Super Mario Bros. Wonder does the same thing. When you start it and are confronted by the barrage of deranged lunacy of the first few levels, it almost feels like the game tipped its hand too early by putting all its best ideas upfront to make a strong first impression. Then you keep playing and realize that those ideas, which are strong enough to have entire games designed around, were the lesser ideas that Wonder felt comfortable “wasting” on introductory levels, because it has tricks waiting up its sleeve that are so much better.

Every level in Wonder is entirely different, recognizable by its own unique gimmick – or, in the exceedingly rare scenario where it reuses a gimmick from some earlier stage, from its entirely new spin on it. Every new course brings something new to the table. This is, of course, best exemplified by the eponymous “Wonder Seed” mechanic, which completely alters the stage when you find one, and changes rules dramatically. A Wonder Seed can do pretty much anything – the pipes in the stage might start moving around, animals might start stampeding, Mario himself might turn into a… sponge cake? The stage might start snowballing and destroying everything in its path, enemies might start singing in chorus, light and shadow, and weather conditions might all change, even camera perspectives can totally flip. There are nearly as many new Wonder Effect gimmicks in this game as there are stages – very few repeat – and nearly all of them are delightful, twisting and curving not just the stages they show up in, but also players’ expectations and their sense of understanding of what a 2D Mario game can do. 

The Wonder Effects are enough to carry a game by themselves – honestly, most Wonder Effects are strong enough to support an entire game by themselves individually – but Mario Wonder also benefits from the strongest, sharpest stage design the 2D series has had this side of Super Mario World. Now, don’t get me wrong, I actually think the New Super Mario Bros. games get a bit of a bad reputation. They were safe and sterile, yes, but their level design was exceptionally strong, and especially by the final game in the series, the now eleven year old New Super Mario Bros. U, the games were flexing some serious level design chops. But they still felt like they were constrained by a rigid rulebook and skeleton of what a 2D Mario level should be like. Mario Wonder throws that rulebook away.

"When you start Mario Wonder and are confronted by the barrage of deranged lunacy of the first few levels, it almost feels like the game tipped its hand too early by putting all its best ideas upfront to make a strong first impression. Then you keep playing and realize that those ideas, which are strong enough to have entire games designed around, were the lesser ideas that Wonder felt comfortable “wasting” on introductory levels, because it has tricks waiting up its sleeve that are so much better."

Even without the Wonder Effects, the levels are fantastic. They are incredibly varied – there are stage specific gimmicks and enemies in nearly every single one – and they play with 2D design conventions and ethos that 2D Mario simply has never attempted before. Over the last decade and a half, 2D platformers have had a veritable renaissance and we have seen some incredible top tier 2D platformer design – just not from Mario. Where games such as Celeste and Super Meat Boy iterated on 2D platform level design by giving us things such as rhythm based platforming, or dynamic foreground and background switching, 2D Mario just gave us more 2D Mario. Until Wonder, which finally catches up to where 2D platformers as a genre have been for a decade now, and brings the franchise back to the forefront of the genre that it once used to lead.

Arguably the single biggest change to how stages are designed in Wonder comes from the dispensing of the timer. Every 2D Mario game until Wonder has a timer on each of its stages. As time has gone on, this timer has gotten exceptionally generous – a lot of stages give you well over 5-6 minutes to complete them, and some even go as high as nearly ten minutes – but a timer on a stage existing at all means that the designers have to always consider that a player may simply not be able to stop and engage with the stage too deeply. This means that branching paths, secrets, and so on, while still able to exist in 2D Mario games before, were constrained by the presence of the timer. Where they were allowed to exist, they couldn’t be too elaborate because that would run up against the timer. And when they did exist, they, again, could not be too many in volume or number because the player would risk timing out if they tried to engage with everything.

The lack of a timer in Mario Wonder has a profound impact on how the stages are designed. These stages are dense, packed with secrets and things to discover in nearly every frame and pixel. Similar to Super Mario Odyssey, Breath of the Wild, Kirby and the Forgotten Land, or Luigi’s Mansion 3, it feels like almost everything in these levels can be interacted with, and when you do interact with it, you get something in return – some secret path, a Wonder Seed, a new part of the level you had not found before, coins and collectibles, or just some great audiovisual feedback if nothing else (we’ll come back to this in a bit). You’re always finding something, and this keeps you returning to stages, trying to see what you missed, maybe coming back with a new badge to try and get to a part of the course you had been unable to get to the first time around.

"The lack of a timer in Mario Wonder has a profound impact on how the stages are designed. These stages are dense, packed with secrets and things to discover in nearly every frame and pixel."

Right, badges! Another one of Super Mario Bros. Wonder’s big changes is how it handles its gigantic cast of playable characters. Wonder’s cast of 12 playable characters plays and controls identically – meaning character-specific abilities such as Luigi’s higher jump or Peach’s slow float are gone here, and every character controls the same, with the exception of Nabbit and Yoshi, who are invulnerable to damage and cannot take power ups (intended as “easy” characters for new players). Instead, those unique abilities are now tied to Badges. Depending on which badge you have equipped, you could get a better wall jump, get a flutter jump, or get better mobility in the water.

It would have been easy to stop there, but the developers go above and beyond with the Badges too, and there are all sorts of cool abilities tied to Badges, from ones that make things easier (you can always start with a Super Mushroom, or you can get a free rescue from a death once per level), to those that make things harder (you become invisible, not just to enemies, but also to yourself – have fun platforming!) to just ones that you can equip to better suit your play style. There are dozens of Badges, each of them bringing something unique to the table, and you can swap them at will. You can only ever have one of them on at a time – sadly no stacking Badge abilities to make OP or broken builds – but swapping them is easy and can be done at will except in the middle of a course, without penalty, and actively encouraged by the game.

Even without Badges, the game is a joy to play. The controls and physics are greatly improved over the slippery momentum that characterized the New Super Mario Bros. games, allowing for far more precise movement and platforming. Paired with the exceptionally strong level design, and the modifiers that the Badges and Wonder Seeds introduce, this is the sharpest playing 2D Mario game, well, arguably ever.

It’s also a 2D Mario game that makes a lot of concessions to modernity. The game saves after every level, foregoing the archaic and needlessly punishing save system of the past 2D titles, for example. Progression through the world is non linear, with you being given a whole bunch of courses available at a time, and being able to tackle them in any order you want (you can even choose not to do ones you are not interested in entirely). Levels are marked with a difficulty star rating on the world map, so you know upfront what you are in for. 

"The controls and physics are greatly improved over the slippery momentum that characterized the New Super Mario Bros. games, allowing for far more precise movement and platforming. Paired with the exceptionally strong level design, and the modifiers that the Badges and Wonder Seeds introduce, this is the sharpest playing 2D Mario game, well, arguably ever."

The world map itself is dense and packed with all sorts of secrets – the more you poke around, the more you find, from bonus rewards to hidden areas and levels to Badge challenges that you otherwise may never have found. And even with all this hidden bonus content, the game retains that sense of deranged inventiveness. 

Of course, playing great and being inventive is a key part of the Mario identity, but there’s something else, something that was lost in the 2D games for far too long – the sense of visual whimsy and charm, and the bizarreness of the Mario universe, was lost in favor of the strict adherence to bland and sterile corporate mandated “brand standards” with the NSMB games. Everything just looked and felt very… safe and samey.

Then there is Mario Wonder, which is dripping with personality in every scene, with the game’s aesthetics, animations, enemy design, music, everything just reeks of so much personality. There are animations for everything – when Mario gets attacked by a Goomba, the Goomba bites Mario. When Mario is attacking multiple enemies in a line, you can see the last one panic and start to run in the opposite direction. When you’re going down a pipe, you can see Mario slowly wiggling his way in and out. Each new power up has its own unique animation. There is so much charm, so much personality, in everything. The amount of times I’ll go in and out of a pipe, or swap power ups over and over, just to see the animations, is a testament to how well done it all is.

And it makes an incredible difference. The game has an energy and vibrancy that the NSMB series simply never had. Everything in the game feels responsive to the players, and consideration has evidently been given to to everything that the player might do, exemplified by the fact that there are unique and bespoke animations for pretty much every action and interaction you can think of (and they are different for different characters!). And all of this is backed with a gorgeous, color saturated palette, rendered at a full 1080p (720p in handheld mode), running at a near constant blistering 60fps with no dips (except for some transitions on the world map). It looks and runs gorgeous, and is arguably one of the best-looking 2D Mario games of all time.

All of this – the variety, the insane amount of content, the attention to detail with animations or basic QoL that I’ve discussed – of course conveys an incredible amount of care, the kind you would expect from a AAA production that literally had no deadline imposed on it during development, and this is evident in other areas of Super Mario Bros. Wonder too. Take, for example, the online connectivity in this game.

"The online functionality in this game is thoughtfully implemented, and it’s a joy, perfectly in keeping with the spirit of the game and the vision its developers intended, without compromising the actual functionality available to the player."

Online is one area Nintendo has historically struggled with almost no exceptions. They either don’t implement online functionality in their games at all, or when they do, they… well they don’t do it too well. Super Mario Bros. Wonder is one of those rare exceptions. The online functionality in this game is thoughtfully implemented, and it’s a joy, perfectly in keeping with the spirit of the game and the vision its developers intended, without compromising the actual functionality available to the player.

Mario Wonder’s online can best be described as – I swear this is not a meme – Dark Souls. When you are playing online, you can see shadows of other players from around the world, and you can see exactly what they are doing and where they are doing it. This can be helpful not just to find secrets in the overworld, but it can also serve as a different purpose – if you die while playing, you get five seconds to try and fly over as a disembodied ghost to one of the other players you are playing with. If they touch you, you revive and respawn right then and there, and continue the level without losing a life or your progress. You can, in turn, rescue other players as well. You can also drop “standees” which are basically cardboard cutouts, pretty much anywhere on a level. These standees can revive other players in your stead. You can leave them right before a difficult jump, or right by a secret, to telegraph to other players where they should be going. 

Playing online co-op with friends works the same way too. You can make a room for your friends to join, and then you all play your game independently. You can still see each other and bail each other out, but the game is no longer designed around all four of you playing together. It’s more about all four of you playing separately, together. It’s a great way to keep you connected with your friends without running into the net code issues you would run into with the Switch’s limited hardware and Nintendo’s lacking network functionality. 

Local co-op has seen some changes too. Local multiplayer works far closer to the traditional multiplayer in 2D Mario you may remember, where all of you are playing and progressing through stages together. However, even here, there are some changes. Collision is simply not a thing in Wonder, meaning you don’t get to bump into other players, or pick them up and carry them and throw them into pits, or any of the other shenanigans that you got up to in New Super Mario Bros. games. There is one exception to this – if you are playing as Yoshi, other players can ride you, and you can ferry them around the level.

"Super Mario Bros. Wonder is a statement of intent. With Wonder, Nintendo shows us that 2D Mario is no longer content to stay in its 3D siblings’ shadow, and will instead be every bit the genre leading property that Mario should be."

On one hand, I do miss that unique multiplayer experience in Wonder, but on the other, being freed from having to design each course around the presence of up to four players and characters at the same time is precisely one of the reasons the levels in this game are able to be so much more, well, insane than those in any past 2D Mario title, so it’s a worthy tradeoff.

After two decades of New Super Mario Bros., the 2D Mario games were in desperate need of reinvention. The NSMB series was good, but it represented a safe, sterile take on the Mario universe that led to the 2D games being left behind not just by the overwhelmingly excellent and inventive 3D Mario titles, but other 2D platformers made by other developers too. Super Mario Bros. Wonder is a statement of intent. With Wonder, Nintendo shows us that 2D Mario is no longer content to stay in its 3D siblings’ shadow, and will instead be every bit the genre leading property that Mario should be. By re-injecting a healthy dose of whimsy and, yes, wonder back into proceedings, Super Mario Bros. Wonder makes the case for being one of the best 2D platformer games of all time, Mario or otherwise.

This game was reviewed on Nintendo Switch.

Nintendo’s New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe may be a port of a Wii U launch title, but it has done well around the world—such as in the UK, or in Japan. It also did well in Germany, where it was the top selling game for the month at retail, reports Gfk-Tracker. It managed to come in ahead of Resident Evil 2 and Kingdom Hearts 3, which were second and third placed respectively.

The release timing for these games may have played a role in their rankings—New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe launched in mid-January, Resident Evil 2 launched with a week to go, while Kingdom Hearts 3 literally launched two days before January ended. Maybe if all three games had an equal amount of time on the market, the final rankings might have been different.

The rest of the charts are predictable—Red Dead Redemption 2, Call of Duty: Black Ops 4, FIFA 19, Battlefield 5, plus Nintendo evergreens such as Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and Pokemon Let’s Go all featured in the charts. You can see the full charts below.

1. New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe
2. Resident Evil 2
3. Kingdom Hearts 3
4. FIFA 19
5. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe
6. Super Mario Party
7. Red Dead Redemption 2
8. Battlefield 5
9. Super Mario Odyssey
10. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
11. Grand Theft Auto 5
12. Assassin’s Creed Odyssey
13. Landwirtschaft Simulator 19
14. Pokemon Let’s Go, Pikachu!
15. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
16. Call of Duty: Black Ops 4
17. Pokemon Let’s Go, Eevee!
18. Fallout 76
19. Splatoon 2
20. Minecraft

Kingdom Hearts 3, Square Enix’s long awaited conclusion(?) to its epic fantasy journey, topped sales charts in the UK in its debut week, and more than doubled sales of Kingdom Hearts 2. This is according to the latest data from UKIE/Gfk Chart-Track for the week ending February 2nd (via GamesIndustry.biz). It’s apparently the first time the series has seen a UK chart-topping debut, and also the most successful launch in the region for the franchise.

In terms of sales split between the versions, PlayStation 4 emerged on top with an overwhelming 82 percent. Xbox One made up the remainder, which makes sense, given the series’ origins on PlayStation 2. As for Resident Evil 2, it fell from the pole position last week to second place here, with sales dropping by 67 percent week-on-week.

The remainder of the top ten chart is otherwise composed of the usual suspects. Red Dead Redemption 2, FIFA 19, and Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 occupy third, fourth, and fifth place respectively. New Super Mario Bros. U saw a slight fall into sixth place. It’s pretty much business as usual.

Check out UKIE/GfK’s top ten best-selling games for the week ending February 2nd below:

1. Kingdom Hearts 3
2. Resident Evil 2
3. Red Dead Redemption 2
4. FIFA 19
5. Call of Duty: Black Ops 4
6. New Super Mario Bros U
7. Mario Kart 8: Deluxe
8. Super Smash Bros Ultimate
9. Grand Theft Auto 5
10. Spyro Reignited Trilogy

Capcom’s Resident Evil 2 has debuted on top in the UK sales charts, according to the latest UKIE/Gfk Chart-Track data. As GamesIndustry.biz reports, this was the publisher’s biggest UK launch since Resident Evil 7 in 2017. Sales were 18 percent lower in comparison, but since digital downloads aren’t included, total sales will likely be higher.

Resident Evil 2 performed well on the PlayStation 4, with that version accounting for 74 percent of total units sold. New Super Mario Bros. U, the previous week’s chart-topper, fell to fourth place, with sales seeing a 44 percent drop over last week. Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown fell to sixth place, with a 51 percent sales drop.

Red Dead Redemption 2 and Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 moved up slightly in the charts to second and third respectively. FIFA 19 remains in fifth place, while Super Smash Bros. Ultimate fell to seventh place. Check out the top ten best-selling UK games for the week ending January 26th below.

1. Resident Evil 2
2. Red Dead Redemption 2
3. Call of Duty: Black Ops 4
4. New Super Mario Bros U
5. FIFA 19
6. Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown
7. Super Smash Bros Ultimate
8. Mario Kart 8: Deluxe
9. Grand Theft Auto 5
10. Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy

The latest in the round of Wii U ports headed to the Nintendo Switch will be New Super Mario Bros. U, which was actually a Wii U launch game back in 2012, and was also, in fact, leaked not too long ago. The Deluxe edition will include all the content from New Super Mario Bros. U and the expansion New Super Luigi U, for over 150 levels for players to make their way through. Collectively, these represent, in spite of the distaste many have for the New Super Mario series, among the best 2D Mario content we have ever received.

The new package will also include Nabbit as a playable character for the very first time in a New Super Mario Bros. game, as well as Toadette. Co-op play will be maintained, and you can play the game entirely with a single Joycon (which makes total sense, since the original could be completed with a single Wii Remote). Online functionality hasn’t been confirmed, and it’s not unreasonable to suppose it won’t be in the game.

New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe launches on the Nintendo Switch on January 11, 2019.

New #SuperMario Bros. U Deluxe is coming to #NintendoSwitch on 1/11/19 and includes both the New Super Mario Bros. U and New Super Luigi U games! pic.twitter.com/DMeqksC4dT

— Nintendo of America (@NintendoAmerica) September 13, 2018

Sometimes boss battles end up being more about the spectacle, which isn’t necessarily always bad, sometimes they are meant as more of an introduction to the challenges the game will present to you going forward, in which case they’re inherently easier by design, while other times they feel like they’re just there to check off boxes, which in most cases is quite disappointing. In this feature, we’re going to take a look at 15 boss fights that, for some reason or the other, proved to be so easy you could waltz through them with your eyes closed.

Be warned, there might be some slight spoilers ahead.

THE JOKER (BATMAN: ARKHAM ORIGINS)

The Joker boss fight in Batman: Arkham Asylum gets a lot of criticism from a lot of people, more because of its contextual setup than anything else, and though the Arkham City one is decidedly better than that one (especially because of how it ends), the fight itself is not all that memorable. The one we’re speaking of here, though, is the Caped Crusader’s encounter against the Clown Prince of Gotham in the incredible and often unfairly overlook Arkham Origins. The game might feature what is probably the best boss fight in the entire series, which is the Deathstroke fight, but it does also play host to one particularly underwhelming one. Batman’s encounter against The Joker in Origins devolves to little more than quick time events, and while it isn’t offensively bad by any means, it fails to provide any sort of a challenge.

New Super Mario Bros. U, the 2D Mario game that launched alongside the Wii U, and the final game in Nintendo’s modern revival of 2D Mario till date, may be headed to the Nintendo Switch. As rumors and speculation go, this one has actually been among the more common ones over the last year or so- however, now, writing for Comic Book, known Nintendo insider Liam Robertson is claiming that a port of the game is indeed headed to the Switch before this year’s end.

The port will also come with the expansion New Super Luigi U, and will include some new content as well- though Robertson doesn’t seem to have many details on what the latter might entail. Robertson claims that the internal title he has heard for the game seems to be New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe, which is a bit of a mouthful, but would be in line with most other Wii U ports for the Switch. That said, he also does clarify that it’s not clear if the name is internal, or intended to be the final name.

As of right now, this is just a rumor- we don’t know whether or not it is even true. That said, maybe it can be one of those many unnamed Switch games that have been listed on Amazon UK– maybe a Nintendo Direct is coming.

The add-on will add 82 updated course and new content. Player will be able to play as Luigi, Yellow Toad, Blue Toad and a brand new playable character named Nabbit. This new character will not be able to power up when he collects items, but his unique abilities include not taking damage when he gets in contact with enemies. He will only be playable as a multiplayer character.

Boxart:

Screenshot Gallery:

It’s lovely to see Luigi get his own personal adventure on the Wii U for the first time. The last time Luigi had his own game was Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon on the 3DS which was fantastic, hopefully Nintendo decides to make more future Luigi standalone titles.

Let us know if you’re excited for New Super Luigi U for the Wii U in the comments below.

Check back on GamingBolt for more media updates as we get closer to E3 2013.

With the introduction of a new character, gameplay mechanics will be slightly varied across the game’s 80 stages.

‘To continue the fun of New Super Mario Bros. U for Wii U, Nintendo is letting Luigi take over in new downloadable content that is coming in the Year of Luigi that provides alternate versions of the game’s more than 80 stages. Players can freely change between the New Super Luigi U and New Super Mario Bros. U stages. These Luigi-focused stages provide a whole new level of game-play challenge and will be available for purchase as a single download,” the publisher confirmed during Nintendo Direct.

Nintendo have also released a couple of screenshots from the game. You can check them out below.

You can also check out our positive review of Super Mario Bros. U over here.

Stay tuned to GamingBolt for more news and updates.

The plot is as see through as ever, this time with Bowser and co. opting to take over Peach’s castle in its entirety rather than kidnapping the princess alone. It is, as always though, merely a springboard for a load of retro platforming goodness, and good it is indeed. The Mario formula returns largely unchanged, but the mechanics are tightened ever so slightly, with the level design complementing it all in such a way that this is arguably the strongest of the NSMB sub-series in terms of raw gameplay.

The problem comes in how all the additions and changes are so minimal. NSMB Wii added multiplayer, NSMB2 had the focus on coin collecting, but the Wii U variant has no real flavour to it by comparison. Granted, the Wii U Gamepad swoops in to offer a co-op partner the ability to place extra platforms and stun enemies with appropriate screen taps. It’s new for sure, but it feels more like that stupid star pointer crap from the Super Mario Galaxy series than like a meaningful addition to the co-op formula. It also plays havoc with the co-op mode as, whilst it allows for a five player romp, it means one player is constantly having far less fun than the others. Things are made even worse by the inability to use the Gamepad as a normal controller in multiplayer. It just seems like an oversight that limits your control options. Even worse is the lack of Pro controller support. It makes no sense that, what is arguably the flagship launch title for the Wii U, would neglect full support for this controller, especially when no motion controls are used for the bulk of the game. The Gamepad does allow you to play single player totally separate from the TV though. It’s a cool feature, but it certainly isn’t enough to grant SMBU its own identity among the deluge of other quality 2D Mario titles.

It’s not a total write off though in terms of innovation. New powers are introduced in the form of a flying squirrel suit and baby yoshis. The squirrel suit isn’t too different to the Tanooki suit of Mario Bros. 3 fame, though the ability to get a quick boost upwards mid-glide and clinging to walls add a variation to the classic. The baby yoshis are more interesting, with the different coloured beasts offering a variety of different powers. Adding to these new abilities are some alternate modes that see you taking control of your Mii, rather than the moustachioed wonder himself. Coin battles return from the Wii NSMB, with the ability to use the Gamepad screen to customise coin layout. Challenge mode provides a variety of weird and wonderful objectives of increasing difficulty. There’s a lot of avoiding the floor in this mode, and it’s bloomin’ hard. Boost Rush is the final and most refreshing of the modes, placing you on a constantly moving level that speeds up as you collect more coins.

Aside from these, the only main and Wii U specific change is the game’s integration with the MiiVerse. It must be said that, despite being a fairly obvious implementation, the way the service is integrated with the game is fantastic and something that more games could do with. On the world map (of which you now just have one large one as opposed to a separate map for each world) you can see various messages other players have posted on MiiVerse regarding each level. It might be a tip, a player asking for help or simply some lucky son of a gun bragging about how quickly they beat a level. You can leave your own messages to, with the game prompting you to do so if you fail a section too many times or clear a course in a spectacular manner. It’s clean, efficient and indicative of how Nintendo’s community features can be used in future titles.

The visuals are one element that need a greater depth of discussion, what with it being the first time Mario has graced a resolution higher than 480p. The mushroom kingdom translates remarkably well to the world of HD, but it’s hard to feel like you’re really getting your money’s worth with the graphics on show. The 2D element in conjunction with the conservative world and character designs prevent any real flourishes from occurring technically, and the fact that the animations, character models and almost all audio elements are seemingly lifted directly from previous games in the series really rams home that this is an update rather than a full sequel to the New Super Mario Bros. Sub-series.

That is really the long and short of it sadly, and the reason why NSMB Wii U was such a frustrating title to review. If we were looking at fun factor alone, the game would need a score higher than this, as it’s hard to not have fun with a Mario game. To do this though wouldn’t be right, as making a Mario game fun is like breathing for Nintendo; it’s just one of these things that seems to come naturally. Granted, the levels are well crafted, the multiplayer is still fun and the difficulty hits a sweet spot, but the lack of any new features or material is a disappointment, and highlights a conservative treatment Nintendo has with all its franchises that threatens to render them all redundant as time and hardware marches on. For the consumer, I’d say not to bother at the full RRP if you have any of the other NSMB games, but if you’re a Mario nut like the rest of us then you’ll probably already have it, and you’ll likely be having a good time as well. It’s just a shame Nintendo couldn’t allow us this fun but with some actually interesting content as well.

This game was reviewed on the Wii U.