Super Mario Odyssey

Released on October 27, 2017 for the Nintendo Switch, Super Mario Odyssey sends the titular "not a plumber anymore" character off an a new adventure to save Princess Peach once again, this time with an enemy-capturing sidekick hat named Cappy.

Mario will do anything for those sweet, sweet moons.

All reviews are subjective. I don't care what anyone says. To be completely, 100% objective is not human. No matter how objective you think you are, facets of your brain, however minor, are pushing you into subjectivity. That guy who thinks Arby is the greatest fast food restaurant? Technically, he's not wrong. His opinion is subjective. So is yours. You can't control it. You're a human. Or, you are some AI who stumbled upon this review, and you aren't subjective at all (please don't kill me when you take over the Earth, blog-reading AI!). With that said, the score at the bottom of this review, which SPOILER is a 9.6/10.0 is completely objective. Yeah, just kidding. This entire review is subjective. But why?
Because I've been playing Mario games since the first one. Count Donkey Kong, and we can go back even that far. My years of playing these games have given me desires and expectations of how I feel and think they should be. Those desires and expectations are not fair. They are subjective.

"Yeah, that's what you say."

Super Mario Odyssey is a 3D adventure game by Nintendo. It takes their mascot, Mario, and puts him in 3D worlds not unlike those found in Super Mario 64 and Super Mario Sunshine. He collected stars and suns, respectively, to progress in those games, and the cosmology advances to collectible moons in Odyssey. Like those games, Mario can move in all directions, can jump to reach ledges, backflip or somersault to reach higher ones, long jump to reach distant ones. He can defeat enemies by jumping on them, just like all other Mario games. Let's ramble.
I've been playing Zelda games since they started making them, too. I gave The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild a perfect score in my recent review of it, with nary a negative word said. That's because Breath of the Wild gave me everything I wanted in a Zelda game, including things I didn't know I wanted, but did, as well.

Above: Me writing this review.

As I finished Super Mario Odyssey's main quest, and ventured into its bonus worlds, I realized what I want in a Mario game. Many reviews have spoken as if Super Mario Odyssey is the greatest Mario game in ages. Those reviewers have either forgotten or never played Super Mario 3D World for the Wii U. It's understandable. Nintendo has sold more Switch consoles in less than a year than they did Wii U consoles over the latter's entire lifespan. That's a staggering statistic, but one with merit. The Switch is a far better product than the Wii U...if anything Wii U was like a less functional, beta-testing of the Switch. The Switch can go anywhere, while the Wii U can go about 10-feet away from your TV. Still, the Wii U features a handful of great games, and I believe the best of those games is Super Mario 3D World.
3D World is in many ways a successor to Super Mario World for the SNES...I mean, look at the title. Both games offer a map screen with each world's levels a spot on the map, and a new map for each world. The levels themselves are timed and linear, but with secrets, and full of power-ups like the famous fire flower, which gives Mario the ability to throw fireballs until he is hit by an enemy. Super Mario 3D World perfects this concept, taking the worlds from 2D to a 3D top-down perspective, allowing for more secrets and level paths. Each level contains three stars and a stamp, which are not needed to beat the level, but must be collected in order to advance to additional worlds. When you beat the game, more challenging worlds are accessible, culminating in an excellent final challenge.

Okay, Toad, bear with me.

You know what? I reviewed that game already. Here's a link. Excuse the fact that Photobucket is holding the pictures hostage. I am going to fix that at some point.
Mario 64 and Mario Odyssey don't have fire flowers or any question mark-based power-ups in the vein of Super Mario World. Outside of a handful of opportunities to fly, be metal, or be invisible, Mario 64 doesn't really have any power-ups--it's more about the player exploring a 3D world through Mario. Sunshine doesn't really have power-ups, either. What Super Mario Sunshine does have is a gimmick--a water-filled backpack Mario can use to either fire water at enemies, or at the ground to elevate himself--it's essentially a water-based jetpac. The gimmick in Sunshine doesn't quite work, and the game is one of the weaker entries in the series because of it. This is mainly because the mechanics of the gimmick are so far removed from the usual Mario hijinks...and also because the game feels a little rushed. I'll finally come to my point: Super Mario Odyssey is descended not from World and 3D World, but from Super Mario 64 (which I love, and reviewed here, with pictures not hosted by the robber barons, Photobucket), whose gimmick is arguably 3D itself, and Super Mario Sunshine. And the power-up-free Super Mario Odyssey has a gimmick, in this case a hat that Mario can throw at his enemies in order to posses them.

Step 1. Gimmick. Step 2. Profit!

In Super Mario Odyssey's case, the gimmick works. Throwing a hat onto a goomba, Mario's long-standing cannon fodder, and taking control of its body, is a blast. Throwing a hat on a malicious T-Rex or a fully-armed tank is even more fun. Yes, utilizing Cappy, Mario's new hat sidekick, is a delightful experience. You can throw him to grab hard-to-reach items, or to destroy weaker, non-possessible enemies, as well. You can even throw him, then jump on him as a springboard. The gimmick works. I wish there was a word that sounded nicer than "gimmick." How about "mechanic?" The Cappy mechanic works. It's well-thought out, and the game is designed to utilize it in ways that encourage improvisation. Can't reach a high-up power moon? Posses a goomba, jump on his buddy, and stack yourselves up until you can grab it. Can't get through a wall? Possess a chain chomp and smash it down. At it's core, though, Odyssey follows Super Mario 64 and Super Mario Sunshine, particularly in the way it encourages you to fully explore its worlds. The worlds themselves aren't much bigger on average than those found in Sunshine, though there are far more nooks and crannies crammed into Odyssey's. Some worlds are quite impressive. There's an enormous desert world that might be my favorite in any Mario game (excepting perhaps, Mario 64's Hazy Maze Cave). Granted, desert stages are pretty much always my favorite, but I particularly like this one.

Maybe because I'm secretly a cactus.

There's also a vast cityscape world that's a blast to explore, and really lets the player run wild. While Odyssey follows 64 and Sunshine with the player receiving moons for completing tasks around the world, most moons can be collected in a non-linear fashion. This is quite freeing--those previous games had a little of this freedom, but nowhere near to the degree of Odyssey. However, not every world is as awesome as the two I've mentioned. Of the game's 17 worlds, or "kingdoms," roughly half are quite small and unimpressive. The Snow and Seaside Kingdom's are particularly uninspired...I'll take both of Super Mario 64's snow levels over the one in Odyssey, and Treasure Trove Cove from 1998's Banjo Kazooie or Jolly Roger Lagoon from 2000's Banjo Tooie are far superior to Odyssey's Seaside Kingdom. Ditto with Odyssey's Lake and Lost Kingdom's. I haven't noticed anyone else mentioning this, but I do think giddiness over the fun of using Cappy, and the excellence of the game's best worlds has overshadowed the fact that several of the worlds are severely undercooked. Maybe this was a sacrifice made to get the game onto store shelves during the Switch's launch year. If so, it paid off. By summer of 2018, Nintendo will have sold more copies of Odyssey than it did Wii U consoles.

Mood: Wii U

While I'm complaining about a game that, let's face it, is absolutely incredible, sometimes the Odyssey's freedom and abundance of collectibles is...constrictive. You can play through the main story mode, beating the kingdom bosses (generally one of Bowser's Rabbit henchmen) and earning the minimum amount of moons necessary to progress through each kingdom--your ship, the Odyssey, which takes you from world to world at your will, is fueled by moons--and save the Princess in 15 or so hours... and then the game opens up. By opens up, I mean it's like the original quest was a fifty-page illustrated story, and the rest of the game is a 500-page pop-up book. New moons, twice as many as before, suddenly populate kingdoms where you likely already haven't collected all that was there in the first place, not to mention all of the outfits, hats, and decorations for the Odyssey you can buy, and the levels purple coins. New kingdoms are also now accessible, featuring far more difficult challenges. The advanced Mario player lamenting the first fifteen hours' lack of challenge is suddenly tossed a bunch of seriously dense bones. There's suddenly so much to do, you realize that either you are going to dedicate a significant amount of time to playing more Super Mario Odyssey, or you are going to decide you've experienced enough of what this game has to offer, and are ready to move on to another one (and there are a lot of other ones...the Switch's library is already quite vast!).

If you choose to stick with it, get ready to see those four words a lot.

Nintendo wouldn't have it any other way. This is their genius, and they've been doing it for years: making games where both a novice player and a pro can have a satisfying experience. Super Mario 3D World accomplished this by offering a fairly easy main quest, followed by tougher bonus worlds and Champions Road. Heck, Breath of the Wild just did it with all of its plentiful Shrines and extra quests. Odyssey is no different...but there's just so much it's overwhelming. And with that said (that being the last 2,000 words)...
I think what I want in a Mario game is order. 3D World, with its contained worlds, map, and progression system, is a very structured game. It is a game in which multiplayer can easily exist--four players can play simultaneously, making it the ultimate family and party Mario game (sorry, Mario Party). The chaos of Odyssey features a two-player mode where one player controls Mario and the other Cappy, but this is really an afterthought: Odyssey is a single-player experience to its core. This actually fits the Switch model well, though. Grabbing a few moons during your subway ride feels just as natural as grabbing them later that night on your TV. Yes, you can grab moons from each world at your whimsy, all 836, in no particular order, in a procession of total chaos. 
And a final nitpick...Mario seems smaller on the screen in this game than in any before, and he controls a bit...looser. Maybe this is to highlight the vastness of the world and to make more room for Cappy's movement, but I did have a little more trouble pinpointing jumps than usual...then again, the camera system is the best in any 3D Mario game, yet. It never falters. You can always see where you are going. It makes Super Mario 64's camera look like an unwieldy dinosaur, trying to film a majestic panorama with tiny little vestigial arms.

This would have been a great place to insert a picture of the dinosaur you can posses. I guess I'll do that when I inevitably post a retrospective review of this game in ten years, praising it as a flawless 10/10.

This was more of a ramble than a review, and for that, I'm...not sorry, I always do things that way. However, I do feel I should add an addendum about the game's 2D retro portions, spread throughout Odyssey's various kingdoms. In these, Mario hops into a pipe to enter a two-dimensional challenge akin to the first Super Mario Bros. game for NES. These sections are such a delightful change of pace, and a lovely nod to the franchise's past. They're not the only ones. This is a game full of joy in itself, in the franchise's history, and in video games in general. There's a surprise interactive musical performance halfway through this game that might be the most sublime moment in any video game I've played. I can complain about details all I want. You can't go wrong with Super Mario Odyssey. And that's the objective truth!

P.S. Since I did this stream of consciousness, there's not really a natural place to go back to remark on the game's graphics or sound. The graphics are what you expect from a Mario game: bright and cartoony, beautiful at times, but not pushing the envelope in any way. They look pleasant and get the job done. As far as music goes, Odyssey's got an excellent soundtrack, featuring a curious blend of big band, surf-rock, cinematic orchestra, and whatever suits Mario's current environment. When he enters a 2D, 8-bit area, the music even changes to a throwback, chiptune-like NES version. Odyssey also features Mario's general exclamations, done by veteran Mario voice-actor, Charles Martinet. Cappy and most of the game's creatures speak in a weird, charming gibberish. It sounds great.
P.S.S. I think this Switch thing might be something special.

SCORE: 9.6/10