@nerrel thank you much for liking my comment, huge fan. Totally didn’t just call my girlfriend and tell her, “The James Bond song guy with the Majora’s Mask thumbnail just liked my comment.”
I cannot overstate how much I love that you made zero attempt explain the Langoliers thing. This is the amazing niche within a niche content that I come here for
I watched the movie a long time ago, they were creatures that ate the past right? The people sleeping on the plane got stuck in a time rift if I recall
If you're referring to the character specific hidden blocks, then I'm glad those are all completely optional and not pertinent to completing a level outside of some Search Party levels
@@JonGon005 I was referring to the search party levels, yeah. There are only 3 of them but they're by a long shot the worst in the game, which is a shame because they knocked it out of the park with the rest of the levels.
@@MishKoz I get what they were going for with the search party levels. It's an intere4sting team exercise sort of challenge but you're right that it tends to fall completely flat.
"mario is weird again" couldn't have said it better myself. it feels like a true successor to super mario world and super mario land 2, both of my favorite games of all time. the enemy designs in particular feel straight out of super mario land 2. they're weird as fuck and I love it.
I feel like it's closer to a new generation of NSMB. The type of 2D Mario game that favors tradition over actual innovation. There's plenty of creativity, but the game doesn't go out of its way to be truly ambitious. It's moreso an evolution of the original SMB, rather than a sequel that takes what predecessors have done and expands on it. Super Mario World is still far more creative than this game when it comes to actual game structure. And well, then there's the music. The main theme is good, but other than that... almost nothing sticks out. It's a good game overal, but definitely not anywhere near as good as the good 2D Mario games.
It's interesting that the thought of "Nintendo should challenge themselves to one up fan efforts" that you have used in the video series on emulation, is presented again here when talking about how many, rightly so, felt that there was no need for another same old "new soup" mario game when fans pump out really creative ideas within the admittedly restrictive Mario Maker set of tools. It's a fair point to bring up that I haven't thought of with that lens. Props Nerrel
I unsubscribed and reported you for war crimes when you called Bowser Jr. "Baby Bowser", who is a completely different character with a deep and compelling lore.
Nerrel: "Who's going to care about my opinions on Mario Wonder nearly 2 months after release?" Me: "Holy shit, Nerrel's talking about Mario Wonder! Awesome!"
Ok, since Tropical Freeze was brought up, I have to go off topic. I had a professor who worked at Retro Studios as an environmental artist, and it's clear that the team is always trying something new and innovative, treating the world like a character itself. He never got into specifics due to non-disclosure, but it was evident in the way he taught Maya just how much care and attention he pays to minutia and always pushed us to expand on things. The team for Mario Wonder took clear inspiration from their work, and I'm glad to see that the creativity in an overseas company caught eyes and inspired work at Nintendo's studio in Japan.
Dude, i feel so bad that Martinet did not voice Mario in the movie. I know, he had a cameo, but c'mon, finishing his carrer with a movie would be so perfect.
seriously. its so sad seeing the last interview thing nintendo did with him, he clearly didnt want to quit and it wasnt his own choice, you can tell by his body language and just how sad he sounds. though i will not hesitate to say the voice acting he did in luigis mansion 3, especially for luigi, was so fucking bad its not even funny. still would've preferred they used him or even recycled old voice clips over this new corny ass voice actor
@@ianswift3521 that's quite the ignorant statement. He has many other v.a. roles besides Mario. The man is a master of his craft, and one minute of a google search could've clarified that.
The thing that makes me truly sad about the Langoliers references is knowing that even if Nintendo acknowledges them as canon, we'd still never get WaLangoliers in Smash.
In future videos, would you mind displaying your text comments on a different part of the screen? That plus the fact that they're white-on-black just like the subtitle box made me completely miss some of them, and even if it weren't for that it's a little annoying to have to disable the subtitles briefly just to read your comments. I love your vids tho, and I appreciate how consistent you've been with captioning them on release!
Of all of the references I've heard and seen across youtube, Nerrel is the first youtuber I've watched to ever reference The Langoliers. That movie was uncanny.
The fact Mario says “Wowie Zowie” instead of “Momma Mia” is a direct example of Italian Genocide and this atrocity will never be forgotten or forgiven.
I just want to appreciate the fact that you keep up this insane production quality purely for fun and out of dedication while simultaneously rejecting any sponsorships and paid promotions. Every single one of your videos reflects your great love and compassion for video games and content creation as a whole.
Semi-related, but there is a re-edit of the Langoliers called The Timekeepers of Eternity, which reconstructs the film in stop-motion by printing every single frame onto black and white paper and photographing it, and then using various interesting paper effects, like having it crumple when there's an impact or having the paper tear to show a split screen, and notably the special effect for the Langoliers themselves was redone entirely with a unique paper effect. I saw it in a run-down city building filled with pianos for a College class on cult films, so you can trust me when I say it's real.
Nerrel is the only reviewer on RU-vid who would be bold enough to have an entire three minutes of Langolier's play out during his video. Truly a man amongst men.
I checked all of the flower voices and found the German one was the most hammy and therefore the most entertaining. That said I ended up just turning it off after a few levels.
If you’re referring to the voice of Luigi from Japanese version of Mario Kart 64 and the first two Mario Party games, that wasn’t Charles Martinet doing the voice, that was Julien Bardakoff. He used to work at Nintendo of Europe as a French translator, it’s sort of a similar situation to how Leslie Swan did English translation and got to be one of the earliest voices for Peach.
One of my most consistent critiques of the Switch (and consoles in general nowadays) is just how often the Online services are locked behind a paywall. I don't know how many lackluster online functions need to be in games I enjoy before I start paying a luxury for mediocrity. I'm happy to see you criticize that here.
I also selected the japanese voice for the flowers. It was easier for me to integrate them into the Mario universe this way since I don't understand japanese and I could hear them the same way I hear toads or poplins talking (wah! yah! etc). It's as cursed as imagining Link talking in the Zelda series.
I wish there was an option to pick random voices; don't ask me why, but the idea of one flower speaking Mandarin and another speaking Italian really makes me chuckle.
@@matthewmuir8884 I don't know how I want them to handle that. Link isn't actually a silent protagonist, at least, not in Breath of the Wild or Tears of the Kingdom. He speaks constantly, just without a voice actor. If they do have him not say things, I hope he at least still makes "anime noises" like he does in cutscenes. The little "ngh" sounds when he reacts to things. Realistically he *should* have a voice, because if he's actually never depicted speaking in the movie, its inaccurate to his character in the games that I've played. But theres no way to satisfy everyone with whatever voice they pick.
@@ASpaceOstrich I think the best option would be to do what every 3D Zelda game except BotW and TotK did: give Link an adventuring companion that does all the talking for him.
@@matthewmuir8884 That would work quite well. Could even have a bit of fun with it where link goes to speak but never actually manages to get a word out on screen. And imply he speaks off screen. The only thing missing would be the comedy value of things like "paraglider please" which I personally found very funny. But I don't think it'd be worth it vs what would be lost by giving him a definitive voice.
8:47 Interestingly enough, the Pro Controller doesn't actually have a speaker. They just tuned the HD Rumble in a way that makes it sound like noises/music
Okay, I have to thank you for showing the option to change ground pound controls, I lost count of how many times I accidentally used it at the wrong time and screwed myself. I really need to learn to explore the game options more often.
I swapped the voice language to PT-Portuguese, cuz for Brazilians hearing them talk with that accent is effin hilarious. And I agree with you on the lack of secret exits. The thing in this game I miss the most is the lack of interactions between levels and world map that SMW had. World 4 (Sunbaked Desert) is interesting, and I wouldn't change it as it is pretty unique, but the other Worlds felt deceivingly open while having the pace of a semi-linear open world. Very good platformer tho, had a smile on my face more times than not, even when playing most of the game alone.
It seems like they decided to swap the main way of being able to choose which levels you want to play or avoid from using secret exits/warps that let you skip whole worlds to gating castles and other checkpoints with a seed limit that means you can clear a world by only playing half (or fewer) of the levels in it. Both approaches have pro and cons: Wonder does give you more fine-grained control if you like most of the levels in a certain world but hate some of them, but on the other hand it makes most secret exits feel more generic and low impact.
@@globalistgamer6418 Definitely. While my phrasing shows my bias, having the world being semi-open and the lack of urgency of doing every stage is just a different approach, not a worse nor better one. And the replayability factor in Wonder is in its badge system, not so much in how you tackle the progression. It's just that, to me, I favour good world-building and its interaction with gameplay over different game modes. Tho I have to say, SMW does at some point feel like it doesn't show anything new in its stages, compared to Wonder where basically every new stage feels unique due to the Wonder Effects and sometimes World specific mechanics or enemies.
I honestly like reviews that come out a little while after the thing in question, because they usually are presented with the reviewer having had more time to really feel out their thoughts on the game
I think I am the exact audience you wished to make this video for. So thank you very much. It makes my heart burst with joy to hear those lines at the end of this video "Mario is weird again". Stay weird everyone, it makes life fun.
I think the best part of Super Mario Bros Wonder is that Nintendo feels more okay with letting go old and dated mechanics-- the score counter is notably gone, the lives system is still here but so inflated it only really matters on the hardest levels the game has to offer. Most levels feel more linear, however I prefer this over the "get the flight power up and skip every level" approach of the older games. It's also nice that the "unexpected" parts of the game feel more genuinely unexpected, and less corporate. Going in, I was expecting the wonder effects to be things like lowering gravity or making the level slippery, and while there's still notable examples of effects like these, most effects are genuinely surprising and not something you'd expect out of a large game studio like Nintendo; shifting perspectives, random musical numbers, gameplay-halting quizzes, they definitely weren't afraid to experiment with these and it's paid off wonderfully.
If anything, the only real effect lives have is convincing the player to stop hurling themselves at the first or second special world stage they find, and to come back later once they have more lives, meaning they are further, meaning their skill is increased/they have more badges to help
I needed this, the trailers really undersold this game and being in the "checked out between DS and Wii U" camp, I wasn't planning to pick this up but I am considering it now to get on sale and play during the holidays
Tropical Freeze is gorgeous, but I think Mario is more readable. This might be an east/west artist split, or maybe just something the Mario teams prioritize, I don't know. But if you compare Wonder and Tropical Freeze, or Super Mario 3d World and Crash Bandicoot 4, it feels like a distinct split between devs who want their levels to look like "believeable" cartoon spaces and devs that first and foremost want things to look clear. I think immersive and readable can coexist to some extent, but I know which games I more often run into obstacles in because they didn't stand out enough in the moment, or mixed up a background and foreground object. Wonder does it right by making it a lot more beautiful, varied and distinct than the New series, but still keeping it very readable.
Pretty great how the 30-plus-year-old game series that's still just about walking to the right and jumping on things demonstrates more creativity and makes for a more pleasurable experience than any100 trillion dollar open-world "RPG"
When was the last time you even saw a large-budget RPG? If you're talking about BG3, it's hard to argue the game is not also creative and enjoyable… and if you're talking about Starfield, that game clearly can't have cost more than $10M, lol.
You nailed it on the head. Those who have become indifferent to 2D Mario need to come back and try this game! My only thing is that I wholeheartedly disagree with you saying that Afghani's Luigi voice is off. I thought he did an amazing job matching what Luigi should sound like and i even enjoy him more than Martinet's later performances in more recent games such as Luigi's Mansion 3 where his voice is more... throat-y for lack of a better term? Anyways, I'm so excited for the future of this franchise
"My childhood bias forces me to think Super Mario World is still the best but Wonder is really challenging its place at this top." I thought this exact same thing hah. I do love how creative Wonder is but I am nostalgic for the days of developers still trying to figure things out and trying different ideas, where not all of them might stick. I think Wonder's ideas stick 99% of the time, but its because they've already figured it out by this point. Meanwhile World's ideas stick maybe... 85% of the time, but I love that about old games and makes me appreciate them more.
I was just rewatching a bunch of your old videos and thinking that you probably weren't going to review this because it wasn't Metroid or Zelda but then I thought about how you reviewed Pikmin 4 and rewatched that. Then right when that video ended this one popped up on my phone.
Funny thing, I was going to get Wonder sometime (likely before the new year) but someone hacked my account and bought it with my card. I reset all my stuff and added two-factor and all that but decided to not call Nintendo about it. Was really blown away by it
@@randonologic4684 they luckily just did that and put some credit on my account and that was it so I wasn't too mad. The thing that really pissed me off was that they used up my gold I was saving
I'm happy that there are secret exits, though I am sad at how lackluster they are. That and the boss fights. Though to be fair, did Mario 3 or World have very interesting boss fights? It's been a while, but I feel like 2D Mario just hasn't been that great in that regard. Hopefully that changes. Great game even with it's flaws, though.
Yeah, mechanically most of the Koopa Kid fights significantly repeated elements from each other in those, although making it a different character each time seems to have a large effect in making the fights feel more different. Beating a particular character permanently also seems more satisfying in terms of creating a sense of having achieved something at the end of each world. I think 2D Mario bosses have rarely felt that notable except maybe in Yoshi's Island, but they have never been bad either. Relatively simple bosses work well with the run and jump mechanics, and I think the final boss in Wonder might have actually tried a bit too hard and ended up being overly convoluted.
I wonder (ha!) if they couldn't just drop boss fights altogether and have the level design provide the challenge/climax bit. I've seen some (indie) platformers do that.
There not the most challenging bosses in any 2D Mario game. Let's be real. But I do prefer those bosses over Wonder because they have more variations and unique battles that stands out. Even the NSMB series, for as stale and bland as those games are, have more unique bosses than Wonder. Particularly the DS one.
Good reviews take time, and this video has released barely more than a month after the game it released; I don't think this really counts as too late. That said, we wouldn't have gotten the Stadia joke without it, so I think that's fair.
I personally think the game has an over reliance on badge/side challenges. And putting the staleness of NSMB aside, I actually think the highs of those games had better level design than most of the levels here. The wonder flower does a lot to the game design of those levels, but the level design itself is extremely flat. This game is certainly better than NSMB, but given enough time, I dont know if I'd rank it quite as high as 3 or World.
I think Wonder's has better level designs. Not that any NSMB have bad levels. But they don't nearly stack up or stand out to me as Wonder has. Especially with the Wonder Flower effect that makes it more interesting. Or even Mario 3, World & Land 2 has better level designs than the NSMB games.
I love your reviews because you have the eye of an artist as well as the context of someone who’s been playing these games for 30 years. I can’t believe I didn’t hear anything about Charles freaking out. Idk how. I wish Mario controlled more like MvDK or 3D with the triple jump and pivot backflips. They were missed. I think every new Mario game should have a Mario maker feature. Even if it’s just specific to this game alone. No legacy assets.
I left the Nintendo Switch at home this semester so I didn’t even get to play this until thanksgiving break. That being said, this review came right on time for me
I have completed four worlds now. After playing the first world cooperatively, I just continued solo. I am enjoying it, and this video highlights all the good stuff, but I can't help but feel I'd just as much enjoy replaying 3D Mario World, 3D Land, or New Super Mario Bros. I don't see Wonder as a GOTY contender, but that's just my opinion. I am very partial to 3D Mario games too
ima be completely honest, why does someone like you have that small amount of subs? like man, you do the best humour i’ve seen in a video game channel, keep it up man
The new stage elements, mechanics and wonders rarely get even close to their potenital. the player often doesnt have to interact with them, partially due to an abundance of safety nets. This is best seen with many wonders making you practically invincible. wether this is good or bad is up to the player. I personally wish for more constructive iterative use of stage elements in whatever comes next, as ive often felt like the level was over just as it was about to get interesting.
I'm surprised people are calling this the best Mario since the 3rd NES installment or Mario World.. when Nintendo basically took any 2D version they've made, and put in Mario Maker creations in it (+ Yoshi's Woolly World Badges idea improved). The mentioned lack of bosses, repeated content and much more doesn't really allow this to truly stand out.
Do you really like anything bro? Like holy crap criticism is important but a huge portions of your comments I've seen are nothing but negativity. "Or they're just bad games". If we have several games that are very highly praised and you're not able to get into a single one of these titles then that says a lot more about you than the quality of the games themselves.
@@Leee275 Of course, I'm only human. I just don't like crap and I seem more vocal about it.. probably because it's been quite some time since anything worthwhile came out (I'm thinking Bloodborne, game I cannot truly complain about). Can't praise what doesn't exist! Nor do I think 'corporate products' should be exempt for criticism.. on the contraire. If I've learned anything from the PKMN company is that not buying their games or complaining hasn't helped. But I care enough not to stop wanting better things to consume and enjoy. I'd be an idiot for wanting less, specially since I have a brain with creativity and enough imagination to know what is possible. Mario Wonder wastes a LOT of time. And the added visual improvements don't make visiting a Flower dude's house for a seed less of a waste of time.. in a game I completed in 2 days (secret world and all). Can't complain about something unless you truly understand it. Nerrel does, but he is overall more positive than me about this crap. But even he knows that a MODERN release cannot beat the SNES version. Seriously? Not to mention how stages are completed in less than a minute now, unless you actively participate in the Wonder Flower effect that invalidates half the stage-design.. purposely!! The game is short and not hard, just as tedious as previous entries.
