Super Mario Bros. Wonder: Switch 2 Edition + Meetup in Bellabel Park Review – Frantic Flowery Fun

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

Mario Wonder was great, sure. But wasn’t it missing something? I was psyched when I found out there was DLC coming. My excitement was tempered somewhat when I found out that Meetup in Bellabel Park was mostly multiplayer content. I’m not an especially social animal, and so online content like this is usually not my style. Thankfully, I found some real highlights nestled in this DLC release.

But let’s be extremely real here. This is still a first-party Nintendo release. The quality ceiling is pretty high. After burning through the single-player section and sampling the multiplayer wares, I was impressed. Not enough to change my standard policy on online content, but still impressed.

Bellabel Park is divided into sections. You’ve got your local multiplayer games on one side, and the online game room stuff on the other. Plus, a selection of boss stages scattered throughout the larger world map. Some are co-op, some are purely versus. It’s a great time, so long as you’ve got enough friends to mix it up with.

Piles of Party Games

I spent a little online time with some other reviewers. We dipped into all the game room games, a lot of which are race-centered. Maybe you’re on foot, maybe you’re riding in a giant roller skate, but either way, it’s all gas, no brakes. Having more people playing simultaneously is great; it really adds to the chaos in the best way. There’s a hide-and-seek game that hugely benefits from more players. It’s much easier to pretend you’re a brick when three other people are doing a worse job at it right beside you.

Local multiplayer has a good mix of co-op and versus stuff. Sometimes you’re feeding a baby Yoshi, or carefully counting coins, or jumping in perfect unison. Or maybe you’re just competing for kills in a shuffled-up series of enemy arenas. There are a multitude of options available. All the games are well-crafted, accessible fun that immediately clicks once you fire them up. I just wish that there was more of a substantial single-player offering available.

Slim Pickings for Singleplayer 

As much as I enjoyed playing around in Bellabel Park, it doesn’t hold much staying power for me. Mario games (for me at least) are more about mastering a bespoke set of platforming challenges and scooping up every scrap of collectibles. I love a toy box that you can dissect down to its bare gears. For me, the frantic party energy of the multiplayer just doesn’t capture that same compelling feeling.

To be fair, Bellabel Park does have a bunch of collectible legwork to churn through. But you’re just trading currency for gacha pulls. It is, like the rest of the DLC, a very different vibe. There’s also a new suit to mess with and a whole new character to use. Rosalina is lovely, but she’s not mechanically different from the rest of the cast or anything. She comes with a Luma servant that’s perfect for Little Brother Mode, which I understand the need for. The flower suit is a whole new paradigm, however.

Fabulous Flower Power

If you’re sick of enemies flying above you, immune to your various assaults, then the flower suit is perfect. It looks ridiculous and shears through airborne opponents with relentless precision. It’s the kind of thing you want to take back through the whole main game, just to see how it shakes things up.

Mario Wonder was excellent. So I’m always open to more playtime in that world. But I’m not as excited about multiplayer content. So this colorful carnival of party games isn’t for me. But I see the vision. The games themselves are all fun, and the conceit itself is crammed with collectibles to hoover up. I just wish the single-player section had more than a handful of boss stages. It’s great that there are seven of them, but the pattern gets pretty familiar by the end. But if you’ve been itching to take your Mario Wonder skills on the road, then this is almost perfect. We’re still wandering the walled garden of friend codes, but this is a low hurdle to leap. Meetup in Bellabel Park has a ton of party game potential that you won’t want to miss.

***A Nintendo Switch 2 code was provided by the publisher***