Is the Nintendo Switch 2 edition of Super Mario Bros. Wonder a meaningful upgrade, or an unnecessary remix of a near-perfect platformer?
When the Nintendo Switch 2 launched, one question was whether the cadence of great games would continue. The original Switch leaned heavily on a back catalogue of Wii U titles to bolster its library, a strategy that worked precisely because relatively few players had owned the ill-fated console. Games like Super Mario 3D World, Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, and Mario Kart 8 were given another chance to shine, and for most players, they felt new.
Nintendo hasn’t had that same safety net this time around. Instead, we’ve seen the rise of Nintendo Switch 2 Editions, a strategy of upgrades ranging from modest resolution boosts to expansions that are considerably more ambitious. The patchy update to Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition sits at one end of that spectrum, while Kirby and the Forgotten Land + Star-Crossed World showed what the other could look like. In that case, the result was a genuinely expanded, reinvigorated release that justified revisiting a game many of us had already put to bed.
Super Mario Bros. Wonder – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition + Meetup in Bellabel Park arrives as part of the Super Mario Bros. 40th anniversary celebrations, and alongside the new Super Mario Galaxy movie. It also lands at the more generous end of the Nintendo Switch 2 Edition spectrum, with a raft of new content. But how successful is it? And is the park worth the price of entry?
Josh Wise reviewed the original Super Mario Bros. Wonder in 2023, awarding it four stars. The main game is still brilliant, so that review still stands, although, personally, I’d give it an extra half star. It’s the best 2D Mario since the 1990s, and a feast for the fingers and the senses. For this review, however, we’ll focus chiefly on the Nintendo Switch 2 Edition’s new content and technical upgrades.
Wonder Vision
Let’s start with the easy win. The Nintendo Switch 2 Edition pushes Super Mario Bros. Wonder to native 4K at 60fps in TV mode, and the results are, frankly, gorgeous. This was already a game of considerable visual ambition on the original Switch. Its animation quality, design, and colour palette represent a marked improvement on the sterile New Super Mario Bros. house style that defined 2D Mario for the better part of two decades.
None of that changes here. It simply looks cleaner, crisper, and more detailed. Screenshots don’t do it justice. It’s the little details and animation that bring it to life. This is not a radical makeover, but the improvements are tangible, and it’s striking that an upgrade to a two-year-old side-scrolling platformer can hold its own against anything else on any platform.
Park Attractions
The content expansion centres on Bellabel Park, a newly added area of the Flower Kingdom that Mario and chums set about restoring. The conceit is typical Nintendo, with a cheerful, elaborate framing for what is basically a generous collection of minigames. The park itself acts as a hub that branches into two distinct zones: Camp Central, home to the Toad Brigade Training Camp, and Attraction Central, which holds the Local Multiplayer Plaza and the Game Room online multiplayer plaza.
It could all be a menu – and, in fact, it is – with each element navigable without ever setting foot in the park, but there’s something pleasing about seeing the modes laid out across an overworld you can actually wander. Nintendo adds just enough personality, customisation, and progression to give the place a joyous sense of its own. Every pursuit feeds a tidy reward loop built around Bellabel Water that can be spent on sprucing things up. Before long, you’re landscaping the park with flowers in a way that echoes Pikmin Bloom or Animal Crossing. It’s pointless busywork, but of the most agreeable kind.
First on the menu is the Toad Brigade Training Camp. This mode is a series of challenge-based levels built around specific completion conditions: collect a set number of coins, defeat all enemies, or chain Super Stars to stay invincible while speedrunning a stage.
Despite its name, this mode is no tutorial. The challenges ramp up steadily in difficulty, making full use of Mario’s extensive moveset through a mix of ability restrictions, time limits, and stage modifiers. It echoes the Trial Towers mode recently seen in Mario Tennis Fever and also puts me in mind of NES Remix. This implementation feels like a more polished, fully realised evolution of that idea and is comfortably one of this package’s highlights. And although Nintendo still eschews a system-wide achievement framework, the cute backpack patches earned here as rewards are a charming substitute. Getting them all is no small task.
Alongside the Toad Brigade Training Camp, a series of Koopaling boss stages is the standout addition, and likely the one that will matter most to returning solo players. Each Koopaling receives a dedicated stage nestled into the main game’s existing courses and built around a specific gimmick.
Some of these courses and their boss fights rank among the trickiest the series has produced in some time and, more importantly, among the most inventive. One of the base game’s few criticisms was that it occasionally pulled its punches on difficulty. These stages are something of an antidote and, like Toad Brigade Training Camp, reward timing, dexterity, and quick reflexes.
Lemmy and Roy’s encounters are rambunctious highlights among a consistently enjoyable set, and beating them all unlocks a gauntlet of truly terrific rematches.
Multiplayer Mario
The multiplayer suite is the focus of Nintendo’s marketing push for this release, and it’s probably where your mileage will vary the most. The Local Multiplayer Plaza features 17 modes split across versus and co-op modes, ranging from a fun game of hide-and-seek with Phanto to various coin-collection frenzies. The Game Room online multiplayer area features a further six games which can be played with up to eight players either online or via local wireless connection.
Most of these games are slight and, like much of the expansion, rely on variations of existing courses. These aren’t modes that will excite long-term or hardcore players, but having put my niece through her paces for a few hours, they are undeniably fun in small doses. The knockabout sabotage that makes 2D Mario multiplayer both brilliant and maddening remains intact. So, if that’s been a sticking point in the past, there’s likely to be nothing here that will change your mind. For all of the brilliance in design, control and visuals, these games can be frustrating if players aren’t on the same page.
The name Super Mario Bros. Wonder – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition + Meetup in Bellabel Park tells you most of what you need to know: this is a potpourri of upgrades and new content.
As a whole, it feels significantly less authored than Kirby and the Forgotten Land‘s expansion. This is more a remix of the familiar than something entirely new, but there’s still plenty to savour in the execution. Most importantly, the additions enhance the overall experience without diluting what makes the original game so good.
For newcomers, there is no debate. This is the definitive version of one of the finest platformers of the last decade. For returning players, the case for upgrading depends on what you want. If you’re drawn back by the Koopaling boss stages, the Training Camp’s more demanding challenges, the 4K upgrade, or the prospect of Rosalina as a playable character, this release earns its place. However, if you’re here purely for the multiplayer spectacle, manage expectations a touch and think carefully about who you’ll be playing with.
Still super. Still wondrous. And, sorry Josh, I’m giving it that extra half star.
Game: Super Mario Bros. Wonder – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition + Meetup in Bellabel Park
Platform: Nintendo Switch 2
Developer: Nintendo
Publisher: Nintendo
Release Date: March 26, 2026
