One of the coolest additions to Super Mario Bros. Wonder is the badges. These are optional upgrades that you can equip to gain an extra ability – such as a grappling vine or a floating high jump. The different abilities of some of the game’s badges are put to the test in the Badge Challenge stages.
These levels are designed around its specific badge’s unique mechanic, and they make for some of the most engaging platforming challenges in the entire game. While there are 18 Badge Challenges in the game, there are only ten badges featured in these levels, with each badge getting a pair of stages dedicated to them.
10 Wall-Climb Jump Challenges
Up, Up And Away
The Wall-Climb Jump may not be the most dynamic badge in Super Mario Bros. Wonder, but its two Badge Challenge levels do make good use of its ability. The Badge gives you an extra boost on your first contact with a wall, essentially giving you two wall jumps to play around with.
The Badge Challenges are designed around bouncing from object to object as you try to maximise your elevation with each jump. This gets particularly tricky in the second challenge, where the spinning objects force you to really plan out your route before you commit to making your way to the top.
9 Crouching High Jump Challenges
Kamehame-Jump!
The Crouching High Jump challenges are designed around the extra verticality you get from this badge. Purple ten coins are kept at the top of the screen, there are large distances between platforms, and certain enemies can only be cleared by crouch jumping over them.
These challenges also make smart use of the fact that the Crouching High Jump requires you to remain still for a short period of time while the jump charges up. These short stages are filled with falling platforms that require you to time your jumps just right, adding a welcome tension to a badge that, by design, forces you to stay still and wait.
8 Floating High Jump Challenges
Walking On Air
The Floating High Jump badge lets you flap around in the air for a split second longer before you begin your descent back down to earth. These badge challenges force you to spend that extra time in the air avoiding enemies and jumping over longer gaps.
The second challenge takes this concept to new heights (pun intended) by making you jump over tall piranha plants while riding a moving platform. It requires you to time and weigh your jumps just perfectly so you don’t end up as dinner for the hungry plants beneath you.
7 Boosting Spin Jump
Spin Attack To Win
As its name suggests, the Boosting Spin Jump propels you upwards at the apex of your jump to gain a touch more height and stay in the air for a bit longer. This ability is used in its badge challenges to reach higher platforms, clear longer jumps, and access purple coins that would otherwise be inaccessible.
The Boosting Spin Jump becomes crucial when trying to ascend the spinning bounce pads in the second challenge. These platforms ping you around everywhere, meaning you need extra control from spinning to help navigate the chaos.
6 Parachute Cap Challenges
Falling With Style
The Parachute Cap is the perfect badge for anyone with a fear of falling. Using this badge to gently glide down from a jump and cover more distance is put to wonderful use in its challenges, coming close to creating that sense of flight we’ve seen with some of Mario’s other power ups.
There’s a really fun section in the second challenge where you use the Parachute Cap to carefully glide down a narrow section flanked with piranha plants on either side. It’s a tense little section of gameplay, but hugely rewarding to pull off — especially if you can also grab all the coins on the way down.
5 Spring Feet Challenges
A Spring Awakening
The Spring Feet badge is such a fun time, and these challenges showcase how it can be simultaneously silly and thrilling to pull off a succession of hyper-bouncy jumps. Their level design perfectly matches the super buoyancy of this badge by spacing out the platforms further apart than ever before.
Stringing together a series of Spring Feet jumps is one of the best feelings in Super Mario Bros. Wonder, and these challenges give you the opportunity to experience that sense of utter euphoria. It may take a little while to get used to, but once you have it covered, you’ll be reaching for the sky.
4 Dolphin Kick Challenges
On-Whales Swimmer
There should be a law that you need to use the Dolphin Kick badge in any water level in Super Mario Bros. Wonder. This badge gives you a little underwater boost that, when strung together, lets you seamlessly glide through the waters at speeds you can only dream of.
The badge challenges throw moving blocks, underwater enemies, and other obstacles for you to gracefully weave between using this badge. Underwater Mario levels have rarely felt this breezy.
3 Grappling Vine Challenges
Really Gets Its Hooks Into You
The Grappling Vine has been a big hit with Mario fans, and its badge challenges are some of the best in the entire game. Latching onto walls with this badge feels so satisfying and its challenges are designed to showcase what makes this badge so great.
You’ll use the Grappling Vine to grab onto moving blocks, bouncy pads, and even pools of floating water in your efforts to navigate around the level as if you were Spider-Man. Spider-Mario? Whatever you call yourself, these challenges really get their hooks into you.
2 Invisibility Challenges
Shadow The Plumber
The Invisibility badge is a double-edged sword. While it does make enemies completely unaware of your whereabouts, it also makes it difficult to know exactly where your character is if there isn’t a solid background to cast a shadow on.
Both invisibility badge challenges make excellent use of all these features. One minute, you feel like the coolest ninja that’s ever existed. The next, you’re falling off the edge of a platform looking like a complete fool. Either way, it brings a big smile to your face.
1 Jet Run Challenges
Jet Set Mario
The Jet Run badge challenges are pure exhilaration and perhaps the closest most of us will ever come to feeling like professional Mario speedrunners. This badge is all about speed, and these challenges focus on harnessing that momentum to create a feeling of unimpeded joy.
There are few sensations in Super Mario Bros. Wonder more exciting than racing off the end of a platform and gliding across thin air like you are some kind of cartoon character (which the cast of Mario kind of already are). Completing these challenges is always a pleasure, and will likely be some of the fondest memories you take away from Super Mario Bros. Wonder.