{"id":135409,"date":"2025-12-25T14:30:00","date_gmt":"2025-12-25T14:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/#article-176902"},"modified":"2025-12-25T14:30:00","modified_gmt":"2025-12-25T14:30:00","slug":"opinion-my-daughter-made-me-realise-that-mario-wonders-difficulty-options-need-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2025\/12\/25\/opinion-my-daughter-made-me-realise-that-mario-wonders-difficulty-options-need-work\/","title":{"rendered":"Opinion: My Daughter Made Me Realise That Mario Wonder’s Difficulty Options Need Work"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"SMBW<\/a>
<\/span> Image: Nintendo Life<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Over the holiday season, we’re republishing some of the best articles from Nintendo Life writers and contributors from<\/em> 2025<\/a><\/em>. This article was originally published in January. Enjoy!<\/em><\/p>\n

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I suspect many of my fellow parents can relate to this, but when you have your first child, a whole bevvy of problems that never existed before are suddenly thrust upon you.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo we have enough nappies?\u201d
<\/em>\u201cOh God, she missed the potty again.\u201d
<\/em>\u201cNo, you can\u2019t sit there Daddy, my Peppa Pig toy is sitting there.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Granted, a lot of these aren\u2019t necessarily \u2018problems\u2019 as such, rather minor inconveniences that, along with frequent moments of unbridled joy, make up the weird and wonderful world of parenthood. I do, however, have a bit of a bone to pick with Nintendo, specifically with its approach to game difficulty in the last mainline Mario, Super Mario Bros. Wonder<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Before having a child, the idea of lowering a game\u2019s difficulty had honestly never really entered my mind. If anything, I would crank the difficulty up wherever I could in the hope that it would both extend my overall playtime and provide a unique sense of accomplishment. Halo<\/a> on Legendary? No problem. Bayonetta<\/a> on Climax? Is that all you’ve got?<\/p>\n

This all changed, however, when my daughter expressed interest in playing Mario Wonder. She watched the Super Mario Bros. Movie<\/strong> and became somewhat obsessed with the characters \u2013 especially Princess Peach. She\u2019s only three, so I knew immediately that if I\u2019m going to let her play, I\u2019d need to make sure it was as approachable as possible, despite my own proclivities.<\/p>\n

As you might know, however, Super Mario Bros. Wonder essentially locks its lower difficulty setting to specific characters: Nabbit and four Yoshis. So when the character select screen came up, I gently tried to explain this to my daughter, knowing full well how the conversation would go.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow listen, if you go for one of these<\/strong> characters, the game will be a bit easier for you and you\u2019ll have a lot more fun.\u201d
<\/em>\u201cI want to be Princess Peach thoooough!\u201d
<\/em>\u201cThat might be a bit trickier. If you go for the purple rabbit, it\u2019ll be better.\u201d
<\/em>\u201cNo, Princess Peach!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\"SSMBW<\/a>
“You’ll play as Nabbit and you’ll LIKE IT!”<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Sigh.<\/em> Anyone who\u2019s had the pleasure of raising a three-year-old knows that it\u2019s borderline impossible to change their mind once their heart is set on something. In this case, Princess Peach is my daughter\u2019s favourite character from the movie, so of course<\/em> she\u2019s going to want to play as her. This meant we’d have to do without the perks \u2013 including invincibility<\/em> \u2013 that come with Yoshi or Nabbit.<\/p>\n

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Wonder’s Badge system would have potentially eased certain tricky scenarios, but they’re not a comprehensive replacement for proper difficulty options<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

So how did it go? Well, rather predictably, not well. The opening stage \u2013 Welcome to the Flower Kingdom \u2013 was doable, but it went rapidly downhill from there. I knew that changing to Yoshi or Nabbit wasn\u2019t suddenly going to make the game a cakewalk; after all, while both characters boast unique abilities that would theoretically make most scenarios easier, there\u2019s still the task of actually navigating the levels. Given my daughter\u2019s age and inexperience, even that would no doubt prove quite the challenge.<\/p>\n

Still, it seems baffling to me that Nintendo would create a game aimed at children and families and not offer any optional difficulty settings for the majority of its 12 playable characters. No offence to Nabbit, but no child wants to play him when the likes of Mario, Luigi, and Princess Peach are sitting right there; especially when the Illumination movie had such an immediate, profound influence on my daughter’s perception and preferences.<\/p>\n

And yes, I know Wonder’s Badge system would have potentially eased certain tricky scenarios, but they’re not a comprehensive replacement for proper difficulty options, in my eyes.<\/p>\n

I wish I could say that I managed to convince her so she could enjoy the game, but she was exceptionally stubborn in her desire to play as Peach. And honestly? I’m quite proud of that. It makes me think that perhaps, way off in the future, she’ll be playing her games on higher difficulties just like me… Or she just loves Peach and wants to play as her \u2013 yeah, that’s probably it. In the end, though, she gave up and went back to playing with her Peach plushie.<\/p>\n

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Yeah… She never got this far.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Games like Celeste<\/a> have proven that even the most challenging of experiences can be accessible to almost anybody when it has the right options in place. Quite frankly, I think with invincibility turned on and unlimited stamina applied, my daughter could probably have more fun with Celeste than she did with Mario Wonder \u2013 and I consider the latter to be much<\/em> easier on its default settings.<\/p>\n

So come on, sort it out, Nintendo. You’ve made some strides with difficulty and accessibility options over the years, but you’ve clearly got a long way to go. Applying blanket difficulty settings to a tentpole Mario title seems like the most basic of tasks when your goal is to reach as many potential players as possible, but as ever, the company stubbornly does things its own way.<\/p>\n

Forcing those who want a breezier time to play as a specific character, though..? Nah, that ain’t it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Image: Nintendo Life Over the holiday season, we’re republishing some of the best articles from Nintendo Life writers and contributors from 2025. This article was originally published in January. Enjoy! I suspect many of my fellow parents can relate to this, but when you have your first child, a whole bevvy of problems that never […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-135409","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nintendo-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135409","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=135409"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135409\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=135409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=135409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}