One of the formative moments of my childhood was when I first discovered the Special World – and eventually the Special Zone – in Super Mario World.
I accessed it first through the secret exit in the Vanilla Secret 1 stage, and then I learned the subsequent Star World level also had a secret exit, and that finding all exits would grant access to the ultra hard levels in the Special Zone.
These secrets upon secrets were all I could think about for weeks until my childhood self found them all. It spawned my love of Mario games that has seen me obsessively 100% complete them for decades afterward.
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Super Mario Bros. Wonder was no different. On launch, I burned through each World faster than Mario can burn through a horde of Goombas with a Fire Flower. I spent way too long collecting every Purple Flower Coin and nabbing the top spot of every flagpole – even in the ridiculously hard final, post-game stage. But like every other 2D Mario game after Super Mario World, I came away feeling that, despite how much I enjoyed every minute of my time in the Flower Kingdom, it was missing true, hard-to-find secrets.
The only World in Super Mario Bros. Wonder that has a remotely difficult-to-discover route to the Special World is, ironically, the first in the game: Pipe-Rock Plateau. It requires carrying an Elephant power-up to the end of a level called Bulrush Express and using it to break through a layer of brick blocks, which in turn leads to several more levels and eventually access to the Special World. When I first discovered this, I was elated: I thought that Nintendo finally added obscure secrets back into a 2D Mario title.
Nintendo has, it seems like, feared putting something in a 2D Mario game that many of its players won’t ever find, which no doubt happened with the secret exits in Super Mario World. I never found the route to Star World in the Donut Plains, for instance, until a friend told me, nor did I discover the Cheese Bridge Area secret exit on my own. But collaboration with friends – and my older brother – made the experience of finding the Special World all the more memorable and exciting. Even as an adult, many secrets might have eluded me.
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Unfortunately, every other route to the Special World in Super Mario Bros. Wonder requires little effort to reveal. For Fluff Puff Peaks and Deep Magma Bog, simply following an offshoot set of levels – no secret exit necessary – leads there. Shining Falls and the Fungi Mines require a revisit to some Poplin pals at the end of the World to reveal the not-so-hidden route. The Sunbaked Desert has the next best route with a fun secret exit found in The Secrets of Shova Mansion, though the subsequent levels aren’t as memorable as those in Pipe-Rock Plateau. Finally, the end of Petal Isles hands you the final route to the Special World simply by beating Wiggler Race Spelunking! which is trivialized by the use of the Jet Run Badge.
Even the Special World levels themselves rely on difficulty rather than furthering the mystery that there’s more to discover or something you might’ve missed, meaning that there’s little reason to converse with fellow players or make use of the online features to figure out which route to take.
In the end, I enjoyed exploring every inch of the Flower Kingdom, yet I came away feeling that Nintendo plays the secrets surrounding the Special World too safe. One day, I hope they trust their players enough to bring 2D Mario games back in line with the greatest 2D Mario of all time.
