I won’t lie, thanks to games like Super Mario Galaxy, Odyssey, and 64, I often put the 2D Mario games to the back of my unconscious ranking, despite his side-scrolling dimensional origins being what the plumber is most known for (other than maybe karting). My first DS game as a child was New Super Mario Bros, which I and many people my age played to death. Years later, the maniacal freedom of picking up and throwing my sister off the edge of the stage on the Nintendo Wii’s sequel still brings me great nostalgic joy to think about. The absolute classics like Mario 3 and Super Mario World still play amazingly today, but despite these childhood memories and well-designed games, the creativity of the 3D titles always outshined their flatter siblings in my eyes. So especially considering that a lot of the modern 2D Mario games all look and play largely the same, Wonder stands out drastically and feels miles more creative, without alienating fans or losing the signature playstyle.

The game drops the usual Mushroom Kingdom setting for the neighbouring Flower Kingdom, home to Prince Florian, a cute li’l royal caterpillar, who joins the player throughout their journey. He does this because Bowser, rather rudely, merges with his entire castle, becoming a sentient floating fortress, which looks as badass as it sounds. He’s able to do this thanks to the wacky properties of the Kingdom’s native Wonder Flowers, more on those later. With this in mind, Mario, Florian and the gang travel to each corner of the Kingdom to gather enough Wonder Seeds to retrieve the castle, stop Bowser and return peace to the land.

The gang in question include the usual suspects, Mario, Luigi, some toads as well as Toadette, both Peach and Daisy join in the fun this time, and in a strange choice, Yoshis are no longer a means of transportation and are now playable characters, however, they join Nabbit in being the “Easy-mode” picks. This means that they won’t take any damage at all, in case you’re below the age of five or want to have no fun. The new tweak to these characters artistically doesn’t seem like much at first, but the deliberate design choices let the characters really pop off the screen when playing, which definitely leaves a distinctly different impression than the New Super series, which is appreciated.

The main drawing point of this game however comes from the Wonder effects granted to the player in each level. These happen once you find the (sometimes hidden) Wonder Seeds, and give trippy effects to the player, enemies or even the level itself. They’re an exciting thing to experience, with pretty much all of them being uniquely creative and different from the last. Luigi becomes a Goomba, pipes move like inchworms and a choir of Piranha Plants put on an incredible performance. Anything goes, and to be honest there feels like so much untapped potential with these effects, on top of what we’ve already seen, akin to the capture effect in Mario Odyssey. A game like this is a much worthier candidate for an entire series than the New Super Series was, is all I’m saying. That series had four games under its belt for Christ’s sake, five if you count Luigi U.

When Mario turned into an Elephant in the reveal trailer for this game, the internet lost their collective shit. And yeah, it’s the level one power-up gimmick of this game, like the Mega Mushroom from DS or the Super Acorn from Mario U. It is however a pretty useful and unique one, allowing you to both break blocks and collect water to disperse later, plus I mean look, it’s an elephant, that’s funny right? Other than that, the power-up scene of this game looks an awful lot like Mario Galaxy 2’s selection, with the Bubble Flower and Drill Mushroom borrowing from both the Cloud Flower’s platform-building and Spin Drill’s design respectively. The borrowing doesn’t stop there though, as one of the wonder effects is also hugely reminiscent of the Rock Mushroom, also from Galaxy 2. I don’t know who decided to play that game before the brainstorming session, but there are definitely worse choices of games to borrow from, as they all seem to fit the game nicely and work in tandem with the new Badge system.

As you progress through the Flower Kingdom you’ll come across Badges that Florian can equip on behalf of the player. These give the player a unique effect and are sorted into three distinct categories, Action, Boost and Expert. Action Badges range from making a jump float for a bit to giving the player a grappling hook, Boost Badges can give you an automatic super mushroom at the start of a stage or simply allow you to recover from an otherwise deadly fall, and Expert Badges are challenging changes that make the game a lot more difficult, like making your character invisible. The crazy thing about Action and Boost badges is that none of them feel incredibly game-breaking, Most of the stages aren’t ridiculously hard or anything, but the balancing of these abilities feels incredibly thought out, and the opportunities to utilise each badge present themselves quite often.

I’ll say this about the different areas in the game. There’s a fair amount of them and with each having unique themes which lend themselves to Wonder Effects in different ways, the variety is definitely there. Having said that, I think some stay in my mind longer than others. The levels themselves are sometimes only memorable because of the Effects, with the design of the actual platforming stage not leaving any kind of impression. This is maybe one of the points in favour of Mario’s 3D outings, even 3D World. The variety in level structure is more readily apparent and easier to achieve. It’s why Wonder Seeds almost needed to be added, especially after the creativity shown in the best Mario Maker levels. It feels like, dare I say, we’re running out of possibilities in a 2D space.

At Least in Mario’s case. I can think of plenty of 2D platformers unique enough to gauge interest the whole way through, on level design alone( Celeste for example comes to mind). I mean just think about how bland the New Super series became after the Wii entry. Perhaps this is a problem with such a franchise as long-running as Mario’s, you can’t rock the boat too much, but innovation is deftly needed. That’s why the Wonder Effects are such a smart play. They give the developers an excuse to loosen the constraints around what a 2D Mario title has to be, without losing those core Mario-isms you expect to see.

Creativity is the word that springs to mind when I think of this game. It’s maybe the most zany and imaginative 2D Mario game we’ll ever get, although I’m ready to be proven wrong. The happy vibes and uplifting setting don’t overstay their welcome, even with the overly talkative flowers that populate each level (you can turn those off if you don’t agree). It’s no WONDER this game has been universally praised, and if I was a 2D mega-fan, I’d be even happier with the product than I already am.