Super Mario Bros. Wonder

If you’ve ever played Super Mario Bros. 3, you’ll be familiar with “the boot level,” where you can hop into a green Goomba Shoe that appears to have some sort of wind-up key on the back. This power-up only appears in one level of the game, 5-3, and allows Mario to walk across spikes or jump on enemies like piranha plants. It’s wildly memorable precisely because you only get to do it once.

More than three decades later, the team behind Super Mario Bros. Wonder—several of whom actually worked on the original NES games—decided to make a Mario game in which every level is “the boot level.” From singing piranha plants to roller-skating squirrels and farty hippos, every level in Super Mario Bros. Wonder has a truly unique gimmick. To go into more detail risks spoiling the fun, but you’ll want to keep playing just to see what weird, adorable ideas Nintendo will toss your way next. Mario’s latest 2D outing is an approachable, newbie-friendly experience that is just pure, unadulterated video game fun. — Jen Glennon