I’ve never been one to get absorbed in a Mario game. They’re all good fun, I’ve played and beat a pretty good chunk of them, and there will always be a place on my virtual gaming shelf for the original NES trilogy, should I need to purchase them yet again. But I’ve never been enthralled by them. They’ve always been fun diversions when I get tired of the super-serious grind of my other games.
Mario 64 probably came the closest in terms of sucking me in, and for good reason; It was the first time I, like countless others, had ever experienced 3D movement that felt that good. I visited the local Toys R Us many times that summer to play the demo kiosk, eagerly awaiting the day I could actually take it home. It was a great time to be alive.
That was the last time I felt the magic of Mario. I hated Sunshine. I never got into the waggle controls of the Galaxy series, and while the New SMB series was fun, side-scrolling games fight hard to keep my attention nowadays. 3D World was great, but getting some of those special coins was downright difficult, and I don’t really play Mario for difficult. So while I can appreciate that it was there, I didn’t really feel like I got everything I could out of it. Plus I can’t count how many times I thought I was jumping straight to the right, only to miss a ledge because I was actually pressing down-right. That shit’s annoying, and it’s mainly the reason I avoid isometric style games, especially if they’re platformers.
But then here came Super Mario Odyssey on the Nintendo Switch. I wasn’t really interested in it. I didn’t even have a Switch. But, through a specific set of circumstances, and an upcoming trip, I was able to purchase one along with Odyssey. And I had a three-hour flight to get me invested.
So, I’m not going to do a full-on review, because I haven’t even come close to beating the game, and because multiple sites have already done a pretty comprehensive job of it. They’ve praised the magic of Mario from the rooftops and I heard it. So, “Here we go!” –Mario voice.
Oh wait. Before I begin, I have to say, Mario needs to loosen the trousers. His voice jumps up a few octaves with every new game. He’s also getting shorter, and rounder, and judging by the New Donk City kingdom, less and less human with every passing iteration. I’m at a loss trying to figure out just what the hell Mario is now. Perhaps his time in the Mushroom Kingdom is slowly mutating him into one of their own, and in time he’ll be one of the Mushroom People too, like Toad (who also has a high ass squeaky voice). By extension, maybe Goombas are the natural evolution of Mushroom People? Maybe they all just eventually go feral. But honestly though, the second Mario stepped foot in New Donk City and realized he was only crotch-height to a real person, he had to be wondering just what the fuck happened to him.
Okay, that aside. I’ve put about 15 hours into Odyssey and while I’m not really one to get truly immersed in a Mario game (especially a handheld), I am enjoying it quite a bit. One of the things that has been so surprising was how a Kingdom isn’t done and tossed aside after beating the boss and completing whatever the immediate objective is. For example, your ship requires a certain number of moons to power it up enough to fly it to a new kingdom. The game will guide you through a set number of objectives that will get you moons, leading up to the “boss battle” of the level, which usually grants you three at once. Along the way, you’ll most likely find other moons just by farting around. When all is said and done, by the time you beat the boss, you’ll probably have enough moons to leave. But here’s where the genius of the level design comes into play. Where other games have checklists of objectives, Mario has a list of blank spaces of things you haven’t found yet. Not only do you not know where they are, you don’t even know if you can get them yet. One of the early maps had me running around the desert and I felt like I had seen everything there was to see, and done everything I came across. I checked my list, only to realize that I hadn’t even found half of the available moons in that kingdom.
But it’s not for lack of looking. That’s the good (and bad) thing about the level design Nintendo chose. There are areas of some kingdoms that are only accessible from other kingdoms. So in some cases, you have to move forward in order to go back. It’s a Metroid-vania setup that drives me insane, simply because my OCD doesn’t want to leave an area before everything is done. So to have a checklist, and see an area off in the distance, and know that there may be nothing I can do right now, pulls me out of that comfort zone and forces me to move along. That’s not inherently a bad thing, since keeping the different kingdoms relevant after you move on is great, but damn does it screw up my routine.
It also throws a wrench in the ointment when I’m the kind of player that likes to know where I am in the game. How close am I to completion? Am I far? Do I need to milk it? From what I’ve heard, Mario Odyssey is far from over after you essentially “beat” the game. But if that means more Rainbow Road nonsense, I just might pass. I don’t want to throw my joycons.
Then there are the case of the costumes, which are purchasable using special coins found in the various kingdoms. Each kingdom has their own currency, and to purchase all the costumes and spaceship decorations, you have to find them all. Again, this is seriously fucking with my OCD. That part of my brain wants to find all the coins, and find them NOW. But, as far as I know, Odyssey’s game worlds could be designed to not let you find them all right away. I don’t know if this is true or not, because I’ve been avoiding the game guides. Leaving a kingdom with 45 out of 50 purple coins is maddening, because I don’t know if I can get them or not.
For the most part, the purchasable items have been pretty fun. I was expecting a new move or character animation to go along with them, but so far it’s purely cosmetic. That’s probably for the better though, since I would hate to be shoe-horned into some shitty looking costume just to receive whatever benefit it provides. Those abilities are left to the creatures I can possess using Cappy, a creature from the ridiculously under-explained Cap Kingdom, which is full of sentient hat beings. C’mon Nintendo, don’t cop out, we need to know.
I’m not even really that far into the game, and already I have been confronted with a pretty good variety of gameplay twists. I don’t really want to call them “gimmicks” because they’re mostly pretty clever. Using 2D Mario levels to bridge a gap between a 3D area is genius. Smacking together multiple Chain Chomps billiards-style to hit a target was also pretty interesting. Having to possess a walking statue in order to see hidden bridges wasn’t quite as fresh, but still served to break up the repetition. I hope this constantly change-up continues and it isn’t front heavy like so many games nowadays, that start off fresh and just go downhill from there. According to the raving reviews, this isn’t likely to happen here.
If there’s one gripe I do have about the game though, it’s gotta be the controls. Nintendo wants you to use the joycons in detached mode, using their motion controls. This is annoying for one major reason; When playing in handheld mode, or using the controller grip, you are effectively cut off from a number of Mario’s moves, a lot of which make the game much more playable. Mario can use a heat seeking hat throw to zip it between multiple enemies, or have it swoop in a circle around him, hitting multiple surrounding targets, or roll it out in front of him bowling ball style to get enemies lower than him, all by using motion controls that you don’t have access to while the joycons are attached to the Switch. Sure, you can try to flick it this way or that while holding onto it, but I’m not about to risk tossing my $300 game system, are you? The game is still very playable in the early stages with regular button controls, but I can’t help but wonder if the endgame challenges will all but require you to use every move at your disposal. That means waiting until you can dock it or sit it on the counter. Not cool.
As of this writing, Super Mario Odyssey has individual maps and lists of collected items broken up per kingdom, but not overall stats or playtime count similar to the Wii U and 3DS, so I may never know how much time I have put into it. But I do know I still have a way to go before I hit the endgame. When I do, I will comment on that in a different post. Until then I will continue to crack away at it, along with a few other gaming projects I have started. Now that I am back home, I can spend more playtime in docked mode at full resolution (and using them damn motion controls) so I will be able to comment on that as well.
Stay tuned!
