Nintendo’s 2026 Games Lineup Is Odd, but Not as Odd as the Wonder Flower

Nintendo is obsessed with this talking flower. The sousaphone-faced flora first came on the scene in 2023 with Super Mario Bros. Wonder, and since then it’s infiltrated other Mario family titles like Super Mario Party Jamboree. It’s set to referee (and repeatedly antagonize) players in the upcoming Mario Tennis Fever as well. Now, the $35 Wonder Flower is trying to grow space for itself in the living room and perturb you with random rejoinders at various intervals.

There’s not much to talk about with the Wonder Flower. It has a speaker and a lot to say. You push the button, and it will tell you a line. “We kind of look alike, huh?” “Did you know the planet is spinning?” It rapped at me with repeated button presses, though the device is built to speak up when you least expect it to. I pressed the button several times, and I did hear a few repeats. It’s unclear how many voice lines are actually contained within this little toy.

You can tell the Wonder Flower to shut up and only talk when you push the button. Yes, I couldn’t stop pressing it because, as irritating as the flower toy can be, its form of annoying is the kind I find endearing—probably because I do the same thing to my closest friends. The toy should know the weather and time of day, although it was very adamant that it’s “perfect weather for a nap, huh?” If I had to choose between the Wonder Flower and Alarmo, the latter would be more useful as an actual alarm clock. But some things aren’t made to be useful. Some things are just fun.

Nintendo’s early-year games are all about multiplayer

There may be a side of me that has bought into the whimsy presented by Nintendo. I can talk to the moon and back about the Switch 2 hardware, its successes and foibles, but the games are always a surprise when I’m just trying to do my job. The top of the year 2026 will prove an inevitably awkward time for Nintendo. The company is dealing with Japanese investors breathing down its neck over the ongoing storage shortage. RAM is getting more expensive, which could force Nintendo to raise console prices. It would be a poor time to do it, too. The company doesn’t have any specific tentpole game that will prove a real system mover for the next few months.

Instead, we have games like Mario Tennis Fever ($70) and Super Mario Bros. Wonder Switch 2 Edition + Meetup in Bellabel Park ($60 or $20 for the upgrade pack). Yes, that’s the full title. I played both for about 30 minutes, running through various multiplayer sessions. Mario Tennis Fever is an immediate and rambunctious sports game that reminds me most of the hardcore back-and-forth of the original Mario Tennis for the Nintendo 64.

It’s a game about positioning, both your character for returns and the ball. Even characters as large and in charge as Wario, Boo, or Bowser are quick to dive after a speedy serve with just a tap of the “A” button. There are multiple kinds of hits you can perform, from a regular attack to a power shot. The top attack is a “Fever” stroke that will introduce an effect on the court, depending on your racket. A Thwomp racket will lay a floating, angry block on the other player’s court, ready to smash them. A Pokey racket will do the same with the cactus-like critter, who will spill into various hazards once struck with a ball. There is counterplay to these shots, too. When you strike the Fever shot before it hits the ground, you can set the same hazard on your opponent’s side of the court.

Nintendo went with the Mario Kart World playbook when deciding characters, as the roster is particularly enormous. The number of rackets on offer is also incredible. Nintendo places such a premium on local multiplayer that playing the game 2v2 was a blast that reminded me of ye olden days huddling around the CRT TV and smacking the buttons on my N64 controller. Mario Tennis Fever will also bear the release of new light purple and light green Joy-Con 2 controllers. Unfortunately, these will be mere color accents on the black cover, like the light red and light blue that ship with the Switch 2. You’ll have to look to third-party companies like Dbrand for color-matched skins.

We still don’t know much about the latter parts of 2026

Meetup in Bellabel Park takes a similar tack with its obsession for local multiplayer, even at the expense of online play. Bellabel Park is full of various minigames, playable in both co-op and versus modes. These can range from players racing each other on floating pinwheels to a team mode where players have to create the blocks for other players to platform on. On the other hand, Nintendo’s online-specific modes have far less player interaction. Characters are ghosts that can see each other move but rarely interact with them. Nintendo told me the online modes are not available for local play, and vice versa.

The upgrade doesn’t make Super Mario Bros. Wonder any worse of a game. If you have friends who long to play on the couch, it’s an excellent option for an evening of controller-throwing thrills. There are other titles arriving early this year, including Resident Evil: Requiem and Pragmata, which I also got to try for the first time on Nintendo’s handheld console. These games certainly sported subdued graphics capabilities compared to what devs have shown running on PS5 and PC. There were missing reflections in the mirrors in my Requiem demo and a little bit of shimmering around characters’ hair. But that was the worst of it. Both games ran perfectly fine at their 1080p resolutions in handheld mode as well.

The Switch 2 keeps proving that as long as developers optimize their games properly, Nintendo’s handheld is capable of playing demanding titles. What that may mean for the Switch 2’s future is another question entirely. Mario Tennis Fever is out Feb. 12, while the Bellabel Park expansion will arrive Mar. 26. I only wonder how many more games Nintendo can stuff the Wonder Flower into before we see it in our dreams.