For as long as I can remember, Nintendo has always been a company that chooses quality over quantity. First party games are spaced out and with the exception of Legend of Zelda and a few other outliers, most Nintendo games aren’t exactly that long. The experience so great, it’s hard to complain about Nintendo’s brevity. The Nintendo Switch seems to have apparently changed Nintendo’s viewpoint on this. Each game is packed with replayability, characters to play and countless exploring possibilities. Nintendo has discovered that quality and also include quantity. The latest Smash Bros. and Mario Kart releases on the Switch are brimming with content, and Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild seems to have no end to the wonders hidden within the game.
As the face of Nintendo, Mario has always been the example of what Nintendo is capable of at any place in the company’s evolution. Mario made horizontal platforming a thing with Super Mario Bros. and threw the entire gaming industry into three-dimensions with Super Mario 64. Super Mario Odyssey also feels like the next step in Nintendo and Mario’s evolution, the best game for the company’s mascot in 21 years and a towering achievement that cements Mario and Nintendo both two of the most iconic and important brands in video game history still.
In addition to packing their games full of opportunities, another brilliant move from Nintendo is that their first-party games allow for a player to play however they want. Mario games have allowed this since the Star Road of Super Mario World, but it’s never felt so expansive as it does in Super Mario Odyssey. Frankly, this is the biggest Mario’s world has ever felt. Even a player who wants to speed through this game, collect all the stars and save the Princess would still have to spend quite a bit of time exploring these expansive worlds. After discovering how much I adored this game, I attempted to do everything this game offered, and after playing consistently for a month and half, there are still things I’ve missed out. Super Mario Odyssey is truly a challenge. The game’s final levels strictly exist as challenge to even the most seasoned players and it’s remarkable how much is available to each type of player.
The amount of things to do in Super Mario Odyssey is astounding, but the game never forces you to spend time with aspects that you’re not interested in. There’s one part that asks you to jump rope 100 times, and after several failed attempts, I decided to give up. The game never makes you do whatever goals you don’t want to meet, yet the game is so rewarding that I did want to try harder at missions like this that I wasn’t good at. Super Mario Odyssey is almost like an open-world game, but in the context of a Mario game and the result is incredible.
I also don’t think there’s been a Mario game that feels this huge. Each area visited in Super Mario Odyssey is completely unique, despite deceptive appearances. These areas seem like one thing, but unravel into worlds that we’ve never seen put together before. For example, early on in the game, Mario is taken to a desert area - a common world in the Mario universe. Yet when you first get there, the world is frozen, and your mission is to fix this. Once you do this, the world opens up in a completely new way, offering new challenges and opportunities that weren’t available on your first exploration. Each area in Super Mario Odyssey needs to be visited at least three times to fully appreciate the multiple layers that Nintendo is bringing to each section of this game.
These levels also work as an exploration of Mario’s history and our knowledge of these types of environments. For example, New Donk City is clearly the building that is being built during the original Donkey Kong, but the game never explicitly comes out and says it. But this type of introspection is everywhere in Super Mario Odyssey, from the costumes to the 2D sections that literally integrate Mario’s past into the framework of the game.
After decades of playing Mario games, Super Mario Odyssey also brought an idea to light that I had never considered before. Over the years, as I’ve played other platforming games, I’ve often felt like the way the game was made “cheated” or explicitly wanted me to lose. I think of running too fast in a Sonic game - as the game wants you to - only to run into some unexpected spikes, or various other platforming games where jumping from a very specific point can mean either success or death. What I just realized about Mario is that these games are so well made, the player never feels cheated. In fact, when I fail in a Mario game, I feel as if it was clearly my fault, and I just need to do better. This isn’t close to as frustrating as thinking the game is against you, and makes me actually feel like I’m being rewarded for accomplishing something in a game that I truly didn’t think I could.
Super Mario Odyssey is pretty much perfect in every aspect of gaming I can think of. This is one of the most rewarding game experiences I’ve had in recent memory that didn’t revolve around the game’s actual story. The joy here is in the construction of worlds, the exploration of these environments, the way the game consistently surprises and the excitement the game brings by revealing its secrets to the player. Super Mario Odyssey is yet another masterpiece from Mario and Nintendo and I imagine in twenty years, I’ll be returning to this game the same way I play Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario World yearly. Nintendo has made an exceptional game that feels like the best of the past and a glimpse of the future at the same time.
