It’s certainly nothing to brag about, but I was pretty happy to get through the last bits of Super Mario Bros. Wonder over the last week.  I’m not exactly the world’s biggest Mario guy, but I happened to be in Japan on its release day and it just felt RIGHT to pick up the Big Nintendo Release on day one.  I even got some swag with it!

That was, uh. October 2023.  And let me assure you, it is not a particularly long game.

It also isn’t a game that demands that you play it non-stop, so I’ve just been picking it up occasionally and running through a couple of courses and then putting it down again.  I had a lot of fun finding little hidden bits and searching for the Wonder Seeds in the levels so sometimes I’d play through a course a few times in a row.  It’s not like the controls are particularly complicated, so there’s not much of a learning curve when you come back to it after a break.

I gotta say, it’s a good time.  The Wonder Seed effects – where you’re playing as Mario, or one of Mario’s pals, then you pick up a doohickey and suddenly the entire level changes into some sort of fever dream – are probably my favorite thing ever in a Mario platformer, and I absolutely loved the little flowers cheering me on as I made my way to rescue the prin… oh, wait, Peach didn’t get kidnapped in this one.  You’re just generically saving a kingdom from Bowser this time.  Has that been a thing before?

Let’s ask an LLM.

I don’t think this is a complete list but apparently Mario occasionally DOES get a break from saving the princess.  The relationship between Peach and Bowser is pretty confusing at times, though, so maybe sometimes she’s over at his place consensually?  The eternal question of where Bowser’s kids come from may never be answered.  But I digress.

Also, a small lake was drained to cool the servers that answered that incredibly pressing question. I should feel some shame.

Anyway.  I ran to the right through a lot of levels.  Sometimes I was turned into a giant spiky ball, sometimes a slime with a red cap on, sometimes the world flipped into a top-down dungeon view.  All of it was good times.  If I have any complaints at all, it’s that there weren’t enough ghost levels.

Eventually I got to the end of the levels, fought Bowser in an inspired vaguely rhythm-based Final Boss Battle, and we all lived happily ever after.

Look, flower says it’s so, I’m not going to question the flower.

None of my other recent trips to Japan have coincided with a major Nintendo release date.  I did pick up Metroid Prime 4 about three days after its launch last December.  I didn’t get any swag with it, though.  I won’t be playing that next, but I’m sure I’ll get to it.