been playing super mario wonder and I'm not sure how much I like it so far. the core gameplay is standard 2d mario which is to say, it's fine. I've never really liked the way 2d mario feels in general but the level design is alright. the wonder flowers are kind of interesting in the way that they alter the levels in weird and wacky ways but not in ways that really do much for me to be honest. a lot of the time they're just confusing like when the enemies start singing and dancing but you're still... playing mario. you're still supposed to kill them, so the fact that they're singing just feels like an annoyance. I guess my big question is "what exactly were they going for here?"
the big thing everyone was talking about was the elephant transformation power up. gotta say, it's pretty underwhelming. you get big and you can attack with your trunk and spray water around to get coins. it feels pretty uninspired compared to other animal transformations like the tanuki or the bee from mario galaxy. I also can't say I expected to be in elephant form for 90% of the game
I think the thing that I find the most off putting about this game so far is that it feels like a game for babies more so than any other mario game I've played. there's these annoying talking flowers all over the levels that offer inane useless commentary like "whoa! look at that!" and "uh oh! enemies!" and I wish they weren't here. the first time you get an invincibility power up is with a wonder flower that gives you a sixty second timer, already ridiculously long, and lets you extend it by catching falling stars, of which there are dozens all over the screen and you can't possibly miss them. way to remove the excitement of invincibility! I'm just casually making my way through the level knowing that this shit is never going to run out. boring! boring!!
I'm going to stick with it because I'm sure it will get harder but sheesh. really weak start to this game. I'm a couple hours in and I've had precious little fun so far and I'm starting to worry that I made a mistake buying this game