Reviewed on the Nintendo Switch

I think that everyone has heard of the famous name of “Super Mario”, it was the series that helped save gaming during the video game crash of 1983 due to the launch of Nintendo Entertainment System (NES or FAMICOM depending on the region), pioneered the 3D gaming on the Nintendo 64, and made the name “Nintendo” and “gaming” almost synonymous. It is not overselling it to say that it may be the most important franchise in all of gaming. For the uninitiated, Super Mario is a series of platformer games, both in 2D, as well as in 3D, and Super Mario Odyssey is the latest from the series being a 3D platformer and an exclusive for the Nintendo Switch console.

I Levels

First off, it is imperative that we understand the identity of Super Mario Odyssey. As far as 3D Super Mario games go, there are those which are “course clear” and then there are “sand-box” games. The former is very linear, and have a ton of small, focused levels. If you want a star (or just the prize, to be more general) you must get to the end. The latter, however, are with an open level design, the amount of levels is fewer, but the levels are far bigger and contain multiple prizes, which are hidden throughout. Odyssey is the of the latter type, open-world type of game, done in the spirit of Super Mario 64, and Super Mario Sunshine.

Odyssey’s levels are littered with secrets, and player is expected to explore every nook and cranny. The game is not very difficult to beat, but its difficulty lies in its exploration and freedom. Often, a player can take shortcuts to power moons (the prize of this game) and the jumps needed to perform to take the shortcut can be very difficult to time correctly. That is due to very smart level design that takes full advantage of Mario’s move set, while retaining its simplicity, that even the most novice players can fully enjoy the game, i.e. easy to pick up and play, hard to master – the very definition of perfect game design.

The levels vary in their thematic wildly and in their size, too. While everyone seemed to be impressed with the Metro Kingdom, and I understand why, as it is a level theme unheard of in the Super Mario games, however, I was more impressed by the Luncheon Kingdom. It had a very colorful, ecstatic aesthetic, but that was not all, it’s boss fight was one of the hardest in the game, plus it had hammer bros, which Mario could possess (more on that later). Although, in their defense, the Metro Kingdom had the greatest celebration in any videogame to date, in the form of New Donk City Festival.

Further, each level comes with its own beautiful brochure, which above all contain the map of the level, but also detailing the sights of the level, and most of all – lending the level a sense of identity. This is nothing mayor, but that goes to show how much time and hard work was but into this game, where no detail has gone overlooked, and Nintendo not only reminds us that they are masters of videogames, but how they are studious about their products.

But this game goes on to impress even more, there are 2D sections in this game, where Mario jumps into a pipe and gets “translated” to 8-bit Mario in the process. These bits were always fun and creative, my only wish was that they were a bit longer.

I could talk more about the interesting levels this game has, but I will let that topic stay, since otherwise I will spoil the amazement of the new levels for the readers, just know that each level is a platforming masterpiece, that is adapted to Mario’s skillset in smart ways, and that they all play out differently.

II Gameplay

The first thing you will notice about this game that the traditional power-ups are replaced with the possess mechanic, where it allows the player to throw Mario’s hat into an enemy to take control of it. This is brilliant, it allows for so much extra freedom, in a game that already has freedom by design, the result is a match made in heaven. Do you want to be a hammer bro? You got it. Fish? OK. A T-Rex?! Yes. And so much more, for example, to get to some special levels, you need to possess a space rocket with your hat. This is the sort of game where Nintendo let their imagination run wild. This is not a gimmick either, the possibilities the hat throw opens are used sufficiently, but the game does not fester over a single possibility for too long, but rather moves on to other exciting things. But detail is not missing here either, I love it when you occupy the enemy, and they have the Mario moustache™ on their face, along with the Mario’s red hat.

But Mario’s hat is not the only star here. Mario’s move set is the best yet, especially when it is paired with his hat throw, where he can bounce off it, and then throw it again. There is the triple jump, the ground pound jump etc. The moves are diverse and they are only achieved through three different buttons – the ZL/ZR trigger, Y, and B button, a combination of only three buttons, again simple to pick up, difficult to master.

Although, which I personally did not mind, but many other apparently do, is the nerfed wall jump, in previous Super Mario games Mario could jump off of a wall far longer than he can in Odyssey, again, it depends, as I did not mind it, as the levels and the gameplay did not suffer from it. Some also have criticized the camera in this game, a notion I cannot agree with, yes, the camera let me down sometimes, but its the best camera in a Super Mario game yet, even superior to the one in Super Mario Galaxy 2, in my opinion. The settings option to turn up the camera sensitivity helped, too.

It took me roughly 17 hours to beat the main story, but the game does not end there, after completion, there are the breakable Moon Rocks in each level, which in turn populate the level with new Power Moons, which encourage the players to go through each level one more time. After finding 250 Power Moons, you are awarded with a new level, so are you awarded again at 500 Power Moons. Furthermore, this game puts an emphasis on Mario’s outfits of which there a ton of, some of them can be bought with coins, and others with purple level-specific currency. That means that for once in a Super Mario game the coins are not redundant, but rather a currency for cool outfits. This also adds weight to the new system for punishing death, instead of removing 1-ups, they instead decided to remove 10 coins for death. This means that you will feel the penalty of death, but it does not hurt your further performance, which is excellent – another aspect, where this game excels over past Super Mario games, and over most other games of the platformer genre.

Also, Nintendo added Luigi’s balloon world mini-game, in the form of a free update, which allows to hide a balloon so other players online could find them for coins and vice versa. This helps add to the longevity of this already amazing game.

III Technical aspect

This game runs at 60 fps in both handheld and docked mode, however the resolution differs, from 720p on handheld and 900p on docked mode. The only weak point could be considered the 900p resolution on docked mode, but I did not even notice the lowered sub 1080p resolution. Although, this a game which I enjoy the most by playing on a TV with a Pro controller as the Joy-cons of the switch are ill suited for this game, I find.

But putting that aside, I find this game to be a technical marvel on the Nintendo Switch, the textures are crisp and clean, 60 fps makes the gameplay incredibly smooth and I did not notice a single frame drop in my 25 hours of playing this game. It runs like a dream.

IV Nitpicks

So far, I have done nothing but praise this game. Rightly so, because I find it to be an excellent game, but there are some shortcoming or annoyances, I think.

First is the “elephant in the room” – the motion controls. I did not like them at all, and additionally they are impossible to use with the Switch on handheld mode. Furthermore, it does not matter if you are using a Pro controller or the Joy-cons separately in both hands, the motion controls are extremely unreliable still, as they do not work when needed. I would say that this is a huge issue, but luckily the motion controls are optional, and you can easily play through the entire game completely ignoring them.

The second nitpick is that some levels are missed opportunities. Some levels are served as nothing more than arenas for boss fights and while they can be visited after said fights, they house nothing more than a few Power Moons and are tiny. That is a shame, especially the Ruined Kingdom which had a Dark Souls-esque look to it.

V Verdict

Nintendo’s games have always had a high degree of quality to them, but with Super Mario Odyssey even they outdid themselves. Despite its minor annoyances, in the form of motion controls, Super Mario Odyssey is the shining example of how game design should be done. This game is the best Super Mario game ever made, the best platformer ever made, the best Switch game ever made – even surpassing Breath of the Wild in my eyes. But that is not enough, it probably is one of the best games ever made. If you have a Switch, then there is no excuse why you have not already played this game. As, I said before – I have already put 25 hours into this game, and I plan to double the amount in my tireless search of Power Moons to unlock all levels. Thank you, Nintendo.

5/5 – Masterpiece

The link to the Figure 1: http://www.ign.com/boards/threads/very-interesting-nintendo-officially-puts-mario-galaxy-in-the-same-category-as-3d-land-world.454912144/

Written on 19th of August 2018