A Dad, a Nine-Year-Old, And a Five-Year-Old Review Super Mario Bros. Wonder for Switch 2
Some family thoughts on Nintendo's family friendly update to a wonderful 2D Mario game.
The first time I played Super Mario Bros. Wonder with my children was a delight—and a disaster. They fought over wanting to play as the same character (Peach). My youngest, who was three at the time, had no competence with a controller. The game’s “easy” mode was a punishment where she had to play as Nabbit, who couldn’t even transform into one of Wonder’s signature features: being a cool elephant. She hated it.
In the end, my three-year-old stopped playing. The family eventually stopped, too, except for Dad, who played many, many hours of Wonder and unlocked all its secrets.
The Switch 1 version came out in 2023. It’s 2026, and my children now nine and five. They’ve played a lot of new platformers, chiefly Astro Bot. And I’m happy to report the Switch 2 version of Wonder, which arrives this week as a $80 (!!) standalone release or $20 upgrade, is a much more family-friendly version of an excellent 2D Mario game.
Is there $20 worth of new stuff for older players who’ve already played Wonder? Nah.
The new multiplayer modes are fun enough, and I’m a huge fan of the Toad Brigade Training Camp mode that tasks the player with conquering an increasingly difficult (and increasingly clever!) set of one-off trials, such as having to survive a stage while being “invincible” the whole time, or not touching a coin. You’ll get a few hours out of it. I would happily play a more fleshed out version, but otherwise, this is a nicer-looking version of a 2023 game. There’s also a series of largely mediocre new boss fights that you get bored of halfway through. If you haven’t played Wonder, it’s great!
Is there $20 worth of new stuff for families looking for a more accessible Wonder?
Yes!
My children are not interested in playing Wonder—or many games, really—as an exercise in challenge. They’re distractions, or role-playing exercises, with friends and family. Your house might be different. But that’s how my kids use games, and now, Wonder is immediately one of those games we’ll be reaching for every few nights.
(Well, in-between obsessively watching Stranger Things. A post for another day.)
The important family-centric additions to Wonder’s Switch 2 version are as follows:
Assist Mode: Payers do not die. Players do not even lose their power up upgrade, like being an elephant, if hit. Falling in a pit means you can fly back wherever you want.
No more sending children to Nabbit Jail; Assist Mode works on every character.
Not losing your power-ups after being hit is so smart. I watched with dread as my five-year-old, happily bouncing around as Elephant Rosalina, sprinted towards a goomba. Instead of shrinking, she character briefly flickered—acknowledging the contact—before she was allowed to keep going. Perfect. No notes. When she wanted to change power-ups, I’d drop the one she was looking for from the sky and we’d move on.
Our one issue?
Learning to hold jump long enough. But hey, we’ll get there. The “get there” part is why I’m so happy with Assist Mode, because it means my five-year-old can focus on properly learning how to jump in the game while playing with me and her sister. She doesn’t feel left behind or judged. She can work on quietly getting better at jumping.
Or not. (In this clip, I had to use her controller.)
Last note: Assist Mode is on or off for everyone. It’s not player-specific. Your mileage may vary if one person is looking for a challenge but another requires Assist Mode on.
Camera Lock: The camera can either bounce between different characters at the whim of what Wonder deems most interesting—or you can lock the camera to player one.
It’s not fun when the camera leaves a player behind. You had less control over that in the original Wonder, whereas now, if you make yourself player one and lock the camera, you can do the equivalent of holding your child’s hand and crossing the street.
(Side note: I wish every character had a “grab” function like Yoshi, so you could carry players from one platform to another during a tricky sequence. This new version has many great additions to keep a level moving, but give Yoshi’s feature to everyone!)
Casual Co-Op: The addition of Rosalina from Super Mario Galaxy also comes with the addition of Luna, her star companion. Luna cannot get hurt or die and can freely roam the screen to bust blocks, destroy enemies, and otherwise help the other “normal” players.
My children fought over who would be Peach in the original Wonder. Now, with both kids amped for the new movie, they fought over who could be Luna in this version.
We settled on swapping who played as Luna every other level, though over time, my nine-year-old became our Luna, while my five-year-old swapped from one character to another. Characters she picked? Peach, Daisy, Rosalina, Toadette, and Blue Yoshi.
You will notice that she did not pick Nabbit. Nobody picked Nabbit.
(I will laugh really hard if Nabbit shows up in The Super Mario Galaxy Movie.)
What didn’t work for us? The list of complaints is small shorter this time. No tears!
Like most (all?) Nintendo releases, none of the text is voiced, which means I’m reading what’s happening to my five-year-old, or asking my nine-year-old to do the same.
Also, the five-year-old was regularly confused by the buttons being different when you put a Joy-Con on its side. I’m not sure what Nintendo could do. But she would get used to what “A” or B” meant and then look at her sideways controller and feel lost.
As with Pokémon Pokopia, I asked my kids to write a review. I had had hoped to spend more time with the game over the past few weeks—thankfully, Nintendo is now granting Crossplay early access to some of its games—but the whims of life, the never-ending draw of an evening Stranger Things episode, and spring break limited our time.
Still, here’s what my children had to day.
For my five-year-old, I wrote down what she told me to fill in.
For my nine-year-old, obviously, she can write on her own.
Dang, 7/10. I’m sorry, Nintendo.
If your kid would like to produce a review of Wonder, which I promise to publish in the future alongside other reviews folks have sent, I’ve published a template below.
Lastly, I leave you with the cutest moment of this experience. My five-year-old was wondering where “regular” Toad was, and when Captain Toad showed up, she flipped into goofy hysterics and kept calling Toad her “true love.” No, I don’t get it, either.
Incredible stuff.
Have a story idea? Want to share a tip? Got a funny parenting story? Drop Patrick an email.
Also:
I thought I’d played every secret level in Wonder, but apparently not. I’m really excited to dig into the last final secrets of Wonder that I somehow missed out on.
We’re setting up for a really exciting future for Mario, between whatever is coming next for 3D Mario and whatever sequel we’re inevitably getting to Wonder.
Maybe it’s time for me to just revisit Super Mario Odyssey, a game that I played a whole lot of, but I left many, many moons on the table by the time I finished it.
the toad video is so cute!
The new Wonder content has been a huge hit in my household, to the point that my 3.75-year-old has been pestering me, his mom, and his 7-year-old brother to play with him practically on an hourly basis. We do like playing with you, buddy! But we each need breaks!
I honestly thought they would mostly want to use Assist Mode to go play the regular levels, but it's *all* about the Bellabel Park minigames for them, both the co-op and competitive ones. I do like that for the competitive games, we can use the badges to sandbag me and give the kids a boost.