14. Super Mario Bros. WonderI had a
mild interest in playing this. Been dealing with some pretty severe oral pain, probably an infection, either way needing something to take my mind off the pain. Watched about 3 minutes of this game on youtube before thinking, screw it, I'll just buy it.
I didn't keep track, nor does the game, but I'd reckon 7-9 hours of playtime later I am at the credits, and I am quite satisfied with my purchase. Not that long, but when are 2d mario games long? Still plenty to do, plenty of reason to go back to levels to get all the things, other levels I haven't unlocked, secrets, yadda yadda.
I had been away from mario games proper since sunshine. Maybe you'd count 3d world on the 3ds, which was a solid game...but it wasn't that memorable. I avoided the wii/wii u eras for nintendo so if they didn't port it to switch, I probably didn't play it. The "new" smb series I "Should" have went out of my way to play, I never did, plus the
"Wa Wa!" sounds of that generation annoyed me to an unreasonable degree.
But this game doe...honestly it doesn't really have anything to hide. It's just a mario ass mario game, polished to the gills quality, plenty of charm, and I really couldn't peel myself away from it until I felt compelled to log my thoughts about it on the internet.
I didn't know I, in the year of my lord 2023, would actually enjoy a regular ass, albeit top quality platformer, but here I am. Not a whole lot to say outside of that, the visuals are amazing, the acid trip wonder flowers are always welcome and add something new to a level, music while not "fantastic" is still quite good and fits in with the visuals...especially when they mix gameplay with the stage music...
The online is actually kinda neat, other players are ghosts that can't mess with your game, but they can revive you or vice versa if you die, and you can plant down standees that can be used to revive off of. Also since standees can only be planted on a solid surface, excuse the "dark souls" reference, but a random standee in the air may mean "yo there's a hidden block here", and some of the emotes players leave from the standees can give you a hint with the right context. Mostly it's just novel seeing other players playing the game at the same time as you, it's optional and opt in, doesn't get in the way, all good.
Probably last thing I'll end on since I am a sucker for a good world map...these maps are something. They do the oldschool mario 3 styled linear go to point, play level, go to point, but those are linked to open areas you can run and jump in that contain a majority of a worlds levels. It's got secrets, regular levels, and a surprising variety of smaller levels that have you doing things such as defeating x enemies in a time limit, to a race vs wiggler, to levels with mostly hidden blocks in it that are really fun with the online turned on to figure out how to complete, to easy 30 second "break time" "levels" that mostly offer a quick novel experience. They also do a great job of making them feel..."vertical", at least in a few of the worlds you either go up up up, or down down down, and it's just visually impressive.
Probably end it there. Nintendo made a mario game, and it's really good, who'da thunk. Almost like they make good games or something, anyway...now that I seen credits, I kinda wanna jump back in and play a bit more.
*edit*
I actually 100% this game a few days ago. A few thoughts.
I played through the game to completion, aka credits, with Toadette, a normal character. In the interest in saving time so I can jump to the next whatever I'm playing, I used Yoshi/Nabbit to get all of the remaining uncollected items/flagpoles. Yoshi/Nabbit in this game get no access to upgrades like fire flower or the elephant, however...they just take no damage. Yoshi can still eat people like in older games, takes hitstun when hit, but can't die from damage. Nabbit has no attack outside of jump, but doesn't even take hitstun and can just run through damage.
That said, essentially "cheating" but they're in the game as fast as being able to select them at any time including before you start the first level...so...however good you feel about using em is up to you. I got credits with a normal character, and used an easy character to polish off the 100%, still had a good time.
The "Final, FINAL" level though...what a doozey. The whole game as is, while it does certainly have outlier challenging levels, as a whole...pretty tame. The final final level, the one you unlock when you beat everything, and get everything, and do everything...borderline kaizo. When games journalists say "I can't be asked to spend 3 hours on a boss fight" and I think, no matter how hard a boss is...I literally can't fathom spending 3 hours of attempts on a boss in any game I played that I can think of. This level took me at least 2 hours and 70+ deaths to complete. I am extremely rusty at platformers and it showed with this level. They even end with a final fuck you with precision platforming on moving bouncing objects...while completely invisible unable to see your character, and death means doing the previous 3 challenges in a row...GLAD I DON'T GOTTA DO THAT AGAIN.
That said, game was fun enough to warrant me not being done after seeing credits. This game ain't beating Super Mario World, but frankly not even most truly great videogames can beat that game, still gotta give em props for making a damn fun Mario game.