Enlarge / Are you going to enjoy playing Super Mario Bros. Wonder ? It might help if you gauge your reaction to shiny, moustache-under-the-trunk Elephant Mario. (credit: Nintendo)

The stinger, the bit Nintendo knew everybody was going to remember, was Mario as an elephant. It could almost make you forget the surreal revisit to a traditional 2D Mario game the company had just finished showing you.

The trailer for Super Mario Bros. Wonder starts off in familiar territory, minus the talking flower that urges Mario "onward and upward!" Mario hops over a pipe, onto some Goombas, and dodges a Piranha Plant. Then he's bouncing off some spherical hippos, past some Goombas that are...  wearing toupees? He does some rail grinding, jumps through some waterfalls—typical Mario things.

But then he touches a blue "Wonder Flower," reflective goo starts pulsing around the corners of the screen, and a typical pipes-and-baddies level goes bizarre. Pipes rise, spout water, and worm-wiggle around. Another level is all silhouettes against an ethereally purple background, but Mario can stretch himself five times as tall. Mario becomes a spiked ball. Mario rides a sheep stampede. It ends when Mario finds a Wonder Seed, and the Mushroom Kingdom looks relatively recognizable.