And we're back for ten more! Let's-a go...
Share a Life
Co-op in previous Mario titles used to be a case of one player carrying another, but it looks like that will be out the window in Wonder as it seems that the team will have to share lives.
Check out the count in the top left corner of the screen and you will see a singular number for the whole team rather than individual totals. We better get practising our platforming.
A Cap Fit for a Princess
When leaping from a high platform, we couldn't help but notice that Peach has got a cap of her own for a glide animation rather than the dress float that we are used to seeing.
Why she isn't wearing it on her head at all times, we don't know, but it is nice to know that she always has a floatation device ready to go in her back pocket (disclaimer: we imagine that dress does not have pockets).
Bye Bye Bouncing
While we're in that co-op sizzle reel that came in the last third of the reveal, we couldn't help but notice a small change when two or more characters were jumping next to each other. That's right, the head bouncing is gone!
Or, at least, it seems to be gone. This started as a fun gimmick, we'll admit, but the constant aerial assaults got a little tiring after a while so we'll be glad to land safely on terra firma next to our plumber/princess pals this time around.
Score Talk
On the subject of things disappearing, it looks like the classic points system has gone from the upcoming title, replaced by a word grading system from "Good" to "Wonderful". It adds a nice flare, but let's just hope that it doesn't become too distracting.
Bowser Jr.'s Neon Look
Ever wondered what Bowser Jr. would look like in a rave? We imagine something like this. It seems that this boss battle will see the baby baddy shrinking and growing as Mario attacks, so hopefully, we'll get a good chance to see the full neon outfit in all its glowing glory.
Tiny Crown
In all of the co-op clips, you might notice one player with a tiny crown above their head. We're assuming that this is the same feature that we saw in Super Mario 3D World, where the player with the highest score at the end of a level gets given a crown for the next one, but this will be the first time that the award has made its way over to a 2D game. Hence why it's so small and unwearable, we're guessing.
Mystery Mushroom Man
We have become so used to seeing a Toad greet Mario and co. at the finish line, that seeing this other fella pop up at the end of the trailer took us back a bit. Who is he? Are there more differently-shaped Toads out there? Is this a multiverse? We have so many questions!
A Cute Caterpillar
Don't get distracted by the mystery fun-guy [Oof. I'm going to allow it. - Ed.], however, as the Flag Pole sequence also hides yet another new face. We're talking about the green caterpillar who you can also spot riding on Luigi's back on the game's cover art (above).
This adorable little guy seems to appear at the end of a course, but we have no idea what he's doing there just yet — though to secure a spot on the cover, we're assuming that he is important.
Goomba Power-Up?
And speaking of the cover art, did you also notice the Goomba with a Toad in the top right? Is this a Toad that has transformed into a Goomba via a new power-up, or a Goomba that has disguised itself as a Toad (rather unsuccessfully)? Only time will tell.
Elephant Transformation Animation
It's unlikely that you will have missed Mario's transformation into his new elephant power-up at the end of the reveal, but did you notice that rather than appearing in a flash, he actually morphs with each frame of the animation? The above image is just a taste of what this part-Mario-part-elephant looks like and we'd be lying if we said that we weren't a little afraid of that nose.
Those are all of the little details that we spotted, but are there any that we have missed? Let us know some of your favourite new features in the comments below.
Comments 55
Nice breakdown! I love all the little details.
If you're right that players can't bounce on each other, that's both wonderful and terrible. It was such a useful feature but also resulted in so much annoyance and death (intentional and unintentional). It's probably for the best if it is gone. I don't need to be yelling at my kids over a Mario game. 😄
It’s nice to have a completely brand new 2D Mario game coming out. The “New” series was good for the first couple of entries, but it got repetitive.
Even though I loved the New series and still play the with the family, I'm loving the art direction in this game. It's these little things that make the art look amazing. My personal favorite touch from the trails was Mario grabbing his hat after he ran into a pipe.
We could name purple hippopotamus: Hippopoballus lol
I can't wait for this game. It just looks so bright and imaginative.
Elephant Peach is going to be an interesting sight. I'm not sure I'll be able to remove from my mind.
Piranha plants do have legs, Super Mario Brothers 3 taught us that!
Sweet breakdown. Nitpicky but I hope the overworld map will be a knockout from the little bit shown. Some mario maps are simply iconic (like World) and some a little whatever (SMBU). A solid effort could do more wonders for the game and wont go unappreciated
Im loving the art... I have been waiting for a 2D Mario game with sprites based original Mario 2D art from the manuals and old ad material for decades now... These 3D models based on it is the next best thing.
I never really liked the new 3D Mario from the last few years, so thin, tall and athletic... Mario Should be chubby and cute!
Hope is as fun and inventive to play as it looks....
Day one.
This game is absolutely lovely. I remember Nintendo told us to "expect something very different" for the next 2D Mario after Mario Maker was released, and they were totally right
I love the art direction, I really don't get how some people saw this looking like a mobile game honestly.
Mario physically transforming into an elephant contrasts to previous power ups, which were just costumes.
Princess Daisy my beloved!!!!
Welcome back!!!!!! ^V^
Another few little things I noticed...
1) In addition to there being no score, there is no time limit.
2) Mario can ride Yoshi like SMW... but there was also a shot with 4 yoshis as main characters. Is this a "wonder effect" when everyone turns into yoshis, or can you just choose a Yoshi as your main character to control? If so, can other players ride on you? Can Yoshi ride on other yoshis?
3) The counter for the purple pickup sometimes has a decimal point... meaning you can collect fractions of them - whatever they are. Flower coins? And you collect petals?
Also minor point. but "Super Mario Wonder" sounds a lot cooler and easier to say than "Super Mario Bros Wonder". I wonder why they included the "Bros" when Super Mario World, Super Mario Land, Galaxy, Sunshine, Odyssey etc didn't bother?
11 years later and Nintendo really just brought back New Super Mario Bros. but now for the Switch. Smh
@Tchunga what can they really change about mario?
@samuelvictor Good call! No time limit in a 2D Mario would be excellent.
The flagpole turns the seed guy's building at the end from some kind of fort or prison into a house.
@solarwolf07 Well, the artstyle for one
There’s also playable and rideable yoshi.
Can yoshi ride yoshi?
@Roam85 Great minds!
@Dev9417 Thanks! Yeah I've always found time limits in platform games annoying and usually a pointless holdover from arcade cabinets.
That's not Chargin Chuck pushing against Daisy. It's some new variant of the something-bros family (hammer bro, sumo bro, etc).
I absolutely adore how vibrant and color it looks!
@CammyUnofficial 3D World's overworld was super nice and actually has my favorite moment in any Mario overworld - when you take the looooooong pipe to World Bowser and then this theme hits? Chills, every single time. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rz-J4WJnkIM
That scoring system has me worried it looks like those 0 effort high reward mobile idle clickers that will show you 20 perfect ratings for opening the game
Also, after seeing Daisy, for the 3rd time this week, Girl Power!
Nice article! And yes, I missed loads of these...!
I apparently watched it too many times because I only missed one of these. 😆 But I didn't notice Mario punching the block rather than head-bapping it! That's fun. And.... marginally more realistic.
Unrelated, but the scene where the flag poll gets knocked down by some charging critters. I wonder if that is a way to get to a secret exit.
@Munchlax It's not a transformation, it's just a really really good costume! Actually, Mario transforms everytime he eats a mushroom, so maybe transformations are allowed.
I would also like to point out the timer is gone for the level. there is one for the time of the wonder seed effect , but no timer to finish the level. THANK GOODNESS now we don't have to rush through a level anymore. We can take our time to finish it. I love this game, it is great to have a fresh new Mario game that is so different. I can't wait til October.
wheres blue toad??
Seems obvious, but I think it's funny how the goomba's are all asleep. And it's nice seeing how you can stomp on cheep cheeps underwater. I also noticed that on the cover they show Yoshi holding a shell with his hands, while he usually uses his tongue. Another thing is there doesn't seem to be a time limit, nor a score counter. Art is taken from covers and game manuals. Those purple things can give decimal points. And maybe the most interesting thing, the plants seem to be context sensitive so glitch & trick hunters are going to have a lot of fun finding out everything they can respond to and if it varies per location.
This may be a little off topic... but I 'wonder' if they will release a new update for Mario Maker for this game... even if it's paid or you can only access it if you have a copy of this game. I know they said they were done, but you never know
Man, I’m really loving this new art style.
@Bret 3d world is a masterpiece.
@FishyS Mario has never hit the blocks with his head, he's always raised his fist when he jumps. I even remember reading this in a Nintendo power back in the N64 era. Not sure why they have him raise his fist and then punch with the other now.
@samuelvictor Good observations 👍🏻
I wonder though if Nintendo decided to not show the time meter in the trailer, they sometimes take out certain things from trailers for whatever reason, they do it with life meters
@RPGreg2600 that may technically be true but I don't recall any 2D mario games that don't look like Mario is just bashing his whole body into the block 😝 Most of them look like he raises his hand for no reason and then smashes the block not with his hand.
@BiscuitCrumbsInMyBed Thanks! I wondered that too - but theres a LOT of the HUD still there, including parts that arguably obscure or make the frame look less neat so if they were going to remove some of it I'd assume they remove all/most ?
Of course, it could be that specific levels will have timed challenges, I'm not against that if its part of the design. Its mostly just the generic "10 minutes tickign down on a level that actually only takes a minute to complete if you know what you're doing" that I find annoying, because the only time you'll run out of time is when you are finding it hard and trying to practice. To be fair to Mario games, I'm mostly thinking as a classic Sonic fan, where the levels are enormous and it takes a long time to fully explore them and work out the best routes if you are trying to find everything rather than just run from left to right.
@RPGreg2600 it's fine. 3D Land was better imo.
All the flower themes make me think Daisy might be mildly story relevant in this one.
@samuelvictor there were time limits in a couple of the shots. One with wiggler and one with the blue dinosaurs.
@LikelySatan I only just got a 3ds this month and have played a few levels. So far, I like World better. 4 player co-op, cat Mario, 5 playable characters.
@RPGreg2600 Land is one of those that really gets better after you beat it. I don't want to spoil any more.
So many nice things. I was expecting a 2D Super Mario game but did not expected this good.
This is looking more exciting every day!!!! I am looking forward to seeing all the different worlds in the game and hope we get a water one with levels on top of the water 'cause they have always been my fav. 😀
@samuelvictor Those are some interesting questions. I am not sure but the two reasons I can think of why they called it 'Super Mario Bros Wonder' instead of 'Super Mario Wonder' is 'cause we can play as multiple characters and not just Mario or they want to separate the 2D and 3D games now by having the 'Super Mario Bros' name on the 2D games. As for Yoshi I think it would be hilarious if they had them ride Mario for a change after all the years Mario has had on top. 😄
Spotted most of these myself, but there were a couple I missed like the "punching boxes" one, so many cool details!
@samuelvictor It shouldn't be a wonder effect or power-up since even the icon changes so yep, Yoshis seem to be standalone playable characters, but at the same time other players can ride them (doubt other Yoshis, but there's no sure way to know for now)!
@Beetlebum91 Well spotted! Don't know how I missed that!
@Debbiee Thanks! Yeah I wondered myself if it was a case of "2d games are in the 'bros' series" - of course, that doesn't work because of Super Mario World and Super Mario Land, but I can see it being Nintendo's standard moving forward... I also wondered if it was to do with the fact its multiplayer and you can play several characters (that one would make sense to me!), but that would discount "3D World" which being available on the Switch is unlikely. And Mario carrying Yoshi for a change would be adorable! lol
@JohnnyMind Yeah that was my inclination... but the fact theres only Yoshis as the main players in a single shot is what made me question it... and also that Mario can ride on Yoshi... that said, I just rewatched to check, and when Mario turns into Elephant mode, his player icon stays as Mario, it doesn't change to an elephant. So the fact that on the yoshi shot, the player icons are yoshis implies it isn't a transformation - so either he's a normal playable character, or these are special bonus levels or areas specifically where yoshis are playable.
@samuelvictor I'd exclude even special bonus levels/areas because in one shot it's Mario & Yoshi and in another it's only Yoshis so it looks like you can mix and match them however you want just like other characters, but of course we need more footage if not the game in our hands to know for sure!
@JohnnyMind Yeah what I meant was that in non "Yoshi specific" bonuses or levels, perhaps Yoshi is just a ridable character in places where you would need his abilities, like in SMW. But then other specific areas are Yoshi only. We didn't see him being "part of the four" on screen, just "all four" and as a ridable that doesn't take up a player slot. But as you said, there's no way for us to know with what little we've seen
Personally my hope would be that you can chose to play as a Yoshi as your main character, and that you can choose what colour you want too! But that seems unlikely. Nintendo tends to keep "Yoshi" platform games as a separate series. Similarly I don't imagine a playable Wario in a Mario game anytime soon. Failing that, I'd love it if all characters can ride Yoshi. Daisy riding a Yoshi would be fun to see!
This is a fun read
Who's that caterpillar on Luigi's back? It seems to have a crown implying it might be a new prince/princess
@GogGogGogGog
I had the same concern but he seems to be hidden the cover art. Notice the goomba's hat.
After all that Meecury Steam did with Metroid Dread, i can't wait to see what Nintendo is able to pull off with this. 2D platformers all the way
Will you pay full retail for this? Seriously after 3D all stars I'd hesitate even if the SNES RPG remake was bundled with it which also is full retail. Why do you give Nintendo a premium vibe? Like split Pokémon games where is the quality
And tears of the wild pfft
@Tchunga This game does have a new artstyle if you haven't noticed.
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