Super Mario Bros. Wonder – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition + Meetup in Bellabel Park Review

Super Mario Bros. Wonder – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition + Meetup in Bellabel Park is certainly a mouthful, ain’t it? There’s a whole essay in questioning the verbose branding for Switch 2 upgrades (talk about redundancy with the recent Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition), but for brevity’s sake, we’ll just have a light chuckle and simply refer to this update as Bellabel Park, shall we?

A fitting abridgment, considering Bellabel Park’s where Mario and friends have their latest adventure. Tucked into a forgotten nook of Super Mario Bros. Wonder’s Flower Kingdom, these ancient ruins were once host to a grand amusement park—this expansion’s springboard for a multiplayer package complete with single-player challenges. With Rosalina tossed in as a playable character, the new Flower Suit coming packed movement options and projectiles, and the return of the nefarious Koopalings, more platforming wonders ensue.

Wonders, I should add, that arrive with a hefty $20 price tag. Bellabel Park’s announcement had players questioning its multiplayer emphasis, given Wonder’s more passive direction compared to New Super Mario Bros. Wii and U’s anarchic hijinks. While Bellabel Park certainly beefs up the overall package with grueling challenges and splendid multiplayer, it comes with the caveat of requiring additional players for its star attraction in the latter—a make-or-break deal for anyone interested in revisiting Mario’s zaniest adventure.

The titular Bellabel Park is divided into two sections: the challenge-based Camp Central and the mini-game carnivals of Attraction Central. The former’s where the game’s new story unfolds, wherein you assist the not-so-intrepid Captain Toad and his motley crew in recovering the Bellabel Flowers from the Koopalings. As you’re assigned missions in the vein of New Super Mario Bros. U, you’ll tackle repurposed base game levels that represent a broad spectrum of difficulty, aimed at everybody from fledgling players to the decades-old veterans from NES yore.

For instance, collecting coins is nothing new in the Mario-verse—child’s play for us experts, really—but when they’re wreathed in flame and induce instant-death upon contact, it’s a whole different story. Picking up from where Wonder’s inspired Wonder effects left off, Bellabel Park turns our Mario muscle-memory inside out as it gleefully reconstructs side-scrolling conventions we’d taken for granted, challenging even the most grizzled Mario veteran with its relentless creativity.

Naturally, Wonder’s power-granting Badges are fair game in the grounds of Bellabel Park. Like the original game, they allow players to bend these missions’ difficulty however they wish, be it Floating High Jump giving an extra spring to your step or Jet Run providing deadly speed runs. Of course, that’s supposing whenever the missions don’t already force badges upon you: with the new Dual Badges combining familiar powers (Invisibility + Spring Jump? Save me!), Bellabel Park isn’t afraid to put the training wheels away for certain challenges, forcing players to grit their teeth and relish in hard-won victory. While Bellabel Park still provides ample room for accommodations, if you thought Wonder was too easy, you can continue concocting all sorts of self-imposed challenges in its Badge lab.

Of course, the challenges introduce new content for returning players to chew on. The adorable Flower Suit adorns Wonder’s roster with fluttery jumps and flowery projectiles, gracing the Flower Kingdom with combos galore in both Camp Central and the main campaign. (Actually, given Wonder’s flower motif, why wasn’t there a Flower Suit before? Hmm.) Meanwhile, those colorful Koopalings steal the show with their Wonder transformations, easily surpassing Wonder’s tired “smack Bowser Jr. three times” shtick with both creativity and variety to match. Naturally, Bellabel Park seizes the opportunity to the ante with three separate versions of each fight, right down to one-hit challenges not meant for the faint of heart. (Supposing you don’t equip any badges, anyway; all that’s at stake is your gaming cred, and what’s that worth at the end of the day?)

Topped off with currency in Bellabel Water, and the expansion offers a constant reward loop to keep players engaged. Granted, it’s not like you really need to spend all that water on decorative flowers, emojis, and instruments—they’re really no different than scoring cosmetics for any of the countless town-building apps on your phone, albeit without the problematic gacha micropayments. But dopamine hits are dopamine hits, and Bellabel Park subtly peppers visual progress to goad us along; for instance, the more instruments you earn, the more Poplin band members march around the park—a sight as adorable as the Poplin language filling the air and Toads breakdancing on the park grounds. The personalized Bellabel Park charms as much as it challenges.

I only wish I could give the Attraction Center the same unanimous praise—and what’s especially frustrating is that Bellabel Park comes this close to providing a compelling multiplayer package. Divided between local and wireless/online play, the host of games all vary from cooperative play (raise the lift by matching each other’s jumping rhythm!) to competitive match-ups (Electrocute the heck outta each other!) I predict the latter will be fan-favorites, what with them channeling the mischievous anarchy players might have missed from the New Super Mario Bros. games.

Thing is, I walked into Bellabel Park’s mini-games expecting one-and-dones—satisfactory diversions, but nothing more—only to be pleasantly surprised with how every last one was supplemented with stages of all sorts. Mostly repurposed again from the main game, yes, but that’s more than enough variation to provide some serious staying power. Paired with the same wacky creativity Wonder so commonly provides in roller skate racing, deadly games of Phanto tag, and Donut Block pathmaking, and Bellabel Park is primed as a multiplayer mainstay.

And how does it kneecap itself, you ask? By rendering the mini-games strictly multiplayer affairs. Don’t have anyone nearby to play with or any online friends who own the upgrade? Tough, you’re only offered to “check things out”; as in, sulk around the Attraction Central and wistfully observe mini-games I can only play maybe once or twice a year. Oh, and enjoy the scraps that occasionally leak into the Camp Central challenges, I guess. Would it have been that hard to include online matchmaking, or even just CPUs?

This isn’t the first time Nintendo’s gated off multiplayer ventures with this annoying caveat—Pikmin 3’s Bingo Battle still stings to this day—and I’m left to reflect on the missed opportunity here. Wonder’s online has a beautiful passivity with its “ghost” system wherein players don’t directly interact, yet still participate in a thriving, populous environment via Search Party puzzle-solving and life-saving Standee assists. A clever concept, but not one that worked for everybody—leaving ample room for more active multiplayer shenanigans to let Wonder provide more bang for its buck.   

But that’s not the case, and instead, users are left to ponder paying $20 to potentially enjoy only half a package. It’s not that Bellabel Park doesn’t provide some fantastic value in its challenging missions, upgraded visuals, or the Assist Mode accommodations for youngin’s (no deaths), but it’s hard to measure that value in full when Bellabel Park gates off its attractions with the requirement of “you need this many players to ride”.