There is no doubt that Super Mario Bros Wonder is one of the most anticipated video games of the year, especially by fans of the iconic plumber. Nintendo is aware of this, so, on this day, they aired a Nintendo Direct dedicated entirely to reveal new information about this title. Launched this morning and lasting 15 minutes, this presentation told us everything we needed to know about SMBW: the playable characters, the new powers, the new enemies and its multiplayer mode. Here we’ll tell you everything revealed in today’s Direct.
These are all the characters you can control in Super Mario Bros Wonder!
The presentation begins with an explanation of the story and scenario of Super Mario Bros Wonder: Set in the new Flower Kingdom, the story begins when Bowser uses a Wonder Flower to turn it into a giant mobile fortress. So Mario and his friends must help Prince Florian save his kingdom. Being a Mario title, we weren’t expecting a very complex story, but the welcome change of scenery in a new place that isn’t the Mushroom Kingdom is quite refreshing. The Flower Kingdom will be divided into 7 different Areas, and they all look equally picturesque and fun to navigate.
But what Mario fans were most concerned about was the cast of playable characters in Super Mario Bros Wonder. In the initial announcement of the game, we knew that we could play as Mario, Luigi, Peach, Daisy and two different colored Toads. In this Direct, it was confirmed that they will be joined by 3 more: Toadette, Nabbit and Yoshi in 4 different colors.
All characters will have the same properties when navigating levels, with the exception of Yoshi and Nabbit, who will not only have specific powers, but will also be immune to all types of damage and will not be able to use power-ups (although they can die if they fall down a hole) That’s right, Nabbit and the Yoshis are basically the “Easy Mode” of this adventure.
Exciting new Power-Ups!
Power-ups are an essential part of the gameplay of the franchise, and many fans were excited to see what the new powers introduced in Super Mario Bros Wonder would be. In this presentation we had the chance to see how 3 of them work. First, there is the transformation to Elephant, which had already been introduced previously. In this form, Mario and his friends will be able to destroy blocks with his heavy body, defeat enemies and spit water with his trunk. It looks like this will be the main power of this title and is the one we’re most looking forward to trying out for ourselves. It just looks like a lot of fun.
Then the Bubble power-up was revealed, which allows characters to shoot bubbles that will trap enemies. Although you can also jump on these bubbles and use them as additional platforms, which will have a lot of potential for strategic maneuvers during the gameplay. Finally, the Drill power was revealed, which allows characters to attack enemies with drills in their heads, penetrate the ground in specific locations and even dig below the ground to access different locations. It looks interesting and reminds us of the drill from Super Mario Galaxy 2. That’s not all, as it was also revealed that the classic Fire transformation will return in Super Mario Bros Wonder.
In addition to the various power-ups, the new Nintendo Direct also revealed another interesting element of Super Mario Bros Wonder gameplay. Prince Florian can be equipped with different badges that will assist you with different additional abilities: from the power to jump higher or propel himself underwater to the power to use a vine to stick to the wall or automatically save himself from dangerous falls. Each character can only equip one badge at a time, although they can be changed before entering each level or every time you lose a life.
So Super Mario Bros Wonder motivates you to try different badges with different abilities. That’s why all playable characters (except for Yoshi and Nabbit) are controlled exactly the same: So that each player can try the badges they like.
We also had another chance to see Super Mario Bros Wonder’s signature mechanic in action: Wonder Flowers. Every time a character finds one of these inside a level, everything will change in strange and unexpected ways. This is called the “Wonder Effect” and we were able to see some very interesting ones, such as pipes that move on their own, enemy stampedes, complete perspective changes and even the possibility of playing as a Goomba. The Wonder Effect will come to an end when players find the respective Wonder Seed of the level.
Play Super Mario Bros Wonder with friends
As expected, Super Mario Bros Wonder has a local cooperative multiplayer mode. Up to 4 players can play together in the same room, each with their own character. If one loses, he or she will become a ghost who will return to the adventure when another character catches up with him or her. And no one will lose any lives until all players are disabled. This is very similar to how multiplayer worked in the New Super Mario Bros series and that’s just fine. If it’s not broken, why fix it?
But the most interesting thing in this section was the implementation of the online multiplayer mode. Sure, you’ll be able to play online levels with other players, but only with those who are on your friends list. As for strangers, Super Mario Bros Wonder will have a more passive online mode, similar to games like Dark Souls. When you connect to the internet, you will be able to see the silhouettes of other players who are playing at the same time. You will be able to try to race against them, give each other power-ups and even save them if they lost a life, either with your character or with panels that you can plant in specific places in the level.
However, there was a slight disappointment regarding this special Nintendo Direct. A few weeks ago, it was announced that Charles Martinet, the classic voice of Mario for over 29 years, will be retiring to become a “Mario Ambassador” and that we will be able to hear his replacement for the first time in Super Mario Bros Wonder. When this was announced through an official press release, it was also confirmed that Nintendo will be releasing a special video with Charles and Shigeru Miyamoto explaining the situation further, so many people expected that to be included in today’s Direct. But it looks like we’ll have to wait a bit longer to see that.
We don’t want to make an easy play on words, but the truth is that Super Mario Bros Wonder looks wonderful. It feels like the next step forward for 2D Mario games, with its refreshing new setting, quirky levels, fun new power-ups and excellent multiplayer mode, both local and online. Mario is one of gaming’s biggest icons and the release of his next platform title is a major event. SMBW will be released on October 20 this year, exclusively for the Nintendo Switch (Interestingly, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 will be released for PS5 on the same day).
© Nintendo.