I watched the first teaser trailer, but ignored all other info since then. I like to be surprised with game content. And I have been surprised by Wonder. It's, of course, fun to play. But it feels really weird. Like they took the New Super Mario Bros formula and injected the craziness from Kirby Epic Yarn and Return to Dreamland. I thought the elephant power up was a strange choice, but it oddly works.
I forgot about Charles Martinet retiring from voice acting Mario (and cast). It took a few minutes before I realized Mario's voice is indeed different in Wonder. It's close enough that it doesn't really matter. But every once in a while Mario makes a noise that sounds more like Mickey Mouse.
The animations of Mario getting in and out of tubes has me smiling. For example, if you run into a tube, Mario's hat stays behind and you see his hand reach out and grab it. Reminiscent of Looney Tunes. In elephant form, he has to really squeeze himself into tubes. There seems to be a lot of variety here, which is a nice touch.
The gameplay variety is really nice so far. There's regular levels, then challenge stages. Some of the gameplay mechanics / level design have been really fun so far. There's definitely some challenging ones. One neat thing is that ability to equip different badges which grant different abilities. You can only equip one at a time. It's a neat way to spice things up a bit.
Anyone playing this yet?
