How Super Mario Bros. Wonder Combats the “Standardized Idea of Mysteries and Secrets” of the Franchise, Director Shiro Mouri Explains

Super Mario Bros. Wonder is not your usual 2D platformer title. In fact, it is miles away from what Nintendo has been doing with this franchise for the past few years. Ever since the inception of the DS, Nintendo has developed a habit of naming their 2D Mario games “New Super Mario Bros.”. This series got its latest installment, New Super Mario Bros. U, back in 2012, which was later re-released for Nintendo Switch.

But fans wanted something different, and Nintendo has finally delivered. 2D Mario games have finally shed the “New” moniker. The latest Mario platformer is called Super Mario Bros. Wonder, and it breaks a lot of conventions. The game’s director recently even talked about how secrets work in this new title.

Super Mario Bros. Wonder breaks the convention of secrets and surprises gamers

Secrets are an inseparable part of Super Mario games. Be it 2D or 3D, fans always have a ton to uncover and some exciting stuff to unlock. From the very first Super Mario Bros. title on the Nintendo Entertainment System to Super Mario Odyssey, the latest 3D installment on the Nintendo Switch, there’s no shortage of secrets in these games.

The director of Super Mario Bros. Wonder, Shiro Mouri understands this, and he claims he and his team wanted to push this idea of filling a game with secrets even further. He claims that in his attempt to take that idea forward, they ended up making “secrets and mysteries” a primary concept of Super Mario Bros. Wonder.

He revealed to Game Informer, “As we progressed the series forward, and there are a lot of entries in the series, we realized that this idea of having secrets and mysteries sort of became standardized.”

But they had to fight this challenge, and to do so, they came up with a brilliant idea. He decided to not make secrets an integral part of the game—not something players find, but something that just happens. To explain this, he gave the example of the vines that players used to climb in older Mario titles. They took players to a new location, a new area to play in that was there for a few seconds. Then players went back to the original level.

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But in Super Mario Bros. Wonder, when players find something that helps them uncover a secret, it takes them anywhere. But it changes the level itself. In that level, warp pipes would start wriggling like snakes, and Piranha plants would start chasing players. This is indeed a very refreshing take on this series and a very clever way of dealing with a problem that some might even say is not a big deal. But Nintendo thrives on variety, and they had to do it the hard way.

There’s much else to uncover in this new and upcoming platformer

While secrets and mysteries are one thing, those are not the only things that gamers start playing a game about. There’s much else, and for players looking for variety, there cannot be a better game than Super Mario Bros. Wonder.

This game features an open-level selection map, which means players can now freely explore that map from where they usually select levels. Then there are those flower NPCs that give Mario and his pals hints and act as guides whenever they seem to be stuck somewhere. A number of new powerups are available, the most prominent being the Elephant Mario one. Fans can’t get enough of that thing!

Super Mario Bros. Wonder will launch exclusively for the Nintendo Switch on October 20, 2023. And it looks like it would be a game worth getting.

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