Super Mario Bros. Wonder Switch 2 Edition adds some major Mario Party vibes, and after 30 minutes it feels like a worthy expansion to one of the best games on the platform

I don't tend to think of myself as a particularly loud or shouty person when I'm playing games. When playing Soulslikes, my rage comes quietly – a huff or sigh after one too many deaths – or a big inhale when I've been jumpscared in a horror game. Apparently, though, I just need the right game and setting to bring it out of me, because I'm fairly sure I was the loudest person in the room during a recent preview session for Super Mario Bros. Wonder – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition + Meetup in Bellabel Park, and I won't apologize for having a good time.

Let's quickly address the elephant in the room – not Wonder's beloved Elephant power-up, but that game title. Yes, that is the official, novel-long name of the newly expanded Mario platformer, and it's also such a mouthful that I can't imagine it ever catching on. Thankfully, the content of the expansion itself is, from what I've played, substantially better thought out.

Party people

First thing's first, Rosalina and Luma are here as playable characters, but for anyone not frothing at the mouth over the addition of a galactic goddess, the main additions come in the form of the titular Bellabel Park and its many multiplayer minigames. There's a mix of co-op and competitive "attractions" on offer, 17 of which are aimed at local play while six others are online.

While I can't speak for all of these, the selection I played in around a 30-minute session all channelled an energy similar to your classic Mario Party minigames – bringing a chaotic vibe that can and will have you shouting at the screen, each other, yourself, or all of the above. One co-op minigame sees you take on the role of either a regular player or a "maker," the latter of which are tasked with drawing fragile paths for the players out of donut blocks (the ones that fall if you stand on them too long) to safely guide them to the finish line. It feels a bit like a version of Mario Maker where the game isn't safely paused while you piece the level together.

I decide to be a maker, using the Switch 2's mouse controls to draw platforms. Drawing is quick and seamless – so quick that I on more than one occasion end up significantly overshooting the path I had in mind – but tasked with maintaining the balance between life and death for multiple people at the same time, things inevitably get chaotic. When you're frantically drawing lines beneath lines for further reinforcements and trying to catch people as they fall, there's no time to breathe, and it's very easy for things to go very wrong, very fast.

As for the competitive games, I sample a couple of racing-style jaunts. These are as you'd expect – side-scrolling dashes to the finish, with things like speed boosts on the course for anyone savvy enough to steer into them, and obstacles to slow you down. You can also slipstream each other by followingly closely behind one of your competitors – I'm viciously robbed of a victory in the final seconds of one race thanks to this, and would have begged for a rematch if time wasn't so limited.

My personal favorite, though, sees me become the guardian of a ravenous baby Yoshi – lugging an infant dinosaur around in my arms to allow it to eat as many apples as possible. The premise is simple – gobbling apples racks up points, which you can earn even more of by snaffling golden apples (just make sure you avoid the poisonous ones).

I quickly become attached to my Yoshi child – his gormless stare conveying no thoughts in his head beyond the urge to munch everything and anything in his path. The more he eats, the slower I can move him, but I'm not letting that stop this all-you-can-eat extravaganza. He's a growing boy, after all. Sadly, I miss out on first place here, but I still feel like a winner thanks to the reptilian friend I made along the way (as well as the other players in the room, of course).

Super Mario Bros. Wonder is easily one of the greatest Nintendo Switch games – when I played it back in 2023, I could find very little to criticize, and I certainly wouldn't have said it felt sorely lacking in an enormous multiplayer theme park. While I've only had a short amount of time with Bellabel Park, I can confidently say that it's an addition that I didn't know I needed.

The term "friendslop" has been thrown around perhaps a little too lightly over the last year, describing games where the fun really comes from the company you play them with. While this could honestly apply to a majority of multiplayer games, this expansion included, there appears to be a very solid variety of activities on offer here to make this worth your time. Could it make Mario Wonder become a mainstay party game option like Mario Kart World or Mario Party Jamboree? We'll just have to wait and see, but it definitely has the right ingredients, and considering its excellent foundations, it feels like Nintendo couldn't have really gone wrong with this.

For now, be sure to check out our roundup of the best Switch 2 games you can play today.