GAME CLEAR No. 165 -- Super Mario Bros. Wonder

2024-04-09 03:04:51 video games game clear nintendo mario switch

Super Mario Bros. Wonder (2023, Switch)

Developer: Nintendo EPD
Publisher: Nintendo
Clear Date: 3/31/24

Why should I care?
This is the best 2D Mario game in over 30 years and a contender for the best ever.

Super Mario Bros. Wonder is the kind of mega hit game from a mega hit franchise for which a review by me – especially a positive review – feels particularly pointless. This game sold a zillion copies, I’m sure, and I seriously doubt there’s many people out there who haven’t pretty much decided where they stand on this series at this point.

What I think is cool is that we actually exist again in a moment in which Nintendo saw fit to release a real, high-effort 2D Mario platformer. I like that.

As someone whose sort of stock answer to “what is the greatest game of all-time?” is Super Mario World, though, playing through this has been a source of some introspection. As much as I was constantly having fun with Super Mario Bros. Wonder, and for all the ways it’s bigger and more of a audiovisual and gameplay marvel than Super Mario World, I’m still disinclined to call it better than its 1990 predecessor.

Why?

Is it some strict reverence to that which came before? Am I giving World credit for innovation where I’m only giving Wonder credit for iteration? Or, instead, is Wonder a lot of fun to look at and play, but ultimately feels like cheap heat compared to the raw tightness of control and level design of World?

I don’t know. Obviously formative media will always be just completely unpryably embedded in our hearts, but I’ll be damned if I can argue why Wonder isn’t the best 2D Mario game on the merits. It could never hope to hit the same as World did when I was 14 or whatever, but then am I sure I’d feel so positively about World if I only finally got around to it now?

Is perceived media quality truly so fickle? Is there a point to this fucking blog?

Yeah. Sometimes I’ll play something like Devil May Cry 3 to remind me why I still keep seeking out games I haven’t played. That’s right. I am still capable of having that feeling that I’ve played something truly special.