Super Mario Bros. Wonder really is filled with secrets and surprises
Dipping into a few levels and trying to make sense of it all.
There's a moment early on in Super Mario Wonder that genuinely surprised me. I laughed out loud. I was shocked, almost scandalised. I had run up to a pipe, right, these staples of every Mario game reaching back into the series first appearance. I thought I knew the deal. Some pipes are just obstacles. But some are hollow, and you can drop down inside them to find new areas.
Not this one. This one - whisper it - moved. As I reached it, I must have pushed against it, and the pipe slid across the ground. I know, right? I am still getting over it.
Super Mario Wonder has a lot of stuff like this. I can't remember the last Mario game that made me laugh as much, or the last Mario game that made me question basic Mario lore, if such a thing exists. We're back in 2D Mario territory - a series of games that, over the last few outings, have perhaps unfairly gotten a reputation for playing things a bit safe. The theme this time around is secrets and surprises, though. And gosh, does Wonder deliver. A pipe you can push across the ground. Mercy.
There are so many new ideas here, pretty much shaken into every stage like seasoning into a bag of popcorn. It can be hard, at first, to get your bearings. Eventually I realised that not getting my bearings was the point. Apart from very simple rituals - levels have new purple coins alongside the gold that can be collected for prizes, there are badges that are unlocked that allow for a special move when worn, new stages are unlocked by collecting Wonder Seeds - the game wants you to feel lost in an ever-shifting sea of gimmickry. It does. And it works.
This means when you load up a level you never know quite what you're going to get. When I played the game at an event recently, I played a badge challenge that allowed me to wall-jump my way higher and higher in a largely vertical stage. Then I played a level in which I pursued a Skedaddler, a hilarious new Mario creature who runs away from you while staring back over its shoulder, wide eyed and surprisingly terrified by your pursuit. Then I played a level featuring Bulrushes, who are a kind of Mario-tinged blend of buffalo and rhinos, as far as I can tell. Maybe a bit like the rhino creatures from Super Mario World? Maybe. But here they see you and charge, which is good for knocking through otherwise unbreakable blocks to reach hidden areas, and even better if you can get onto their backs, because you can coast through the level with impunity.
At some point in this last level I triggered an event which sent the Bulrushes charging en masse, until there was a huge herd of them rushing over the landscape and blasting everything in their path. I was just about clinging on top, in the game's new Elephant Mario costume, and wondering if the pace of the level would ever return to normal. I'm sure I missed dozens of funny little things I could have done here, but that's the point, I think. These are hectic levels made to be replayed and re-explored. You sound out every corner over time as you look for new secrets until you're sure - just about - that there is nothing left.