his own (top-down platforming to reach to the next level)?
I would like to have different kind of bosses in each castle and decent castle music. + bring the flying powerup back.
The current levels are less horizontal based, which was more a focus on super mario bros 3. Don't remember mario world how much flying was been used.
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World was just as easy to skip large chunks of with flying, it doesn’t have the p-wing and cloud power ups to just skip levels, but the flying mechanics also let you dive and rise back up, and slam into the ground. I’d say flight was just as powerful in SMW but more developed in that you could do more with it. The constant forts and ghost houses slowed it down though, whereas in Mario 3 a P-wing allowed you to skip the bulk of even the world-boss airship levels.
 
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Chauzu said:
  • rather than just one badge, let us stack them
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I have been thinking about if only they'd let us stack, like, two. Just two would make me so happy. Don't make me pick between the wall climb and whatever else, let me pick wall climb and whatever else

(I really like the wall climb)

xtoc said:
Would it be a good idea to make the overworld also an adventure on his own (top-down platforming to reach to the next level)?
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oooooooh like Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair, to an extent?
xtoc said:
I would like to have different kind of bosses in each castle and decent castle music. + bring the flying powerup back.
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yes
xtoc said:
The current levels are less horizontal based, which was more a focus on super mario bros 3. Don't remember mario world how much flying was been used.
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ehhhhh there were some vertical levels in World, but more for climbing than flying. The flying was mostly for finding secrets or getting across large horizontal spaces.

unless I'm forgetting a lot of levels, which is very possible, due to my brain
 
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totofogo said:
The takes about the game being uniquely “broken” due to certain badges or power ups are woefully uneducated on the history of 2D Mario lol
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Yeah, Mario 3 had some great rare ones. The Tanooki suit (flight plus invulnerability while standing still) for a start. Or the P-wing (unlimited flight for a level). My favourite was the Hammer Brother suit for projectiles plus armour.
 
Cape Feather was a big part of Nintendo wanting to streamline their NES-style design into something more approachable for Mario World. You can see it in other games in that era like LTTP and Super Metroid, but Mario World is designed so you can pretty easily circumvent large parts of the game with flight (and often find secrets in the process), whereas flight in SMB3 was harder to pull off due to less big open spaces and shorter airtime. I think when games started having save batteries by default with the SNES, Nintendo moved more towards designing games to reward exploration and going for 100% than arcade-like difficulty that you would be forced to replay over and over.

I think they've generally avoided "true" flight power-ups since then because they don't want to repeat how easily exploitable the Cape Feather was, but consider something like Raccoon Mario too much of a difficulty curve for new and younger players (though that doesn't explain why it's in NSMB2).
 
Mekanos said:
I think when games started having save batteries by default with the SNES, Nintendo moved more towards designing games to reward exploration and going for 100% than arcade-like difficulty that you would be forced to replay over and over.
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Yeah. SMW introduced auto-save after every level and a world map with you able to more freely wander around and replay previous worlds, so Mario became about rinsing each level for secrets and 100% completion. Whereas, while it was possible to spend all afternoon doing an all-levels-complete playthrough of Mario 3, the lack of saves meant that it was a) possible to run out of lives and lose and b) the warp whistles being as strong as finding the warp pipes in SMB, allowing you to just skip huge chunks of the game and get to the end as soon as possible. Mario 3 gently drove you ever onwards, but since SMW, it’s been more about ‘go back and relax, look for secrets if you get stuck or frustrated’. Not that they are difficult games, but it’s the vibe that SMW nailed for Mario since, as SMB3 still had that arcadey ‘it’s possible to run out of lives with no saves and the playthrough to fail, losing all progress’.
 
PixelKnight said:
Yeah. SMW introduced auto-save after every level and a world map with you able to more freely wander around and replay previous worlds, so Mario became about rinsing each level for secrets and 100% completion. Whereas, while it was possible to spend all afternoon doing an all-levels-complete playthrough of Mario 3, the lack of saves meant that it was a) possible to run out of lives and lose and b) the warp whistles being as strong as finding the warp pipes in SMB, allowing you to just skip huge chunks of the game and get to the end as soon as possible. Mario 3 gently drove you ever onwards, but since SMW, it’s been more about ‘go back and relax, look for secrets if you get stuck or frustrated’. Not that they are difficult games, but it’s the vibe that SMW nailed for Mario since, as SMB3 still had that arcadey ‘it’s possible to run out of lives with no saves and the playthrough to fail, losing all progress’.
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Yeah, and I think the NSMB games were in an odd spot because their general design sensibilities were closer to SMB3 (dense horizontal levels with a focus on new ideas and gimmicks, less secret exits and alternate paths, 8 worlds with similar themes/Toad Houses/etc.) but they had more safeguards akin to SMW (extra item slot, replay levels for power-ups) so they sorta straddled the line and never really felt like a full on successor to either sensibility, though I think most would characterize them as being iterative of SMB3. Whereas Wonder, very clearly, is a spiritual successor to World's ideas and philosophies (as well as aesthetics). While I prefer SMB3 to SMW, I definitely think Wonder knows what it wants to be and where it's taking the series going forward, and in many ways does feel like the lost SNES Mario platformer sequel we never got, just modernized. I also think Nintendo spent way too much time doing nostalgic SMB3 throwbacks, even as a huge fan of that game, so I'm happy with how Wonder has turned out in that regard.

Also, doesn't a game over in NES SMB3 just return you to the last checkpoint on the map? That's why toppling Fortresses unlocks the doors. I don't think it just boots you to 1-1, but I might be wrong. That makes the lack of a save battery in that game stranger, honestly.
 
Mekanos said:
Yeah, and I think the NSMB games were in an odd spot because their general design sensibilities were closer to SMB3 (dense horizontal levels with a focus on new ideas and gimmicks, less secret exits and alternate paths, 8 worlds with similar themes/Toad Houses/etc.) but they had more safeguards akin to SMW (extra item slot, replay levels for power-ups) so they sorta straddled the line and never really felt like a full on successor to either sensibility, though I think most would characterize them as being iterative of SMB3. Whereas Wonder, very clearly, is a spiritual successor to World's ideas and philosophies (as well as aesthetics). While I prefer SMB3 to SMW, I definitely think Wonder knows what it wants to be and where it's taking the series going forward, and in many ways does feel like the lost SNES Mario platformer sequel we never got, just modernized. I also think Nintendo spent way too much time doing nostalgic SMB3 throwbacks, even as a huge fan of that game, so I'm happy with how Wonder has turned out in that regard.

Also, doesn't a game over in NES SMB3 just return you to the last checkpoint on the map? That's why toppling Fortresses unlocks the doors. I don't think it just boots you to 1-1, but I might be wrong. That makes the lack of a save battery in that game stranger, honestly.
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Ah yes, maybe to the start of the world/warp pipe? Honestly it’s been so long since I’ve played it, am sure you’re right. I just remember SMB3 being the last time I saw a game over in a Mario platformer! Agree that Wonder is very much a ‘Super Mario World’ descendant in vibe and philosophy.
 
The fact that Wonder is inspiring us to write essays on Mario design philosophy through the years is a big damn compliment for the team, I think
 
xtoc said:
Would it be a good idea to make the overworld also an adventure on his own (top-down platforming to reach to the next level)?
Click to expand...
Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair does something like this, although it's more of a simplified take on 2D Zelda than top-down platforming. I think it works pretty well and could be fun in a Mario game too.

I do think it would be more fun if the characters controlled differently, but I suppose the badges are there to achieve the same outcome. I wouldn't want per character collectibles, but might be in a minority on this. I care a lot more about the joy of just running and jumping than collectibles, and even what they have in the game already is a bit too much for me 😅
 
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I'm stuck in this state where the game is so good I just want to play it non-stop, but I also don't want to finish it in less than a week so I force myself stop playing. It's a good problem to have.

I do hope the special world get harder at some point though. The first 2 stages made died only 3 times (once on the first, twice for the second).
 
juuso said:
I do think it would be more fun if the characters controlled differently, but I suppose the badges are there to achieve the same outcome. I wouldn't want per character collectibles, but might be in a minority on this. I care a lot more about the joy of just running and jumping than collectibles, and even what they have in the game already is a bit too much for me 😅
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Pre-release I woulda said I wished the characters controlled differently, but if that were the case I'd probably just play as Mario the whole time out of concern for an inconsistent experience. But having all the characters control the same is making it comfortable for me to swap them around every few levels just for fun, which I never do, because there's no consequence for it here.

Maronic03 said:
I do hope the special world get harder at some point though. The first 2 stages made died only 3 times (once on the first, twice for the second).
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:oops:

oh wow uh

*covers up his massive death counts from the special world levels* nothing to see here~
 
I'm really enjoying Mario Wonder, probs my fav Mario game since 64. But I can't say I get that "feel like a kid again" feeling. I've only got it from BotW and I doubt I'll ever get it again.
 
One surprising step back from NSMBU that doesn’t affect me that much but is still noticeable is the segmentation of the world map by loading screens. I was definitely expecting it all to be seamless.

It’s made up for a bit by the hub and spoke design of the Petal Isles as well as the special world warps, but I hoped for a bit more interconnectivity between worlds. It really seems like it’s only finding Captain Toad where that happens. Which is like… nothing significant at all.

But in terms of the individual world maps themselves, they nailed them for the most part and it’s a massive step up. Can’t have everything I suppose.
 
by the way if anyone is having trouble in later levels there is an infinite 1-up trick in 1-3 though its kinda tricky to pull off
 
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chocolate_supra said:
:oops:

oh wow uh

*covers up his massive death counts from the special world levels* nothing to see here~
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To be fair, what made the second stage relatively simple was the fact that the game keeps the purple coins you got even after you die. So on my third attempt, I already had all three of them and could just rush the level without losing time.
 
Holy shit I’ve just realized how similar the petal isles overworld theme is to the Skyloft theme from Skyward Sword.
 
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I am now post W3 and the level designs get better and better. Looking forward to more!
 
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totofogo said:
Pardon my hyperbole but

EVERY new enemy is a hit. This is wild. I just met the firework bobombs and am floored.
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I think what’s floored me with the enemies is how there’s so many that only show up only for the couple levels designed around them and that’s it. It’s led to such a huge variety and number of enemies.
 
Mekanos said:
I think they've generally avoided "true" flight power-ups since then because they don't want to repeat how easily exploitable the Cape Feather was, but consider something like Raccoon Mario too much of a difficulty curve for new and younger players (though that doesn't explain why it's in NSMB2).
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Well you would have to learn how to use the cape feather optimally to be able to skip most levels. a lot of kids didn't even know how to do it for probably the first playthrough unless someone showed them. You would have to rhythmically press left on the D-pad to maintain momentum or you might risk plummeting down. While with the Racoon it was fairly easy to just mash the A button. So I think the Racoon is easier to use for beginners. The cape is easy for more experienced players but one of the more difficult Mario power-ups to exploit for beginners. So Racoon being in NSMB2 makes sense.
 
VDenter said:
Well you would have to learn how to use the cape feather optimally to be able to skip most levels. a lot of kids didn't even know how to do it for probably the first playthrough unless someone showed them. You would have to rhythmically press left on the D-pad to maintain momentum or you might risk plummeting down. While with the Racoon it was fairly easy to just mash the A button. So I think the Racoon is easier to use for beginners. The cape is easy for more experienced players but one of the more difficult Mario power-ups to exploit for beginners. So Racoon being in NSMB2 makes sense.
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That's true, but I also think the Cape Feather's slowed descent is a lot more forgiving than the Raccoon's; it trivializes a lot of the platforming challenges in later Mario World levels. Even if keeping sustained flight is a bit more advanced in Mario World, I feel the initial ascend is a lot more flexible and easier to pull off than Raccoon Mario, where pretty much every nanosecond counts or you'll start descending before you know it.
 
Why
does every game now have a grappling hook except the new Zelda?
 
Should 100% finish this tomorrow. I’m sitting outside World 6’s castle and I 100% did everything else currently possible. Was an amazing game and I’m excited to see whatever else it has left.
 
Lugia667 said:
man dolphin kick really does solve alot of the issues with 2d water levels
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I hate that you have to repeatedly press it though, it hurts (at least) my finger. I wish you could also hold it to constantly perform it.
 
Muncher fields must be my favorite mario level ever created. It just has that Super mario 3 level design vibe with Atmospheric Background and music. Absolutely brilliant. I really love petal islands.
 
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