Revisiting Super Mario Bros. Wonder in 2026 is an experience as full of delights and surprises as it was in 2023. NIntendo absolutely knocked it out of the park with their trippy, transformative levels that just brought so much playfulness back to the 2D platformer… but that was paired with a fairly by-the-numbers multiplayer.
Super Mario Bros. Wonder – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition + Meetup in Bellabel Park improves on this in some ways, but sticks to that classic Nintendo stubbornness in others.
Meetup in Bellabel Park is all in on multiplayer shenanigans, with multiple areas devoted to different ways to play. Local multiplayer is still the only way to actually share a level together, while any kind of online multiplayer turns everyone into ghosts, so you’re not really playing together. The sneaky way out of this tangle is that Switch 2 has GameShare to let you stream the game to another console, which can be local or via online GameChat. It’s not the same as native online multiplayer (the resolution is lower and there’s a big info bar shrinking the screen), but it will have to do.
So, that’s how you can play the new Local Multiplayer Plaza with people outside of your postcode, but what is it? There’s 17 different stages here, with some co-operative and others competitive, all for up to four players, and all putting a much more inventive spin on the core 2D plaforming.
Phanto Tag takes Prop Hunt and the classic game of Tag and puts them in a blender, as masked players need to track, chase and catch the others within a single screen arena. They can run, of course, but they will also need to hide by disguising themselves as items and props, trying to make use of the shifting objects and shading of the screen. It’s a good bit of competitive fun.
On the complete opposite end of the scale, another stage invokes the spirit of the Wii U Gamepad and New Super Mario Bros. U, tasking some players with drawing donut block platforms across the screen so that others can make it through the level, and also using them to solve puzzles. It’s a great use of the returning idea, not least because you can use the Joy-Con 2 in mouse mode to draw the platforms.
Then there’s Bob-omb Relay, where you need to throw the bomb back and forth when prompted, but also have to get it into the correct player’s hands, or you could each be trying to feed your own Baby Yoshi the apples that spawn all over the screen through a level, while having to deal with the Baby Yoshi getting bigger and fatter and slowing you down.
After sampling a couple of those levels, we then ran around the Bellabel hub to reach the Game Room Plaza, and the six attractions for up to 12 players online (or up to 8 players with local wireless). These take a simple ideas and Wonder Flower effects, like riding on a Propeller Flower or hanging onto a giant bouncy ball, and spin them into competitive modes where you’ll race as ghosts through to the finish. They’re simple fun, but deceptively so. Bouncing the ball and needing to hit the right angled surfaces to bounce yourself forward faster, and avoid the back-tilted ones that would sap all your momentum is something I didn’t quite master, but the shmup-like obstacle dodging of the Propeller Flower races? I was pretty good at those!
There’s more to this expansion and update that we didn’t delve into, such as the Co-Star Luma, using the Assist modes, or how the Koopalings have sprinkled new challenges through the Flower Kingdom of the main game, but if you were wanting just a little bit more spark to the multiplayer of Super Mario Bros. Wonder, then you might want to schedule your meetup… in Bellabel Park.
