The talking flower in Super Mario Wonder is in urgent need of weed killer

The conversations among the Super Mario characters have never quite convinced me. Apart from the animated film featuring Chris Pratt and Anya Taylor-Joy, the games have largely avoided giving most characters extensive dialogue, as it tends to feel a bit strange and out of place. Princess Peach reads a letter to introduce Super Mario 64, and Sunshine has some voiced cutscenes—which, by the way, I don't particularly care for—but otherwise, we only see dialogues in text boxes and hear a mixture of excited cheers and grunts from our wonderful array of heroes. That, at least, has been the case thus far.

Wonder, which took center stage in a short Nintendo Direct, features talking flowers that seem to be present in the majority of levels. They serve as both friendly faces (petals?) for Mario as he traverses the Flower Kingdom and a tool to provide tutorials and hints in case players get stuck. At first glance, it's a cool idea in a platformer that already introduces heroes who cannot die and manual checkpoints to make it easier for people. However, it feels like a step too far. Firstly, the voice of the flower is annoyingly sweet and is likely to quickly become tiresome. Additionally, I'm uncertain if there's an option to turn off that blasted thing if it becomes bothersome.

No one else in this game seems to speak like a normal human being. On the contrary, it leans even further into absurdity with dancing animals and psychedelic flowers that transform your surroundings and abilities into something we've never seen before in the series. Being suddenly interrupted by a talking flower that can mimic regular speech is a ludicrous decision. If this fellow keeps uttering sentences every time I pass by, without any means to silence him, I will undoubtedly be driven to the point of tearing my hair out and being completely yanked out of this otherwise magnificent fantasy world. Furthermore, do we really need his assistance in the first place?

With Charles Martinet stepping back from his roles as Mario, Luigi, Wario, and some others in the Mario pantheon, fans will already be inclined to criticize the new interpretations I'll see in Wonder, and I doubt it will be well-received when a random flower claims almost the entire airtime. We've altered Mario, but hey, at least now this tutorial flower hangs around in every level. Its lifeless eyes, disembodied voice, and willingness to assist you in evading challenging obstacles may seem harmless at first glance, but I suspect the motive behind it is infinitely more sinister. I don't trust this flower, and neither should you.

I earnestly hope that its presence is optional, as experienced players will certainly not desire annoying tutorials or hints when they're running through the levels for the umpteenth time. The solution would be to introduce a button prompt to trigger its dialogue or a switch to completely remove the flower from a level. Because, quite frankly, I do not wish to have it anywhere near me.