Super Mario Bros. Wonder is intended to be a 2D Super Mario experience that has learned from its history to become an appropriate game for “this day and age”.
This observation about the new game arose in an interview with Eurogamer between Nintendo‘s executive officer Takashi Tezuka and game director Shiro Mouri. “In terms of the concept for creating a new Mario, we came up with the concept of mystery and secrets,” explained Mouri.
Things like power ups and warp pipes have become staples of all Super Mario games, and so the player expectedly isn’t as excited as they once were to see them.
“As we were developing more and more side-scrolling Mario games, the challenge became that these kinds of secrets and surprises were more and more normalised to players,” continued the director.
“So I thought it’d be important to create a side-scrolling Mario that really fit the day and age that we live in now. You need to try harder to try and surprise these players,” he concluded.
As such, Mario – and characters like Luigi, Peach, Daisy, Toad and Toadette in Super Mario Bros. Wonder‘s multiplayer mode – can use bubble, drill and elephant forms to interact with the levels in totally new ways.
Nabbit and Yoshi do not have access to any power ups, however, they are invincible and allow players who are new to the series an easier time finishing the levels.
“I don’t want to say that there are big differences between the older players and newer players, but I think those who played the initial Super Mario games were more actively exploring the game,” said Tezuka, adding that Super Mario Bros. Wonder encourages replays with these power ups and the effects of the Wonder Flowers.
In other gaming news, the developer of Palworld shared that the biggest influence on its dystopian creature collector was RimWorld.