In the newest Super Mario 2D platformer, Mario, Luigi and friends are visiting the Flower Kingdom. The wicked Bowser swoops in, steals one of the realm's Wonder Flowers and uses it to merge with the castle of Prince Florian to become a giant, floating castle being. It is up to the heroes to stop him.
The creators of this clearly heard the criticism about the last four 2D Mario platformers, the New Super Mario Bros. series. The games were all fun (yes, in my opinion even NSMB2; I liked the focus on coins, what can I say), but they'd gotten repetitive and for a franchise known for creativity and reinventing itself had played it a little too safe. (I like the Koopalings as much as the next person, but their attacks have gotten a bit repetitive.) I'm pleased to say that wonder brings us back to the days when the Mario games would take a wild new swing.
Gameplay feels innovative with multiple new game mechanics ideas that are fun and addictive. The biggest innovation in this are the wonder flowers. They appear or are hidden in all regular levels; touch one and the level radically changes in constantly new weird and wonderful ways. Unfortunately, the game still uses the flag pole goal. I remember when Super Mario Brothers 3 and Super Mario World had different styles of goals, and I'm so tired of being stuck with the same boring goal over and over and over.
Super Mario World has always been knoen for how interconnected the entire map was and the various hidden routes. Sadly after that, Nintendo was never that ambitious with the game maps. Finally, we've got a game that tries to recapture that magic. It's still second to SMW, but Wonder really tries to shake things up. There are various and hidden levels and different ways for accessing them.
Never before have we been able to play so many Mario characters in one game (twelve if I'm remembering correctly). One can play Princess Daisy for the first time in a main Mario game (previously she's only been available in the Mario Party and sports games). For younger kids (or people who are fed up with the harder special levels), you can play a Yoshi or Nabbit, who don't take any damage. However, they can't use power-ups either.
The game comes up with multiple inventive new villain ideas while breathing new life into old villains, such as Koopa Troopas on roller blades. Unfortunately, one of the games' few weaknesses is the sheer lack of boss battles and variations of said battles. Some worlds don't have any boss battles at all and the ones that do exist with the exception of the final battle with Bowser are all Bowser Jr. To the BJ battles' credit, the Wonder Flower powers make all of them different and a breath of fresh air from all old school shelled Koopa boss/mini-boss fights, but I still wanted more variety. There is also one mini-boss in this and it may be the easiest, most lackluster one in Mario history.
The game's other weak spot is the power ups. None of them are bad, but they don't have the special zing that some previous types did. The elephant power-up has been the new big power up associated with this game that's in all the advertising. However, though a fun design that feels unique for the series, it feels like a retread of the rhino and elephant from the Donkey Kong Country games. Being able to whack bad guys and shoot water (which has limited range) isn't as involving as you'd think. Also, this is the first Mario 2D platformer in a while where you don't have the ability to fly. On the other, hand I wasn't much impressed with the bubble power up at first, because I wondered why we needed another projectile power when we already have the fire flower power up. I was pleased to be proven wrong as its range and damage amount was surprisingly different.
Ironically, the better powers don't come from the regular power-ups. Wonder Flowers may temporarily change Mario and company's shapes in brief game segments that are more fun to play and control. For the first time, we got a Mario game with an equipment feature. You can earn or purchase various badges which grant special enhancements like the ability to float or jump higher. You can only use one at a time, and I like the strategy aspect this gives you. I also found some of the badges to be very helpful. However, there are clearly a few that are truly useful and many that aren't so much. There are several badges that force you to be constantly in motion. How is that useful unless you want to challenge yourself?
Visually, there was an obvious effort to reinvent the look of Mario. Flower Land has a unique look to it with charming and colorful backgrounds. I've never seen a Mario game with such personality to it either. The game has a cartoony feel with a greater emphasis on animation details, like Mario grabbing his hat when entering a pipe or the expressions on Goomba's faces.
Highly recommended. The best 2D Mario platformer in decades and a very fun time.
No comments:
Post a Comment