Super Mario Odyssey Review
-
Developer: Nintendo, Nintendo Entertainment Planning & Development
-
Publishers: Nintendo
-
Genres: Open World, Platformer, Collect'a'thon
-
Platforms: Nintendo Switch
-
Release date:
-
October 27th, 2017
-
-
Playtime: Over 35 hours
-
Reviewed on Nintendo Switch
Super Mario Odyssey is the latest entry in the quintessential video game series Super Mario. In this game, Mario, along with his newfound partner Cappy, is tasked with putting a stop to the marriage between the villain Bowser and Princess Peach.
First, let me tell you how the story elevates Odyssey’s quality. The story here isn't simply a case of “go after Bowser and defeat him to save Peach with no context to what's happening in the places you visit”, no. Each kingdom you visit has a purpose for the story, for example, you visit the Luncheon Kingdom because Bowser goes there to collect some meat for the wedding, or the Lost Kingdom, which is where you end up after being defeated by Bowser. In other words, instead of simply collecting X amount of Power Moons to travel to the next location, you actually travel to the next location because it has a purpose in the overall story.
In order to stop Bowser’s wedding, Mario has a brand-new partner: Cappy. Cappy possesses Mario’s hat to become the main attraction of the game’s design and gameplay mechanics. By throwing his hat, Mario can possess enemies and objects alike, attack and/or even use it as a way to improve his movement and general flow of the game. Mario, on his own, already has many interesting and fun ways to move around, from side somersaults to midair dives to controlling wild taxi-lion statues, but, with the variable of Cappy added to the mix, things just get even better. You can, for example, throw Cappy, then jump and dive into the hat to get an extra midair jump by landing on it, then throw it one more time and do one last dive to attain incredible air time and cross enormous gaps. And these are just some examples, because there's plenty of variety between Mario and Cappy's "movesets", which you can chain together to reach places you never thought you could. And what's a great bonus about this last part? Almost all the times you manage to reach a platform that "feels like it's out of reach" you'll find stacks of coins there waiting to be collected. Maybe it doesn't feel like much when you're reading this, but when you're playing and manage to do it, it feels great that Nintendo acknowledged and thought ahead of time that you would challenge yourself with mastering the controls and exploring the game to your heart's content.
Now that you've learned how you can control Mario and his partner in crime, let's discuss another focal point of this game: taking control of other enemies and objects. Across each thematical kingdom Mario visits, as you'd expect, there will be enemies. The trick here is that you can take control of these enemies by throwing Cappy at them. For example, you can throw it at a Goomba to take control of it, which in turn will have a simple ability to stack Goombas on top of each other which can be useful to reach very high Power Moons (we'll get to that in a moment) or maybe you'll take control of a T-Rex and just wreak havoc with it. However, you can also use Cappy to take control of objects! In some instances, you'll be taking hold of a manhole to gain access to, you guessed it, a sewer or maybe even a simple puzzle piece that you need to move to a certain position. Focusing now on the controlled enemies portion, this will take the movement I've tackled previously to a whole new level: by having different enemies, each with its own quirk/ability and "moveset". If you thought you as the player already had quite a variety of ways to move around, add on top of it the ability to control the enemies you find throughout the game!
Remember those Power Moons I mentioned earlier? Those are also an integral part to Odyssey's gameplay. Along with regional coins found in each Kingdom and the normal coins that you collect during the entire game, there's also the Power Moons. These are the "main objective" of the game, which are needed to advance the story and even to unlock a couple of new kingdoms after the credits roll. The way you can find these is all over the place: some are just right in front of you ready to be picked up, which helps players that just want to see the story through without much effort, but there are others quite tricky to obtain. Some will have you complete a certain task in a short amount of time, some may test your skills by separating Cappy from Mario until a small challenge is completed and the Moon collected, or maybe you'll simply need to stack a certain number of Goombas to then meet a Lady Goomba and collect your precious reward. In short, there's over 800 Power Moons in Super Mario Odyssey, some that need no effort whatsoever to collect while there are others directed towards the more dedicated players, and somehow Nintendo managed to make each Moon you collect unique.
About the coins, both the regional coins and the normal coins serve the simple purpose of allowing you to buy new costumes for Mario and some decorations for the Odyssey, your means of transportation in the game (and yes, EVERYTHING in this game is unlocked through gameplay, there's no content locked behind amiibos, dlc or pesky microtransactions, when you buy the game you buy the full game).
There's one last topic I want to discuss regarding the gameplay that will bridge to the audio and visual design, which is the 2D sections. These areas are normally accessed by simply entering a pipe, which effectively transforms the game into a traditional 2D Mario game. During these gameplay segments, it isn't just the visuals that turn 8-bit, even the music goes retro while playing in 2D. These small sections normally either have a Power Moon and/or regional coins to collect or can simply be a way to connect different parts of a stage, such as part of a tower or a mountain.
Picking up the audio and visual design topic, let me just say these are both fantastic! Starting with the sound design, the soundtrack is quite good. Most of the time it blends very well with the gameplay. However, I found some instances where the soundtrack was actually annoying rather than complementing the action or the environment. There really isn't much voice acting going on here as one would expect, so, the sound effects remains. These are also very good, with each action, movement or reaction in the game having its own dedicated sound which provides great audio feedback to the player.
Then, there's the visual design, and oh is it good. Everything in this game is extremely polished, and there's a great choice of colors throughout the entire game: because each kingdom has a theme associated with it, it means it will also have a palette of colors associated with. For example, the Seaside Kingdom has lots of blues and yellows because it revolves around the beach and seaside theme, while the Snow Kingdom has lots of white because that's the color associated with snow and cold areas which, as the name implies, is the theme for this one. But as you'd think, the color choice is reflected in the visual feedback in the form of letting the player distinguish easily between what's showing on the screen. Besides those, looking at the game is just a pleasure, everything looks very well thought out and well designed.
Before wrapping up this review with my final thoughts on the game, there are still two topics I want to address: Odyssey's interaction with the Nintendo Switch's hardware capabilities and the incredible amount of content in this game. Starting with the first topic, Odyssey takes advantage of everything the console it plays on has to offer: from the simple screenshot functionality to more Switch-exclusive functionalities such as the HD Rumble. For example, to find some Power Moons you need to follow the vibration you feel in the controllers, then the closer you are to the location the more it will shake, and when you find the exact spot simply ground pound to reveal the Moon. It's things like this that show how Nintendo is trying to make Super Mario Odyssey a system seller not just by its exclusivity but also by appealing to what the console can bring to the table in terms of video games design itself. Regarding the content this game offers, oh is it a lot. Just going through each kingdom the first time before completing the story already shows tons and tons of points of interest and Power Moons and costumes to collect, but after clearing it you get access to even more collectables and sometimes even whole new areas to explore inside those Kingdoms. On top of it, in the post-game, you can unlock even more Moons to collect in each kingdom, increasing the total of Moons to collect in the game by over 50%. Then, the cherry on top of the cake is that every time you find/do something in the game it is even better than what happened previously! Throughout my time with the game, I was constantly in awe with how much this game can keep improving itself over and over.
Super Mario Odyssey is an absolutely essential video game that everyone should have the opportunity to play. It strikes a perfect balance between quality and quantity that uses its level, audio and visual design to keep the player engaged while playing. Beyond the game itself, Super Mario Odyssey is another heavy reminder to the industry that single-player games are far from dead and a breath of fresh air from the terrible loot boxes plaguing video games in 2017.
Spoilers below...
My favorite costume combination in the game.