In the past few years, Mario has had a not so “super” history. He’s been relegated to mediocre 2D and 3D platformers, a variety of crossover games, and Party/Kart games which practically re-release every few years – a point accentuated by the most recent Kart game being a remake of the last one. However, on January 12th of this year, a new trailer was revealed of a game called “Super Mario Odyssey” [1].

Said trailer showed the iconic plumber travelling through a variety of environments, like a realistic city and a polygonal food world, and it was immensely well received – currently being the 2nd most viewed video on the official Nintendo channel, and the most viewed game trailer on the channel. There was little news on the game until the E3 trailer was released, which showed off more content, the Capture ability, and the first ever vocal song in a Mario game (though not the first vocal song in the series history) [2].

After a few more months, with new trailers and more news, the game was released on October 27th, 2017. After playing for about 20-30 hours and completing the game almost fully, I can say that Odyssey is a definite sign that the series is back… but it could be better.

Design

The story of the game is pretty standard for a Mario game, as should be expected. Bowser has kidnapped Peach, and it’s up to you to save her from a forced marriage. However, before you do that, you meet Cappy, a hat ghost who’s his sister. You team up, and set off on the biggest adventure in Mario history, finding Moons to power up your ship, named the Odyssey, to find Peach.

The main draw of the game is the lack of linearity; each level has no set objectives, excluding a total goal of Moons needed to progress. Levels will have a set story, usually consisting of two to four main goals, though the story doesn’t need to be completed in order to proceed, except for a few odd examples regarding mini-bosses. The Moon counts are very low, too; you need about 120 to beat the game out of about 850 total.

This lack of linearity, though, brings up an issue; the game doesn’t give you a consistent sense of direction. Sometimes you’ll be led straight to a boss, and sometimes you’ll be thrown into a world with nowhere to really go, and just a list of objectives to do. This kind of change turns some levels into enjoyable playgrounds for you to run around in, and some levels into grocery lists; get Moon, go to boss, fight boss, and then look around the level to find more Moons.

The worst offender of this is the Snow Kingdom, a foggy, barren area which requires you to get a total of seven Moons before you can really explore, as there’s an extremely thick fog covering the whole level until you get all the seven Moons needed, making it unexplorable.

However, there are many fun levels. The best level in the game is Metro Kingdom, a city filled with realistic people, largely because it gives you a huge list of objectives – you need 11 Moons to complete the main plot – but you can explore in any way while going through the list. All in all, the game has minor design flaws in the less favorable levels, but it really shines in the better levels.

Gameplay

The game makes traversing levels a joy. You have so many actions in this game, there’s a unique menu option that lists them off. Unfortunately, a lot of these moves require you to play with motion controls.

Almost all of your cap moves require you to flick the Joy-Cons in a certain way. Playing with the Switch controller is slightly inconvenient, but it becomes completely unusable when playing with the controllers in the Switch. Luckily, aside from a few odd Moons, none of the motion control moves are required. The other moves you can pull off simply feel good, and the game is designed around it. Never once does finding something feel random; everything is placed in a location that feels like it should be a reward to get to.

The main move of the game, however, is the Cap-turing mechanic. Said ability allows you to throw your hat at an enemy, and then become said enemy. The game has over 50 things you can Cap-ture, which seems like a huge number to do unique things with. The problem is that the game doesn’t do a lot of unique things with those 50 things you can become; for example, there’s only one or two Banzai Bills you can become in the game, and they’re used for about four Moons total, being generous.

As a result, the game feels a bit too short; every time you get used to a new mechanic, the game will then move onto the next thing. It’s a shame, too, as a lot of the enemies you can Cap-ture are really fun to use, like the wall-climbing Pokio and water-spewing Gushen. They’re used only in their main levels, and then forgotten about.

The main game itself really is short, and not just due to the game’s mechanic progression; an experienced player can finish the main story in about two or three hours, and it’s even possible to just buy the Moons needed to fully complete the game.

The game is designed around giving the player small victories throughout the adventure, but sometimes the game gives you too many. For example, in Cascade Kingdom, the second level in the game, it’s possible to get enough Moons to go to the next level without beating the main boss. There’s even 2 Moons that are literally lying around on the ground.

This isn’t to say the game makes said mistake in every level, far from it. The Wooded Kingdom is an excellent example of this; it has about 60 Moons, and they’re all evenly spaced throughout the level. If more levels were designed with the idea of giving players small rewards quickly, but still requiring effort to get said rewards, the game would’ve probably been even better.

Graphics/Music

All of the tracks in Odyssey are a joy to listen to. They all fit their scenario perfectly, and I’ve looked up almost every song in the game just because they all stuck with me. The game itself even has an option where you can pick any song to listen to while you play!

There’s two vocal songs in this game – though not the first vocal songs in Mario canon – which are both great. The first one, ‘Jump Up, Super Star!” has a catchy, jazzy tune, while the second one – which I will not mention, due to it being quite spoilery – is a more heavy rock song that’s also great to listen to.

The graphics are also phenomenal, as everything has a great sense of polish and wonder to it. Each level just has something new to look at in it, and everything you look at is wonderful. There are a few graphical hiccups, mostly involving the some of the larger Cap-tures and how they work, but that’s not something I can really blame on the game.

The only level with debatably bad visuals is the Moon Kingdom, due to the fact that it’s just… boring. There’s not any color or real changes in the level, and the one unique area – the caves – is just a normal lava level.

Aside from that one case, the game is visually, and musically, a masterpiece. Metro Kingdom, Cascade Kingdom, Seaside Kingdom, all of these levels are beautiful, and have great music to boot.

Final Word

All in all, the game is a very well made game. While it does have a few issues, like the motion controls and how little the Cap-turing mechanic is explored with some enemies, the game pushes those flawsaway in order to create a wonderful experience.

The levels, the controls, the graphics, the music, it all combines into something great in almost every situation. The game has lots of little details in it that just make it fun, and it shows that Mario does have potential outside of being used in more racing games. Super Mario Odyssey is a great step forwards for Nintendo, and I’m glad to see where they go with Mario next.