Super Mario Odyssey (2017)

I think it's quite boring so far. I don't want people to tell me "give it a few hours" or "wait until the end, then it gets more challenging". So far I've gone to three worlds total and stopped at the third. If a game doesn't draw me in after a few hours or gets less exciting I won't consider it one of my favorites. Quite a shame since the the character and world designs are beautiful.

That's about it. Not many memorable tracks, tracking the moons is a fine experience, and the bosses so far involve just dodging until you can use Cappy. I also think Cappy is quite an annoying companion.

Finally, the open world Mario game fans have waited for so long. About 50 hours of playtime later, here are my thoughts about Mario Odyssey.

I want to start with how wonderful the controls are, specifically with the pro controller since the tiny joy cons are not that comfortable for me. For the majority of the game playing with a pro controller was not a problem, but there were a few times where obligatory motion controls felt a little weird. It has that "easy to learn but hard to master" feeling that works perfectly with platformers. This is why Mario Odyssey can be as difficult as you want it to be, making it a great game to pick up for anyone regardless of skill level. When the controls of an open world platformer feel so fluid it hypes up the player's feeling to go out and explore every nook and cranny of the map.

As is the case with open world platformers, exploration is rewarded with collectibles. In this game the most important one are the moons, and they are a hit or miss for me. Half of them were fun to collect because they presented some sort of challenge. And then you had the other half, such as the one in plain sight. Those moons were just...there. You walk up to it, jump, grab it and that was it. There were also the moons that required you to do the same thing in every kingdom. It felt like I was running into these recycled moons way too often and I believe this is because the game has OVER 900 MOONS in the game. Previous installments like Mario Sunshine and Mario 64 only had 120 main collectibles, but to me almost all of them feel more memorable; having less to collect meant a higher percentage of them felt more impactful. In their need to reward exploration as much as possible in this game, Nintendo overloaded Mario Odyssey with so many pointless moons that roughly half of them are forgotten instantly.

Mario Odyssey was a lot of fun. When it comes to my personal favorite Mario platformer games, this is now in my top three alongside Mario 64 and Mario Galaxy 2. I would easily recommend anyone to buy this game ASAP. If I had to rate this game, I'd say it depends:

9.8/10 if you are not planning to collect every moon.

9/10 if you are going for 100%, too many underwhelming moons.

I do have one suggestion for new players: focus on beating the main story first. If there was something I wish I'd known before starting this game, it would be how a considerable portion of the moons are locked behind story progression.

Playing Super Mario Odyssey made me feel very different at some moments and I will try to explain what I felt.

First, I want to say that the graphics are really good and the contrast of classical Mario graphics and a more realistic style stuff fits pretty great. To see Mario in a realistic city, a realistic castle, a realistic waterfall... It is shocking at first but it is quite cool.

And the sound is excellent too. The problem, in my opinion... is the gameplay. The hat mechanics are really interesting and are quite innovative but besides this I feel that the game has not changed since Super Mario 64... it's pretty much the same. And this should not be a problem if the gameplay is perfect. But to be honest, it is not. Controlling Mario still feels rude, unprecise, and the camera does not help at some moments.

During the game, you will play in different scenarios (waterfall, city, desert, ice, beach, ...), and to be honest, some of them are really well designed and interesting while others you just want to skip them. The same happens with the plot. Some moments are quite epic (SPOILER: the dragon for example) while some moments are really boring.

So this game can make you feel like you are having fun at some moments... while at others you ask: why am I playing this?

Still, it is not a bad game. Maybe it's because I grew up and I am not feeling the same about Mario. I am sure that kids will love this game a lot, but it is not a game for me anymore...

Wow, so this was the first game I played on Switch, and it took me a while, but I finally beat the main story.

This game is pure and simple fun. The levels are all varied, and the ability to control creatures throughout the level introduces a vast amount of different abilities to Mario's normally pretty standard rotation.

I loved exploring the different areas, creatures, and feels of the level. Nothing is quite as satisfying as taking control of a T-rex as Mario!

The game itself has a very basic Mario story, but the end, along with the amazing ending song, was well worth the journey.

Mario managed to keep me occupied and interested, without challenging me to much. It was the perfect game if I wanted to explore and enjoy, but not for when I wanted to feel challenged.

Overall I strongly recommend this game to every Switch owner, but the lack of too firm a story, and a few slower parts in world exploration, pulled it down to 4/5 stars.

I was sadly a bit disappointed by this one.

I have to commend the sense of sheer wonder the game made me feel when I was first going through the main story, taking detours to find more stuff in each level, exploring every nook and cranny of the beautiful worlds it presented to me. By the moment I saw the credits, I considered this to be close to a 10/10 game.

However, by the time the credits rolled I was still far from finished with Odissey, and the game loses so much steam after that it's sad.

I was surprised at how many of the moons you get in the game are straight up NOT FUN to catch. When I was going through that first half I didn't mind, since they felt like little rewards for the simple act of exploring or doing some simple action and gave me a little satisfaction similar to when I find a Korok in BOTW. Eventually, when the sense of awe fades away, those moons start to feel like minor chores, and there are so, so many moons like that.

I have no idea why they thought it would be nice to add so much pandering to this already huge game. Nintendo is usually very good at trimming the fat out of their games, so I have big hopes that they remedy this in a possible sequel.

I also feel like they haven't nailed Mario's movement in this one. Sure, he can do a lot of different stuff, but most of the time you're just spamming the roll move or the long jump/hat jump combo. I felt some input lag on the game too, maybe a sacrifice they had to make to make the game look this good. If you didn't feel anything like that, try playing a bit of Odissey, then fire up SM64 (preferably on a CRT TV). The movement feels soooo much more responsive and fluid, and with a lot more momentum to it. In Odissey, Mario feels stiff in comparison.

It's still a great game and a great Mario game, but for me it doesn't reach the quality of masterpieces such as Super Mario 64 and Mario Galaxy 2.

8/10

Overall, this is a great game, and my critiques may be a bit too subjective, but I have do say, it did not live up to the praise it has received, and in my opinion, it pales in comparison to the Super Mario Galaxy games.

It isn't a great sign that I got to the Moon Kingdom thinking, "This must be the halfway point!" and had it turn out to be the final boss. I was not rushing, and I probably completed the main story in around 10 hours or less. But wait, they tell you, there's a lot more adventure to be had! Great, more kingdoms to unlock, right? Wrong (mostly). The kingdoms you've already explored will have a lot more moons to be collected, and the way you earn them can range from brilliant to so frustrating it's not worth it. Some of the platforming areas, particularly the 2D ones, made me smile ear to ear because of how fun and/or visually interesting they were. Other ways they have you earn moons are just plain not fun (e.g. trace walking, playing hide-and-seek ten different ways, and just straight out buying them from shops).

Cappy, I must say, is a good mechanic, and allows for a really fun and varied way to platform around the open worlds. It's more fun to run around as Mario using Cappy, however, than as anything you spiritually possess with that demon hat. Maybe this was an intentional layer of difficulty, but I sometimes found it frustrating how often I would die shortly after possessing something because I was not used to the new control mechanics, and underestimated my jumping distance, etc.

I want to apologize to the Mario loyalists (myself included) for being so critical. In some ways, this is less than a review and more of a catharsis for me because it's the only place I can vent about the few things that knocked this game down from 5 stars to a "still great" 4 stars from me. I really did have a fun time in the end, and really wish the game offered more content to keep me in after the 500-moon mark (after which I felt continuing wasn't worth the time for me). The kingdoms are vibrant and the designers did a great job hinting moon locations enough to make you suspicious but not quite enough to be too easy. Everywhere is very fun to parkour around. Some of the dialogue had me laughing out loud. Bowser's Castle was stunning. I just wish there were more!

It's probably an unpopular opinion, but Mario Odyssey get a little too much credit, I think. It's great, don't get me wrong, but it feels a little too much like a Ubisoft check-list collect-a-thon than a Mario game in certain aspects. I'm actually massively irritated by the sheer number of Moons to collect in this game. It's completely unnecessary. Add to the fact that DLC comes in and adds MORE ridiculous content, and it just becomes an emblem to what I see as problems with current trends in monetizing game design.

Throwing the hat is pretty fun though.

Even after hearing all the positive reviews for this game, I was still surprised how much I liked it and how fun it was to play.

This game does some stuff that is new and different for the Mario series, but at the same time holds on to its roots and is undeniably a Mario game. The worlds are exciting, fun, and new, the landscapes of blend of an exploratory 3D style and a classic platforming one. The capture ability gives you a lot to explore and remains super fun even at the end of the game.

I finished the main story really quickly and felt disappointed, only to realize that there is a huge amount of stuff remaining in the form of post-game levels and optional quests. That brought me back around for a little while and the fun continued, but I did get bored of that rather quickly (though that's definitely just a personal preference; it's just not my favorite thing to do). Overall, it was super fun and exciting, though I wish the main game could have lasted a little longer.

The first thing you'll notice about the latest Mario game is just how packed it feels. Previously the games were either wide and open 3D courses with a collectible hidden somewhere every now and then or tightly designed 2D spaces, but this seems like the most tightly designed 3D world Mario's ever encountered.

Rescuing Peach from a wedding with Bowser seems like the usual for Mario, but he's joined by a sentient hat known as Cappy. Cappy can be thrown at objects to collect or possess them with limited gameplay - it's interesting to see what can be captured and some interesting challenges are gained with inhabiting a Yoshi or a tank, but the sheer mobility of Mario is staggering. Throwing Cappy and combining him with long jumps, rolls, dives, and hat bounces makes the player feel like they can truly go anywhere.

And there's a lot of places to go - spread into 15 kingdoms with two bonus areas, the areas seem varied and a little vacant at first but are chock filled with important collectibles (coins for purchasing outfits/powerups and moons, the game's equivalent of stars) - there are 999 maximum moons to gain, but the feeling that any area can be explored with a moon around the corner (with even more moons added post-game) never feels old for most of the way there. About 100 or so moons must be purchased, but the addition of an addictive coin-gambling multiplayer balloon search game makes even that a breeze.

With whimsy, adventure, and challenge literally around every corner, this is a 3D Mario game at its most polished and well-designed. Dig in!

Did you really expect something less than a perfect game from NIntendo.

Every single Mario game raises the bar for platforming, and Odyssey is no exception. I would say the best part of it is that it is too much fun. The 'capture' mechanic is very fun and it gets better as the game progresses.

I was cautious at first. The first levels feel pretty much what you'd expect. But the game gets even better as you collect more and more moons.

This, an amazing soundtrack, and the possibility of taking the game anywhere. The Odyssey has become the second must-have game on the Switch. It has become the second Game of the Year in 2017.