Demakes are one of my favourite parts of this job, and that's not just because I get to play them and reminisce about my favourite games when I should be doing other jobs (honestly). I love seeing how people reimagine current games as older titles for systems that never would have been able to house them, and to see how they change certain aspects and features to make them work within the constraints of 8, 16, and 64-bit consoles.
Also, I'm thinking about you here, dear reader, because you can play this Super Mario Bros. Wonder demake in your browser at work and no one will ever know, and it's absolutely awesome!
Super Mario Bros. Wonder is one of the trippiest games I've ever played. I have to be in the right headspace for it, otherwise I can leave a gaming session feeling like I've spent 4 hours strapped in to a Virtual Boy console and everything feels like I'm in a different reality.
This demake from Shafox manages to capture that same, for want of a better word, 'madness', while bringing some of the new key power-ups from the Switch game like Bubble Mario and Drill Mario into the game. You can pick from 6 levels from the off and play them in any order, and you can control Mario with your arrow keys, making it one of the easiest demakes to play too!
I don't say this lightly because I write about a lot of demakes, but this could be one of the best demakes I've ever played. There, I said it, and you can quote me on that, Shafox! The music is spot on, the SNES visuals are fantastic, and the gameplay is brilliant right from the very start.
Elephant Mario hasn't made an appearance while I've been playing yet and I think it's very doubtful that he will, but I'm content with Fire Mario and the other powerups, as well as everything turning like some sort of dream world every now and again.
For me, SNES Mario was peak Mario when it comes to side-scrolling adventures anyway, and it's nice to see Mario's adventures in the Flower Kingdom in a 16-bit format, complete with talking flowers (though they're way less annoying in this version!). Hats off to Shafox, this one is a beauty!
Check out the official game page on Itch.io to play - just don't get caught by your boss because we'll deny that we were the ones who told you about it!
