Speedrunners have descended with full force upon Super Mario Bros. Wonder, following the discovery of an odd glitch which allows players to completely skip through certain mandatory areas of the game.
18.10.2023 - 16:25 / eurogamer.net / Shiro Mouri / Takashi Tezuka / Koji Kondo
Super Mario Bros. Wonder almost had running 'live' commentary, like a sports game.
Nintendo has released the final part of its Ask the Developer interview for the game, which includes discussion of live commentary that was ultimately scrapped.
«Tezuka-san also once asked, 'Can't we have live commentary?'. I had absolutely no clue what he meant. But I interpreted it as a desire for a new experience, even if it's not necessarily in the form of live commentary,» said Shiro Mouri, the game's director.
Koichi Hayashida, who worked on the game design, added: «We actually spent about six months seriously developing live commentary. We tried adding voices to match the player's actions. Even though we'd added various voices, questions like, 'Who's doing this commentary?' started to pop up amongst the team. Something about it just didn't feel right.»
The default voice for the commentary was «generic, like a newscaster», explained Mouri, but an option to switch to a Tsundere commentary was also included.
Tsundere is a Japanese term for a character who acts rude and cold, often to conceal more caring feelings. Mouri noted that quite a few playtesters switched to this style of commentary.
«But if we were to do this commentary feature seriously, just the process of creating voice variations alone would've involved a tremendous amount of work,» said Takashi Tezuka, a producer on the game. «So, unfortunately, we had to let it go. Still, it would've been a shame to shut down the whole experiment. So we brought in an additional team member to dedicate themselves to this feature full-time.»
Mouri then explained discussion about the Talking Flowers occurred around the same time, and so the commentary morphed into these characters instead.
Said Hayashida: «It's nice that you're never lonely when the Talking Flowers are there. If you were all alone in a course, it might feel like it was you against the world, but the Talking Flowers speak to you at just the right time.»
Composer Koji Kondo also discussed the impact of sound, particularly on the game's Wonder elements. Previously, he'd only join game development in a project's latter half — but here he was more involved from an earlier stage.
«I've always wanted to try something along the lines of having the entire course come alive like a musical,» said Kondo. «To begin with, we tested it out by having Piranha Plants come out of their pipes in sync with the music, and the level designers created a course where the pipes and the platforms move. This went down well with the development team, so we adjusted it so that various enemies and stage elements would move to the rhythm. But the level designers didn't know much about beat or metre, and the sound team wasn't
Speedrunners have descended with full force upon Super Mario Bros. Wonder, following the discovery of an odd glitch which allows players to completely skip through certain mandatory areas of the game.
Boxed Super Mario Bros Wonder sales beat those of Spider-Man 2 in the UK last week, thereby overtaking the first spot on the sales chart.
There are many mysteries in the video game space that we’re not likely to get answered anytime soon. Then, there are the “curiosities” that honestly don’t make sense even WHEN someone in charge explains them. Case in point, Super Mario Bros Wonder was a landmark title for Nintendo both upon its announcement in June and its release last week. But not just because the game pushed the bounds of 2D platforming in unique ways but because there was a key change behind the scenes. Specifically, the longtime voice of Mario, Charles Martinet, was replaced. But despite that big departure, we didn’t find out who was the voice of Mario until MUCH later.
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The original Super Mario Bros. on NES was made by a team of five people, and it seems every single one of them is still at Nintendo and was credited on Super Mario Bros. Wonder.
Super Mario Bros Wonder is out now, and gamers have been enjoying much of what the game offers. There was a bit of a worry early on that things might be “too wacky” or “too weird” for their tastes, but it soon became clear that the game is a fountain of creativity that many gamers are definitely going to try and replicate in one form or another. However, little “oddities” made fans wonder if they wouldn’t like them. One of them is the “talking flower” that is prevalent throughout the Flower Kingdom and reacts to various things.
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Super Mario Bros. Wonder is one the most unusual and surreal spins on a 2D Mario game that Nintendo has released in a long time, and so far, fans have embraced the new style and liveliness. One of the game's most interesting stylistic upgrades is expanded voice-over work from characters, and apparently, this was once planned to be much more ambitious. In a recent Ask the Developer blog post coinciding with the launch of Super Mario Bros. Wonder, game producer Takashi Tezuka and designer Koichi Hayashida spoke about many of the ideas that were worked on yet ended up being tossed into the development trash bin, including a live commentary feature that would praise - or judge - your every move. According to game director Shiro Mori, Takashi pitched the idea of having live commentary on the game - just one of the ideas that the developers received via 2,000+ sticky notes. The concept went pretty far into the development, with a full six months of work done. It was used in internal play-tests and even included tsundere-style commentary, a personality that hides genuine tenderness behind a cold exterior and is especially popular in Japanese media .
After exploring an open-world formula with Super Mario Odyssey, Nintendo's flagship IP has returned to its platforming roots with Super Mario Bros Wonder, releasing today.
The wait is nearly over. Super Mario Bros Wonder is almost here, and fans can’t wait to play it for various reasons. Easily, one of the biggest reasons is that the game is one of the highest-rated titles of 2023, and people want to see how great it is compared to what the critics say. But another reason gamers are excited about it is that players can use numerous new power-ups and abilities and want to try them out in spades. Not surprisingly, one of the ones that players love the most is the ability to turn into an elephant.
Anyone wanting to own a tiny Elephant Mario will be in luck in 2024, as Super Mario Bros. Wonder plushies are on the way. This release window is currently only set for Japan, but international fans will almost certainly be able to purchase their own Proboscidea-style Mario in the future.