The world of Super Mario is a dangerous place. In the games, the plumber falls off cliffs, gets jabbed with spikes, and has everything from wrenches to fireballs hurled at him. But he always gets back up and goes again, which raises an important question: does Nintendo's hero actually feel pain? According to Takashi Tezuka, who has worked on the series since the original Super Mario Bros. (including serving as producer on last year's Wonder), there isn't really a clear answer. "It may be that Mario does feel pain," he tells me.

But that ambiguity may be because I was asking the wrong question. The important part, he explains, is the emotion …

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My mission to 100 percent Super Mario Bros. Wonder officially started a couple of weeks ago, but really it began in the late '80s.

As a kid, I was certifiably bad at Mario. We didn't have our own Nintendo console, so any time I spent playing Mario prior to that was at a friend's or cousin's house. I'd hold the second controller and wait my turn, marveling at how they just knew where the hidden boxes were, where to jump to the top of the screen and skip ahead three levels, and how to get to the very top of the flagpole every single time. As I struggled to clear the first few stages before running out of lives, it seemed obvious to me that I …

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When it comes to difficulty, most games like to put you in a bucket. At the start of the experience, you have to choose whether you want to play on a hard or easy mode, and usually, over the course of the game, you can move between these as you see fit, which is good because it's hard to really know what mode is right for you at the beginning. Super Mario Bros. Wonder doesn't force you to make this decision. It doesn't have traditional difficulty settings at all. And yet, its approach to difficulty is one of the most refreshing I've ever seen - it's both subtle and powerful and as playful as the rest of the game.

The most obvious form this …

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Even though he doesn't speak, in Super Mario Bros. Wonder, Mario says more than he ever has in any game previous. Beyond his "wahoos" and "okey dokeys," this Mario has a real personality, facilitated by a suite of power-ups and Nintendo's meticulous attention to detail. Though we've seen a bit of this new personality in the movie, the Mario in Wonder is the most expressive I've ever seen him, reinventing a character that has largely remained a blank-ish slate for the last 30 years.

Wonder's positive reviews will undoubtedly make it a staple on every game of the year ballot. As my colleague Andrew Webster wrote, "Wonder manages to pull from …

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There's a very good chance that this will be the last year where the Switch is Nintendo's main piece of hardware. While rumors of a Switch successor have persisted for years, recent reports suggest that an upgraded device is not only coming but will be here relatively soon, with a potential 2024 launch. If that is indeed the case, it seems that Nintendo isn't content to let the device go out with a whimper - in fact, 2023 has been one of the Switch's strongest years to date.

Just look at the company's biggest properties. This year, we have both a new mainline Zelda in Tears of the Kingdom and a classic Mario title with Super Mario Bros. Won …

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