Highlights
- Daisy's inclusion as a playable character in Super Mario Bros. Wonder was a result of the director wanting to resolve fights over Princess Peach among his daughters.
- Historically, Daisy has been a spin-off character in Mario games, but fan reaction to her inclusion in Wonder has been overwhelmingly positive.
- Super Mario Bros. Wonder offers a wide roster of characters to choose from.
The director of Super Mario Bros. Wonder made Daisy playable so that his daughters wouldn't fight over playing as Princess Peach. Many Nintendo fans were very pleased when Daisy was announced as one of the playable characters for the game when its first trailer dropped earlier in June. Outside Daisy being playable in the mobile Super Mario Run game, Daisy hasn't really been featured as a playable character in Super Mario platformer games.
Historically, Princess Daisy has mostly been a Mario spin-off only character, mainly to compliment Peach or Luigi depending on the title. With Daisy's appearance in Wonder, the fan reaction has been incredibly positive, as many had believed she deserved to be playable in the mainline games. Some might be curious as to why it took this long for Luigi's love interest and Peach's sister-in-arms to be playable in a mainline Super Mario Bros. game, to which the director of the game, Shiro Mouri, answered.
In an Eurogamer interview with the Super Mario Bros. Wonder director, Mouri noticed how positively received that Daisy's inclusion was. He states that he was glad to include the princess in the game, sharing a personal anecdote as to why they included her. According to Mouri, he has two daughters who played past Super Mario games that included co-op. One of the things they fought over was the chance to play as Princess Peach. Including Daisy was so he could "resolve fights within his own household," along with him believing that many Mario fans would be happy to play as her.
Super Mario Bros. Wonder's character roster gives fans a wide roster to choose from, with the mechanics between Mario, Luigi, Peach, Daisy, the Toads, and Toadette all staying the same. The main difference would be the character the player is representing. The Yoshis and Nabbit, however, are intended to be for newcomers or those who struggle in the platforming genre, where they are essentially invincible but still require proper navigation through stages in order to clear them.
Despite the characters having the same attributes, Super Mario Wonder also has the badge mechanic, where it offers a wide variety of abilities to help get through a stage. This includes a wall jump, charged jump, underwater specific boosts, and more yet to be revealed. These Badges also emulate certain abilities of other characters from past games. For example, players can equip a badge that gives the same floaty jumps that Luigi would usually be associated with or the cape hat allowing players to float in the air for a brief time like Peach in previous games. With these new abilities and characters to choose from, Super Mario Bros. Wonder is looking to be a very ambitious title in the franchise.
Super Mario Bros. Wonder launches on October 20, exclusively for the Nintendo Switch.
Source: Eurogamer
