I "Wonder" what else there could be! (Super Mario Bros. Wonder Direct thoughts!)

     Alright, the Super Mario Bros. Wonder Direct was a whole lot in a very short amount of time. In the 15 minute presentation, they went over a lot about the story, the characters, world, power-ups, and a brand new badge system along with just the "wonderful" nature of the game. The game comes out on October 20, so we still have about a month and a half to wait, but let's talk about what we saw here. It's almost time to take a whirlwind tour to the Flower Kingdom!

What a Wonderful World!

    The direct began by showing just how the game's plot begins. Mario and friends have been invited to the Flower Kingdom by Prince Florian (the caterpillar guy seen on Luigi's back in a lot of the concept art) and things are going pretty well until Bowser shows up, touches a Wonder Flower, and fuses with the Prince's castle.We'll go into what Wonder Flowers are soon, but this is a wild beginning of the game. We've seen Bowser's crazy airship in the first trailer, but I never dreamed that that would actually be Bowser himself in this game! That's going to be an insane final boss fight if he remains in that form for the rest of the game's duration. After this happens, Mario and friends (joined by Prince Florian) set off to save the Flower Kingdom from Bowser's new magical powers, and to foil whatever dastardly plan he has cooking this time around. Other than that, we don't get much context for the story, but we do see how varied the Flower Kingdom is over the 7 worlds that they revealed here. 

    There's Pipe Rock Plateau, which is the first world, surprisingly looking to be a mix of Grassland and Desert biome, World 2: Fluff Puff Peaks which looks like a cloud themed area mixed with a snow world, and World 3: Shining Falls, which is too hard to explain from just looking at the world map. We see a corner of the map reserved for space, a castle or labyrinth-style world, a trippy mushroom looking world, and a world that is completely covered by darkness in this picture of the World Map. These areas all surround Petal Isles which is probably where we start the game, but Bowser in castle form seems to be over that area, so it may be that we see this land transform in the time that it takes us to free the other areas. It's curious because in the trailer, the Petal Isles are shown off in an Underwater section, and it may also mean something that Petal Islands isn't numbered like the three other locations that are labeled on the map. Maybe we'll see it transform into a more "Bowser's Castle" type area like what happened in New Super Mario Bros. U, since we do see a lot of lava in one of the scenes. The world traversal from level to level seems reminiscent of some of the New Super Mario Bros. games, though there are sections of the map where the line breaks and you're allowed to explore levels at your own pace without a set order, which is a great concept. The level designs in this game look to be much more interesting and varied than previous recent titles, but the more interesting element is the characters that you can choose from.

Choose your character!

    In the first trailer for this game, the characters revealed were Mario, Luigi, Blue Toad, Peach, Daisy, and four different colors of Yoshi. Now we have a few more characters added to that roster, being that we have confimation that we can play as Yellow and Blue Toads (standards for the New Super Mario Bros. series), Toadette, and Nabbit from New Super Mario Bros. U. I'm happy that Toadette is here, though I have to wonder how Nabbit made the cut for this game. All I can figure is that one of the higher-ups at Nintendo is a big fan of the weird purple rabbit thief guy, and we just have to deal with that. All of these characters play the same, using the same sorts of power-ups other than Yoshi and Nabbit. As established in New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe, when Nabbit first became a playable character, he had the ability to not get hurt by anything, and the only way he can die is by falling into a bottomless pit or lava. He's returning with that ability, and Yoshi has it too on top of his trademark flutter-jump and his tongue being able to suck stuff up and spit it back out at enemies. This makes these two characters much easier, and will give little kids or just people without much experience in platformer games an advantage to help them get used to it. I'm happy that these characters are added for that reason, though I do wish you could play as Yoshi without this perk. It makes total sense for it to happen this way, since Yoshi's Island didn't allow Yoshi to take damage, it would just make Baby Mario float away crying until you caught him again. This is a good roster overall, I love that Daisy is back for the first time in a 2D Sidescroller as a playable character. I would love it if you unlock another character in the postgame, but we'll see how this game plays out.

    The enemies got a fair bit of screentime too, with quite a few new designs here. Hoppycats jump when you do, which could definitely cause a bit of a challenge when jumping on heads is the name of the game, Melon Piranha Plants spit watermelon seeds at you, similar to how some enemies did back in Yoshi's Island, Condarts act kind of like Thwomps, but they can fly at any angle and they get stuck when they hit a surface. I won't talk about all of them shown, but Maw Maws look terrifying with their giant mouth that we see swallowing a Goomba and almost swallowing Toad in the trailer. We also see a few returning enemies, the highlight to me is just the adorable animation of two Koopa Troopas clicking their shells together as they turn away from each other.

Unlimited Power!

    They showed quite a few new power-ups here in this direct, even on top of the wild Elephant one that was revealed in the end of the first trailer. We finally have some details on Elephant, the trunk can be swung to take out enemies as well as suck up water, you can jump and cut through blocks like nothing, and even dash over much larger distances than your character could at normal size. All of the normal characters are shown to have Elephant forms as well (which puts the theory of different animals for other characters to death). After this, they showed the Bubble power, which allows you to trap enemies in bubbles to instantly defeat them at a pretty decent range, and then use the bubbles as a springboard to get even higher if you need to! A lot of utility for that power, and I think it's gonna be a real stand out. Next up, we have the Drill power, which allows your character to drill when they jump, which makes you able to even take out Spinies that are falling from the ceiling of a cave, for example. You're also able to ground pound to break more things than you normally would, as well as burrow into the ground or into the ceiling! There's so much that these powerups add to the game, and I'm very excited to see what they do with these in addition to the standard power-ups like the Fire Flower. All of these abilities at your disposal really make me wonder what else they could add!

    Speaking of Wonder, the next section talked a lot about the Wonder Flowers, which have wild and incredible abilities, hence how Bowser was able to fuse with the castle of the Flower Kingdom. They showed a lot of examples of things that can happen in different levels, but I have to call out just one of my favorites that they showed, where the game turned to a top down perspective and Luigi started running on the back wall, as if he was in a dungeon in an old Legend of Zelda game. I am so excited for all the forms that the Wonder Flower comes in, especially the few transformations that have been shown so far, such as the Goomba and the spike ball. The flower effects continue until you collect a Wonder Seed which can only be found in that section of the level. There seem to be two wonder seeds per level, with the other one being awarded to you for finishing a level and rescuing the "Popplin" which I guess are the flower headed residents of the Flower Kingdom.

A Badge of honor!

    Perhaps the craziest thing about this game is the Badge system, which gives a different effect depending on which one you equip at the start of a level. One badge, the Parachute Cap, gives your character the ability to pull out a large cap which you use as a glider of sorts to allow you to go over longer distances in the air, while another, Dolphin Kick, allows you to get a speed boost when underwater at certain times, which also allows you to plow through brick blocks underwater. I think my favorite that they showed off today would have to be either the Crouching High Jump, which brings back the ability of the same name from Super Mario Bros. 2 in a wild call back, the Grappling Vine, which is pretty self explanatory, or the Jet Run badge, which makes your character just run for the entire level. I think these badges are going to add a lot to the replay value of this game.

    They talked a lot about the Local and Online Co-op elements of this game, which I'm always happy to hear about, even if a lot of people didn't really like Co-op in the New Super Mario Bros. games that supported them. Locally, the Co-op works pretty similarly to those older games, but instead of a character dying right away after making a mistake against an enemy or missing a jump and landing in a pit, the character now has 5 seconds or so to fly around as a ghost, and if another character touches them, they come back to life. This makes the lives go much slower, I would think, especially with less skilled players. Online in a bit more interesting, being almost like Death Stranding or Dark Souls in a way. When playing online, you can see other people running around and doing the same levels that you are, but they all appear as "Live Player Shadows". If you die in a level, another player in another online game can touch your ghost and bring you back to life. This is such a cool idea, and I'm really interested to see how it works in action. You can also set up standees to work to revive people on your behalf, and if you do something nice like this for someone else, you get heart points. I don't know what these points are for, but it may just be a social clout thing. While online you can also make a shared room with friends and start races through different stages, which is also a pretty fun situation.

    Well, that was about 15 minutes worth of the information shown, and I hope you enjoyed the direct as much as I did. I personally can't wait for this new game, and it occurs to me that it has been over 10 years since the last original 2D Mario game came out (unless you count Super Mario Maker or Mario Maker 2, which are kind of different). I love this animation style, it looks so fresh and new, and honestly just much more animated than the New Super Mario Bros. series, which definitely stopped feeling "new" sometime before the fourth title in the sub-series. Of course, this game does carry the bittersweet pill that Charles Martinet is no longer voicing the titular Italian plumber anymore. He has been the official voice for Mario since at least 1996 with Super Mario 64. Though this wasn't addressed in the direct, I just want to say a big thank you to Mr. Martinet for all these years. I am happy that I have had Mario as a big part of my life, and Charles's voice has brought so much to the character. I cannot tell you how many times I've imitated the voice of Mario, Luigi, Wario, or Waluigi, which were all done by this incredibly talented voice actor. I'm sure the next voice of these characters will be great, and it says something that we weren't even sure that it wasn't him until Nintendo released a statement. With that said, I'm glad that Charles is continuing to work alongside Nintendo as a "Mario Ambassador," which I assume just means he'll still come to conventions and talk about Mario, and honestly I think the man behind the voice deserves a nice rest after all this time. Thank you, Charles Martinet, and best of luck with this new chapter in your life.

    Thanks so much for reading this post about Super Mario Bros. Wonder, friends! Are you excited for this new game? I personally cannot wait to get my hands on the new experiences that await in the Flower Kingdom! Even though it was only 15 minutes, there was a lot to cover and it was handled at a blistering pace. Do you have any hopes for what they haven't shown us yet? Let me know somewhere online, I'd love to hear some ideas like that! I hope you're all having a great week and thanks again for all your support! Until next time, I'm Jonathan, a Self-Proclaimed platforming expert, and I'll talk to you again soon!