Super Mario Bros. Wonder’s Nintendo Switch 2 Edition, Meetup in Bellabel Park, is a disappointingly bland expansion to one of the most memorable and imaginative Super Mario games of the modern era.
Timed to coincide with the surefire success of The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, Meetup in Bellabel Park introduces a suite of multiplayer levels, some new power ups, accessibility options, and a roster of challenge levels, expanding the excellent Switch 1 platformer that I gave a 5/5 review back in 2023.
Unfortunately, the new content is mostly forgettable and does little to warrant the stonker $80/£67 price point for the physical Switch 2 version, nor the $20/£17 upgrade for Switch 1 owners, unless you have young children determined to play multiplayer Mario levels locally (and even then, there are better options on Switch).
As its name suggests, Mario Wonder’s Switch 2 Edition adds a new area to the world map, Bellabel Park, which contains a suite of different multiplayer challenges, many of which have multiple variations. The majority of these levels can only be played locally, while just six are available for online play.
Bellabel Park’s most compelling content is located in the Local Multiplayer Plaza. Here, you’ll find more than a dozen creative co-op or competitive challenges, such as a level that task players with passing a ticking bomb, or drawing platforms for other players to run across. Younger players will likely appreciate the Yoshi’s Buffet courses, which challenge you to eat as many enemies as possible, or the battle levels which have characters duking it out.
Sadly, the offering is far less alluring on the online side. The six online-enabled challenges are almost entirely (pretty dull) races; racing on foot, racing as bouncing balls, racing on roller skates, racing on propeller flowers, or racing in rocket ships. The final online-enabled level is a tag-type challenge in which players pass around a Phanto mask, which didn’t keep our attention for long.
Crucially, Bellabel Park does not appear to feature any matchmaking whatsoever, which means that if you don’t have eager friends or family in the immediate vicinity, or know people online who also own the $80 Switch 2 Edition, then Bellabel Park’s most significant content is locked off to you entirely.
And what’s left for solo players doesn’t have much appeal. The highlights are the seven new boss fights with the Koopalings (one hidden on each existing world map), though there are no new Wonder effects, which means they mostly reuse existing ideas, and the introduction of the Flower Pot power-up isn’t particularly disruptive.
“Crucially, Bellabel Park does not appear to feature any matchmaking whatsoever, which means that if you don’t have eager friends or family in the immediate vicinity, most significant content is locked off to you entirely.”
Experienced players will comfortably blast through them in little more than an hour, after which the sole remaining attraction in the expansion is the Toad Brigade Training Camp, a collection of more than sixty challenge levels, which task players to kill enemies, collect coins, or run through existing Wonder levels as quickly as possible.
Ultimately, however, the vast majority of these challenges are incredibly easy for anyone who’s beaten the main game, and, since the rewards on offer are surprisingly hollow, there’s little incentive to plough through, beyond a small handful of super tough challenges at the end.
Bellabel Park introduces a new currency, Bellabel Water, which can be used for what is basically a gacha mechanic, for the chance to unlock a limited variety of cosmetics for the Park map, new (and fairly useless) Dual Badges which combine the power of two Badges together, and more than 70 different keyboard emojis that can be used during gamepay. Considering the limitations of who you can play multiplayer with, it’s fair to say that these unlockables will excite few.
In terms of quality of life improvements, Bellabel Park’s introduction of an Assist Mode (which protects players from damage) and new Rosalina and Luma characters, which allow for peril-free co-op play, make the overall Wonder package more compelling for younger players, and that’s exactly who the better multiplayer levels will appeal to the most, as well.
At an $80 new purchase or $20 upgrade, however, it’s very difficult to recommend Super Mario Bros Wonder’s Switch 2 Edition over the excellent Switch 1 version, especially for experienced players who, in all likelihood, will get less than an afternoon’s entertainment from it.
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