How Super Mario Bros. Wonder’s Developers Created The Game’s Unique Power-Ups

Super Mario Bros. Wonder, which was revealed in June 2023, received many positive reactions. The art direction, music and new enemies looked to be fun variations of the New Super Mario Bros. games. The final scene of the trailer was what drew the most attention, when Mario transformed into an elephant-sized version of himself by grabbing a strange fruit. The elephant Mario that appears on the cover of our latest issue is one of Super Mario Bros. Wonder’s most iconic elements.

Elephant Mario will be available to players in just the first stage of Welcome to Flower Kingdom. Mario is transformed into Elephant Mario when the Elephant Fruit comes out of a blob. Though not unexpected since I’ve seen that reveal trailer more times than I can count, it’s still somewhat jarring to watch one of the most iconic characters in pop culture undergo such a different transformation. In this form, Mario can swing his trunk to attack enemies and break bricks from the side, but he can also spray water to cause reactions like those seen in special flowers called Wow Buds that bloom and reward previously unseen items and collectibles.

Elephant Mario is the result of director Shiro Muri’s desire to create a moveset that would be unique, but still deliver something Mario had been doing ever since Super Mario Bros. 1, which was becoming larger. When we talk about power-ups or transformations that can be used to enhance gameplay, we first consider the experience we would like the player to have. He says. He says. It was to make it easier to hit enemies and blocks. It seemed like a good idea to change the basic mechanics in Mario’s game. A less flashy example is when you land easier on a platform that’s narrower with a larger body. It’s very easy for a small person to overlook this.”

Many theoretical forms could provide the goal of making Mario bigger – after all, Super Mushrooms have been doing that for decades – but once the team looked at the other gameplay goals it had for a power-up item in Super Mario Bros. Wonder, the choice became clear. The second thing we were looking to achieve was the ability to strike blocks on either side. You can access areas only through the transformation if you hit blocks sideways. We also wanted to use water as a third option. We wanted to spray water because, say, there was a flower that had withered. It might be that by watering the flower and causing it to bloom, something strange happens. […]After much thought, it was clear that the elephant would be the best choice to transform the character into something that could fit these three concepts: making the body large, hitting blocks from the side and spraying water.

Characters that transform into Elephants undergo a dramatic visual transformation. However, enough of the character’s design remains so they can still be easily recognized. Masanobu Sato, the art director of this project said that they took on a similar initiative when designing these Elephants. ‘We begin by understanding their characters and iconic features,’ he explains. Mario has a red key color and is characterized by a prominent mustache and large nose. It is important to maintain a certain balance when applying the transformation theme to characters. This will ensure they retain their iconic features.

Elephant Mario’s design is simple, and it achieves a variety of gameplay objectives. However, another power-up found in Super Mario Bros. Wonder – the Bubble flower – was inspired from an entirely different source: improving the past. “In New Super Mario Bros. U was the [Bubble Baby Yoshi],” Mouri says. The character had a mechanic that required the user to maintain the Y key pressed in order to operate it. This was an area that we felt could be improved. We came up with Bubble Mario and the Bubble Flower as a result of our efforts to make that feature better. “I think that the Bubble Flower is a very interesting powerup because it allows you to both A, destroy enemies and B, create platforms you can jump from.

Other than the Elephant Fruit and Bubble Flower players will also be able to use new power-ups such as Drill Mushrooms (read more here about this one) or classics like Super Mushrooms, Super Stars and Fire Flowers. Nintendo may not have shown off all the powers-ups when Super Mario Bros. Wonder hits Switch on 20 October.

To learn more about Super Mario Bros. Wonder click on the banner or go here to view our hand-on impressions.