 It's always tricky to review a game like Super Mario Bros. Wonder, in some aspects it feels kinda useless, because, I mean, it's Mario. You know it's gonna be well made, you know it's gonna be crammed with all sorts of wildly creative ideas, and you know the controls are gonna be spot on. But when it comes to Mario Wonder specifically, it's getting comparisons to Super Mario World and it's already considered one of the best games of the year, if not the best of 2023. So I figure my job is to help manage expectations with videos like this. It's always kinda weird to go into a game you haven't played before, and you're expecting the absolute best of the best. So I'm here to tell you, does Mario Wonder live up to those insanely high expectations? Oh hell yeah it does. I'll start by saying from making this video, this has gotta be the easiest game in the world to get footage for. Every level in this game is completely unique and packed with tons upon tons of crazy ideas implemented in the most unexpected ways, to the point that Mario Wonder is one of the hardest games to put down, because you're always thinking, just one more level, I gotta see what's in it. I gotta see what badge I'm gonna get next, I gotta see how hard this level is. You take that kind of hook and add it to a game as well made as Mario Wonder, then yeah it's easy to see why this game is so much fun. Mario Wonder borrows the structure from Super Mario World, where you've got eight worlds set up in an overworld that features all sorts of secrets you can unlock, including a special world level, which is very similar to the Star World and Super Mario World. The goal of each level is to find the Wonder Seeds, you get those by either completing the level and by finding the Wonder Flower, which opens up an entirely different level within the level. It can be tricky to find these at times, since there's a few secret exits, false flag poles and hidden areas, but man, that's the allure of this game, just finding out what kind of crazy stuff is gonna happen when you find it. Right away in the second level of the game, you got Singing Piranha Plants, what is this, the small world ride at Disney World? You get the seed and everything goes back to normal, or no, wait a second, what's up here? Huh, wait I'm in the foreground now, what the hell? Again this is just the second level of the game, we're barely scratching the surface at the sheer depth of creativity here. Okay, what's gonna happen here, aww crap, what's this one gonna do? Okay, I guess I'm a pincher bug that can jump really high, sure that works. Every single level is like this, it's just endlessly entertaining. There's lots of other kinds of levels too, like Wiggler races, puzzles where you need to find five flower coins, badge challenges that give you optional new abilities, and of course there's other self-imposed challenges like getting to the top of the flag pole or collecting all three purple coins, and there's also levels where you're transformed into a goomba and you have to sneak past these things trying to eat you, it's such a good time. The power-ups are a lot of fun too, there's the usual bog standard Mario stuff, but there's also the elephant apple that lets you destroy blocks and hold water in your trunk, there's the drill hat that lets you sneak past enemies and find crevices and ledges you can burrow through, and there's the bubble flower where you create your own platforms you can jump on. The game does a great job utilizing these by gradually escalating the difficulty, allowing you to get comfortable with using them before throwing the kitchen sink at you. And yeah, I gotta talk about the difficulty, it is so freaking refreshing to finally play a 2D Mario game that's really challenging but not cheap as hell like we're all used to dealing with in Mario Maker levels. The special world levels are just plain hard, and I mean that in the best possible way, but what I really love is how the game scales its difficulty, if you happen to get stuck somewhere you have a bunch of options available to you. One is to use badges, which you earn with badge challenges, or just by buying them at the store, and there's 24 of these, they can either help you out like allowing you to float using your hat, but there's some that make the game a lot harder, like the badge that makes you sprint forward. Trying to complete a special world level with this badge is insanely hard, but you always feel like it's still doable somehow. Sometimes with games like this it's easy to get caught up in getting every enemy instead of just getting by. Think of games like Contra or Ghouls and Ghosts, in Mario Wonder it's a similar deal where you just have to learn from your mistakes and be better the next time you try, and the controls and level design are so tight that it always feels rewarding. Come on, let's go! Let's go! Let's go! Oh god! Seriously? I missed the last jump? Come on! Another option available to you is to turn on the online multiplayer mode where you can see up to three other players, and you can just watch what they do to figure things out, kinda sorta like Elden Ring, it's pretty cool. These aren't just ghost images either, these are people playing in real time right alongside you. While I normally keep stuff like this turned off in games like this, it is really cool to work with other players to figure out certain levels, and if you die in this mode, you turn into a ghost with five seconds to either find another player to revive you, or to find one of these signposts that other players put down. This mode turns Mario Wonder into an entirely different kind of experience and it's really well done. The way the difficulty is scaled overall reminds me of, again, Super Mario World, where you can kinda control your own difficulty by only unlocking one or two switch palaces or even none at all. This game builds on that, and of course, it's about a thousand times more nuanced. And if that's not enough for you, you can also play as a Yoshi and they don't take damage, so all skill levels are welcomed here. My only nitpick with Mario Wonder is that I think it's too much of a leap from four-star difficulty to five-stars. Call me crazy, but I was able to breeze past most levels that were four-stars and under. But five-stars gets pretty ridiculous. Again, I mean that in a good way, this is coming from a guy who regularly tortures himself going back to the Star World and Super Mario World, or seeking out new crazy Kaizo Mario levels to play. I just wish the three and four-star levels were more on the difficult side. And that's a total nitpick, though, because I can always just apply a badge and try and complete a level while jumping around like this, or by zipping around shooting vines like this is just cause three or something. So yeah, I'm not gonna lie. When I first saw Super Mario Bros. Wonder with a $60 price tag, my reaction was, eh, I don't know. I wasn't much of a fan of the new Super Mario Bros. series because they kinda felt like empty collect-a-thons. But Mario Wonder is a quantum leap better than those games. It's great that Nintendo realized that we're at the point where the kids that grew up playing the new Super Mario Bros. games are now old enough to enjoy the challenge in Mario Wonder, and they do that while still making the game accessible to kids, which is just crazy. And plus, Mario Wonder is just so addictive, where even the most challenging levels are always bringing you back for just one more try. The best compliment I can give this game is that I've gone back to complete certain levels a whole bunch of times, not just to get to the top of the flagpole or to collect the purple coins or whatever, just because it's so freaking fun. So yeah, I was skeptical at first, but as it turns out, Super Mario Bros. Wonder is the best game I've played in 2023, and you should be playing it too. Alright, I wanna thank you for watching, and I hope you have a great rest of your day.