Super Mario Bros. Wonder – welcome to the Flower Kingdom (Picture: Nintendo)
15 minutes of Super Mario Bros. Wonder footage details new power-ups, new characters, and how the online multiplayer works.
Today’s Nintendo Direct was just a short one, focused entirely on Super Mario Bros. Wonder, but it crammed a lot into its 15-minute runtime.
The game’s announcement already left an impact with how bizarre it looks, from psychedelic levels that transform when you touch special flowers to a new elephant power-up for Mario.
Unsurprisingly, the weirdness doesn’t stop there, as the game’s plot revolves around Bowser merging with a castle, spreading unbridled chaos across the new setting of the Flower Kingdom.
This happened because he touched a Wonder Flower, a new item that appears across the game’s levels and radically changes how it works. We got a preview of how it works in the original announcement, but the new footage has even more bizarre looking examples.
The level can swap to a top-down perspective, it can turn Mario into a Goomba, or it can leave you floating through space. It seems there’s a wide variety of these Wonder Effects, which don’t seem to revert until you’ve grabbed another item called a Wonder Seed.
There’ll be seven worlds in total to play through and aside from Mario, Luigi, Peach, Toad, Daisy, and Yoshi, it’s now confirmed that Toadette and Nabbit will be playable too.
From the sound of it, Yoshi and Nabbit are akin to playing the game on easy mode, since they can’t take damage from touching enemies. Although falling into lava or a pit will still cause you to lose a life.
The new elephant power-up also got a proper demonstration and it’s far more versatile than it looks. Aside from being able to whack enemies with your trunk, you can use it to destroy blocks, knock back projectiles, and fill it with water to spray out.
Super Mario Bros. Wonder – what an unusual view (Picture: Nintendo)
Every character besides Yoshi and Nabbit can make use of this power-up, as well as a couple of other new ones: a bubble power, that can trap enemies or be used to make platforms, and a drill form that lets you dig underground to avoid enemies. It’s like the drill item from Super Mario Galaxy 2, except it’s not one-use.
Mario and co. also boast some new movement abilities thanks to equippable badges you can acquire. You can only equip one at a time, but they offer some welcome boons, like a parachute cap that lets you glide through the air and a vine that functions as a grappling hook.
As expected, local multiplayer for up to four players is included too, but there is online multiplayer as well… sort of. If you play online, levels will be filled with the ghosts of other people who are playing at the same time.
You can’t interact with them but if you die, you’ll become a ghost yourself and can touch another player to come back to life straight away.
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Nintendo also took the opportunity to confirm that there will be a Mario themed Switch OLED console just as was leaked. It’ll launch on October 6.
However, the identity of Mario’s new voice actor remains a mystery. Nintendo and Charles Martinet, the original voice actor, are meant to be hosting a special video sometime soon, so perhaps they’re saving that reveal for then.
Super Mario Bros. Wonder launches for Nintendo Switch on October 20.
15 minutes of Super Mario Bros. Wonder footage details new power-ups, new characters, and how the online multiplayer works.