Summary
In a huge surprise during the Nintendo Direct last month, the company formally announcedSuper Mario Bros Wonder. Scheduled to be released on October 20, it is positioned to be a wonderfulMarioinstallment for the platform leading into the holiday season. The reveal trailer showcased vibrant colors, lively animations, and some truly outlandish newpower-ups for theSuper Mario Brosfranchise.
WithTears of the Kingdomalready dominating the Switch spotlight in the first half of the year,Super Mario Bros Wonderwill now serve as the must-play exclusive for Nintendo fans in the latter half of the year. There is still so much to learn about the game leading up to its release, but its announcement trailer did provide enough teases of what’s in store. This game marks several firsts for the long-standing Nintendo franchise, for example.
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New Super Mario Bros Wonder Is The First Full-Length Mario Game In Years
Not countingBowser’s Fury, which was released as a bonus withSuper Mario 3D World’s Switch port in 2021,Wonderis the first proper Mario game in years.Super Mario Odysseywasreleased way back in 2017, during the Switch’s first year on the market. To break this down even further,Super Mario Bros Wonderalso marks the first traditional 2D platformer for Mario and company in a decade, withNew Super Mario Bros Uon the Wii U being the last dedicated release in this style.
As fans know, Nintendo likes to take its time between major mainline installments of its flagship franchises. No further proof is needed for the company’s commitment to polish than the six-year development time forTears of the Kingdom, or theongoing production ofMetroid Prime 4, with the first version of the title being scrapped entirely as it wasn’t up to standards. Anytime a new entry in theSuper Mario Brosfranchise is on the horizon is surely an exciting time, and with the Nintendo Switch entering its twilight years, the mustachioed plumber is sure to send the platform off with a bang.
New Super Mario Bros Wonder Features The Weirdest Power-Ups To Date
To be fair, theSuper Mario Brosfranchise as a whole is pretty strange. It stars a plumber who eats mushrooms and enlarges to jump on other mushrooms with eyes, crushing them with his body weight. The series has always had a sense of absurdity to it butSuper Mario Bros Wonderkicks things upto a completely new level. In the first reveal trailer, there is so much insanity packed into the two-minute preview of the game that it’s almost mind-melting how many zany concepts Nintendo has created for it. Specifically, the power-ups which Mario will be using this time around are a whole new definition of weird.
The trailer begins with a talking plant and then begins to showcase the usual pitch-perfect platforming the series is known for. Eventually, Mario activates something called a ‘Wonder Flower’—yet another franchise first—and things go absolutely bonkers. Mario turns into a long shadow figure, a spiked bowling ball, rides an armada of sheep to a flagpole, and leaps across sewer pipes crawling like caterpillars.
If all that’s not enough, the cherry on the cake appears in the final moments of the trailer. Mario activates one final power-up and just two words are perfect to demonstrate the strangeness of this new game:Elephant Mario. As insane as that sounds, it’s likely that Nintendo has even more surprises in store for when the game eventually launches later this year.
Super Mario Bros Wonderlaunches on October 20, exclusively for Nintendo Switch.
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