There are many things that will separate Super Mario Bros Wonder from past 2D Mario titles. The visuals have been upped a bit to have a better animation flow to them, certain “staples” of the franchise have been tossed out to fit “modern gaming practices,” and more. But the biggest thing that fans are looking forward to is the power of the Wonder Flower. This item will completely change the landscape of a level and force players to overcome whatever challenges it throws at them.
In a special developer interview, Nintendo asked the various team members of Super Mario Bros Wonder what it was like to come up with these “wondrous” new stages. Surprisingly, it started with just the idea of having the pipes move, and then, as one member of the team noted, things evolved from there:
“We took great pains to create a world that could incorporate this idea. We decided to incorporate this major transformation as a mysterious phenomenon called the “Wonder effect” and use unconventional visuals.”
Enter another team member who stated that they had a TON of ideas on what they could do with the Wonder Effect:
“From then on, we held Wonder prototype meetings, where we selected ideas from the more-than-2,000 sticky notes and other materials produced in the idea-sharing session and created prototypes that matched the world of Wonder. Various ideas were incorporated into the game as we went along.”
One of the composers ever said that they ensured that the SOUND of the Wonder Flower activating would be special:
“We were also conscious of this major transformation when creating the sound. To make the sound of activating the Wonder effects more unconventional, we used a lot of up-tempo background music. We also made the environmental sounds and sound effects more dynamic to give a sense of complete change from the regular course.”
So as you can see, they put a lot of thought into this. And you’ll get to see just how much yourselves when Super Mario Bros Wonder arrives on October 20th!