The Legacy of Mario
Once upon a time there lived a man named Shigeru Miyamoto, and he decided to draw an Italian. Why am I choosing to start off this review using the same introduction structure of the Sonic Mania review? I don’t know. I thought it would be clever to be honest with you. Anyways, he drew a short subby plumber with buttoned overalls, a round nose, big mustache, and gave him the ability to jump around like crazy. He named his silly cartoonish creation Mario, and for the next thirty-five plus years his creation would spiral towards success. Fame to be more precise. Mario’s early days were spent navigating construction sights, taming a giant gorilla, rescuing a beautiful woman, and saving the video game market from collapsing by giving children a reason to come to the arcade. It was great, but that wasn’t what boosted Mario to glory. With the help of Satoru Iwata, the founder and head of Nintendo, Miyamoto was able to bring Mario to people’s homes. Creating a fond memory numerous eighties kids had. Enter the Nintendo Entertainment System, one of the earliest and biggest home consoles ever made. It has a sprawling library, but the one game that got the system started out was a little sidescroller named Super Mario Bros. The player would navigate towards the goal, collect golden coins, kick shells, stomp of baddies, stop a fire breathing turtle, and control a little Italian plumber with a round nose and red uniform. You should know who this figure is, readers. It’s Mario. This iconic game would then spawn a sequel, and then a third entry which boosted him towards the sky. Mario was becoming an icon, but this isn’t where the legacy of Mario ends just yet.
With each new console came new hardware and possibilities, and Nintendo used their plumber to market these consoles. Showing children and adults Mario was aging alongside them. With the Super Nintendo System came Super Mario World, which was the most expensive sidescroller in the franchise. With the Nintendo 64, video games were beginning to transition to the 3D realm and Mario made the smoothest dive of them all. Super Mario 64, the first 3D entry where Mario had a full three hundred and sixty degree axis to work with. The possibilities were now endless and Nintendo would continue expanding upon what the 3D realm could do with each release and upcoming console. Super Mario Sunshine gave us a water powered backpack to interact with surroundings and jet around the environment. Super Mario Galaxy and its sequel put a unique spin on gravitational pull as Mario now hopped around several spherical planets and platforms. There was Super Mario 3D Land & World which took the basic “Get from Point A to Point B” formula of the originals and brought it to 3D. It even allowed you to play with friends and partake in competitive platforming action. All of these games are truly great and helped build the legend we know as Mario. Not just Mario, but Super Mario. The man who rescued a princess time and time again. The man who ventured through hell just to reach the end. The man who was willing to help strangers no matter where they came from or how particular they were. The plumber who formed childhoods and memories for us to look back up. That special Mario.
The Actual Intro
The legacy I just described seemed to be full of sunshine and rainbows, but looking beyond the surface we find dirt marks. The bad bits of that legacy and where it started to get messy. Well not just that, but what Mario is beyond a character in a platformer. Mario isn’t a character actually, but a brand. An object created for the sole purpose to sell games, merchandise, and help a billion dollar company rake in the dough each year. Nintendo is no longer the small studio they once were, but are now a group of men sitting at the table and discussing how to trick little Timmy’s parents into buying him a new lunchbox despite owning ten of them now. Nintendo no longer thinks with their hearts, but with their pockets. Wondering how much they can stuff their wallets until they explode. They’ve done whatever they could to preserve their franchises in their image, even if that means ruining the fun for everybody else. Copyright strikes, DMCA takedowns, and charging their products more than their actual quality. Nintendo isn’t of pure hearts anymore, and it’s sad to think this while growing up. Knowing what made us happy fed corruption. This wonderous image being plastered onto a billboard for the whole world to see. It’s not good, but I’m not saying it’s entirely bad either. Nintendo, when they actually put thought into what they do, are great and they are one of the very few Triple A companies out there who put fun above everything else. Mario is a brand. He’s had mainline entries, RPGs, party games, sport games, toys, figurines, clothing, food partnership, and now an upcoming movie starring the guy from Guardians of The Galaxy. Mario has done all of this, but somehow we keep coming back to him. To relive those moments we had as a child. To be a cartoonish plumber jumping across fields, collecting coins, and saving a princess. Mario is being held on a leash by his owners, but when he’s allowed to walk around freely he’s polite to those around. Mario is a brand, but he is still a character. Same with Link, Nathan Drake, Kratos, and several others. They are characters created to represent the goodness in others.
Why did I decide to write the introduction like this rather than the negativity bombs or swaying of past reviews? Well it’s because much like many others I myself grew up playing on Nintendo hardware and enjoying Super Mario. My first gaming memory was getting a Nintendo Wii for Christmas and loading up a copy of Super Paper Mario. A weird starter entry especially since my 4th grade brain wasn’t willing to read, but I got into it and found it a pleasant one. I finished that and wanted to try out other titles. My journey with Mario lasted for a while and then I tried other games. The Legend of Zelda, Mega Man, Sonic, Metroid, and eventually Shovel Knight. These goofy games are what formed not only my early years of gaming, but my childhood. The thing that got me excited to come home from school each day and forget about the troubles of reality. Life was good, for a while. I got criticized a lot for sticking to Nintendo consoles all my life and started feeling bad for not growing up on the games others have played. I needed to grow up. I wanted to grow up rather than be stuck in that childlike mindset. So I did grow up and slowly exposed myself to other games. Got a Playstation 4 and all that, and here we are now. The whole reason this website exists is to show my journey to cover all the games I’ve never played before. To show I could challenge myself and be like everybody else. To move on from the past and ditch my childhood behind. It was great and I encountered some of my favorite games of all time. However, there was this emptiness left in me. This sadness knowing the last four years of my life were spent reviewing games. To try and be like everybody. Hoping to appease dozens but forget what once made me happy. To throw away the wonder that fueled my mind.
This is the 150th game I’ll be reviewing for this website. Don’t worry I’m not retiring yet, but I wanted to make this one special. I decided to let the public, otherwise my friends vote on what game I should cover next. The choices were between Breath of The Wild, Black Mesa, and this. The majority fell to this game, and I went along with it as promised. Super Mario Odyssey, the last major entry in the Super Mario franchise and one of the greatest adventures the plumber ever had.I remember being extremely excited for this game when it was originally revealed. I got a Nintendo Switch as a birthday present and after playing Breath of The Wild for hours I wanted something more. Then Super Mario Odyssey got revealed and my mind was getting ready to burst for what they showcased in the trailers. I wanted this game and I’d make sure to get it during the week of release. October 27th rolls around and my parents call in a sick day for me. I’m pretty sure I was sick, but they knew how much this game meant to me. My father took me to Best Buy, there was a line of people waiting to get a copy of the game, I walked to the front counter, got one and a physical poster, and rushed home to play. The entire weekend was spent just grinding away at Super Mario Odyssey. Enjoyment coming from every button pressed and even when I reached the end I kept playing. To one hundred percent this product and complete objective, side goal, and room it had to offer. One month later and I reached one hundred percent. A feat I rarely meet these days. It was a glorious moment and the game thanked me for doing all that hard work. I felt appreciated for once, and this entire sequence became my favorite gaming memory. Not moments, but days of playing to look back upon. For that smile on my face. It was good, and it still feels great to go back to Super Mario Odyssey today. I was really worried at first, because a lot has changed since then. My view on gaming has matured and it felt silly to go review a platformer targeted towards children. I thought the game aged poorly or that new problems would now arise on a second playthrough. Turns out my doubts were wrong. Super Mario Odyssey is not only one of the best Mario games, but a reminder that 3D platformers still stand out today. Being well designed, filled to brim with content, and being downright fun. So today I’ll be talking about why I love Super Mario Odyssey and why it deserves your attention.
Story
Let’s provide a little Super Mario lore before moving onto the actual plot of Odyssey. “Why?” Is what you may ask, because practically everyone knows this story already and it’s so simple you can list each beat. Well explaining the basic plot of Super Mario Odyssey doesn’t really take that much and I don’t want this section to be shorter than it should be, so here goes. Mario and his younger brother Luigi were originally plumbers who spent most of their days fixing leaky faucets and cracked pipes in New York City. I assume it’s New York, because that’s what it was back in the days. Anyways, the two brothers were busy working and one day they stumbled upon a mysterious green pipe emerging from the floor. It’s large enough to fit a whole person in it, and one of the two brothers falls in so the other jumps in to pursue the other. The two brothers are then transported to a magical fantasy-like world. Talking mushroom people, floating question mark blocks, golden coins, and mushrooms that make you grow in size. Maybe this world really likes mushrooms, huh? They are surrounded by these high pitched talking mushroom people, and are then greeted by their ruler. Princess Peach the highness of the Mushroom Kingdom. The two quickly befriend the princess and overtime become residents of the kingdom. Moving their belongings from the rambunctious big city to settle down into a calmer lifestyle. All was swell until a giant fire breathing turtle attacked the kingdom. His name was Bowser, and he brought with him an army of goons of monsters to kidnap every Toad (talking mushroom people) in the kingdom and the princess herself. Fleeing to a castle stationed far away. Mario and Luigi then spring to action and this is where their adventures started. Everytime the princess is kidnapped, Mario and sometimes his brother are always there to help. They fought his children, went to a tropical island, got launched into outer space, and there are those times where they golf or go karting but we assume it doesn’t deal with the main story. Overall, it’s this everlasting clash between plumber and turtle.
This then leads us to current day events. Bowser has kidnapped Princess Peach, again, and Mario shows up to Mushroom Castle to save her, again. However, Bowser seems to be dressed for a special occasion. He put on a fancy tuxedo and decided to wear a special tophat with mechanized boxing gloves. He decorated his airship in fancy white and purple, and declared he’s going to marry Princess Peach. Hoping that if he successfully does she’ll be forced to love him. Mario refuses to let this happen, but just when he tries to fight back Bowser knocks him miles away. As he always does. He flies away with Peach to force her into marriage, but nearby a ghost-like creature watches as Mario’s cap is torn to shreds. Mario is knocked unconscious and he awakens to find himself in a spooky world. Filled with ghost creatures in the shape of hats. The ghost creature from the opening is watching Mario sleep, and then squirms away once he finally wakes up. The ghost-like creature is named Cappy, and claims to Mario that his people have the ability to take the form of hats. However, his sister Tiara who can take on the form of a jeweled crown is taken by Bowser. Cappy and his people tried to save her, but are overwhelmed and all their airships are destroyed preventing them from catching up. Cappy asks Mario to help save his sister, and in return he’ll help find a ship to stay on Bowser’s tail. The two team up and in the next region they power up a ship known as The Odyssey. A classy vessel that can only be powered by Power Moons. They’ll have to locate moons to power it up, but they are being guarded by Bowser and his minions. He’s hired a band of misfit rabbits known as the Broodals and a couple of other baddies to terrorize the residents of other kingdoms. He plans to steal a treasure in each one to use at his wedding. Mario must not only save Peach, but aid each of the kingdoms so that he can earn enough fuel for the Odyssey.
Gameplay
Super Mario Odyssey doesn’t go for the traditional navigate from Point A to Point B formula of the original sidescrollers, Super Mario Galaxy, or Super Mario 3D World, the last major game before this one. No, instead it goes for the openish collectathon philosophy of Super Mario 64 and Super Mario Sunshine. You get plopped into a small open ended map, there are dozens of secret discoveries to stumble across, and usually there’s an objective to work towards. Either defeat a boss, make it to one particular area in the world, and collect a Power Star which in this game are now Power Moons. Collecting Power Moons will fuel the Odyssey, which is your ship, and allow you to travel to new worlds otherwise kingdoms to progress the story. Collect the moons, fuel the ship, and that’s as simple as the gameplay loop. Now how do you stretch a simple gameplay loop like this to a ten plus hour experience without any moment of it getting too tedious? It’s how you acquire each moon or reach their location. There are dozens of enemies which stand in your way, gaps which drop you into bottomless pits, or environmental hazards you must navigate around. You must maneuver your way through these problems, collect items which may help you, and try to reach the next checkpoint because if you die you lose ten coins and get kicked back to the last checkpoint. The game didn’t go for a live system which is nice, but you’ll want coins to purchase items at a shop. Another new feature they added is fast travel, while not innovative, allows you to cut down the backtracking through what are probably the biggest levels seen in Mario history. It adds convenience to a game with repetition.
Mario has a wide selection of moves, specifically jumps, to navigate the environment. He has his basic jump, but also has a triple jump which launches him higher into the air if he performs it correctly. There’s the long jump for long distances, the crouch jump which can be charged, the backflip jump which can be performed by quickly snapping in the opposite direction, and a dive which can be performed after a jump. There’s the roll to be performed on the ground, the spin jump for when you run in circles for a bit, and a bunch of others I could address but then this will sound like a guide for how to master the movement. Mario has all these movement options which is confusing, but you don’t need to know all of them to beat the game. Sure some moons will require you to use options outside the basic jump, but even if you can’t get to them you can still look for other moons. There’s a low skill requirement, but a high skill ceiling for those who want to navigate each world quickly. Plus it’s fun to master Mario’s arsenal of moves and see how you can skip routes the game intended you to go through.
What’s new this time around is Cappy and he gives Mario a special ability known as Capture. In previous Mario games you’d usually have power ups to fend off against foes and interact with certain options. They’ve been removed this time around, but have been replaced with the ability to possess any creature in the world so long as they don’t have a hat and contain a unique power. What do I mean by this, and also didn’t you readers watch the trailers for this game when it was still big!? In the first area Mario is thrown at a wall he can’t jump on top of. His basic abilities aren’t enough, so Cappy tells you to possess the frog next to the wall. You throw your cap at it and now you can control the frog. Then in future worlds you encounter several other creatures and the game gives clear indication on when to use them, because normally they are the key forward. The Capture mechanic is a mechanic incorporated well into the gameplay, because it opens up ways to get to other areas and solve problems. Maybe even drink around in places that don’t lead forward but will nab you secret Power Moons. You know how I just said there’s an objective to work towards and most Power Moons require the player to just navigate simple yet challenging courses? Well there are a ton of Power Moons hidden throughout the game and you are rewarded for looking in every nook and cranny. For butt slamming every surface, going behind secret walls, and out of bounds. There are secrets everywhere, but to reach a majority of them you need to possess a creature. This is how Capture is used mechanically well. Control a flying enemy to float over long distances, or a large enemy to bust down certain stones and blocks. Capture is just cool and there’s around fifty plus things to capture in Odyssey.
Besides possessing enemies and maybe even a car, Mario can also use Cappy to move around the environment in new ways. He can have Cappy spin in midair for a little and hop on him giving Mario momentum to hop upwards. He can also throw Cappy to break boxes, flip switches, collect coins, and even spin around to knock out or collect smaller objects around him. Combine Cappy with the previously mentioned moves from earlier and the basic Mario maneuvers are expanded wider than they should be. Besides that there really isn’t much else to bring up. I could mention that scattered around kingdoms are a certain amount of Purple Coins, and these can be spent at the Crazy Cap to unlock costumes and souvenirs from each kingdom. However, they don’t really do much besides serve as cosmetics, but some are needed to access areas with more Power Moons. The developers really considered everything the player has access to. Hopefully you can track down Bowser, save Peach, and settle the score once again.
Thoughts
Super Mario Odyssey is still amazing to play to this very day. Sure the story is goofy and lacks the depth other big budget releases of today have, but what Odyssey contains is straight up fun. You know, that element a majority of video games lack now? I mean I usually take an experience for what it is, but Super Mario Odyssey got that childlike wonder element of me to come out. To show we can stop worrying about what can go wrong, and just have a good time. This game doesn’t do a lot and isn’t mechanically complex, but what it does well is done really well and there are times when Super Mario Odyssey bursts your expectation bubbles. I want to dive into the game feels to play, but right let’s focus on the variety and setting of Odyssey.
Every kingdom is unique, colorful, and fun to venture through. The sandboxes you’re dropped into are big enough and given enough content to not keep you bored, but not so humongous that it becomes overwhelming or annoying to backtrack. Sure some kingdoms aren't as good as others and there are times where I wonder why it’s even a kingdom. The one Cloud Kingdom you fight Bowser in isn’t even a kingdom, but just a small arena with only like one moon to go back for after the fight is done. The Ruined Kingdom where you fight a freaking Dark Souls is literally just a linear path then boss, and I can really tell Nintendo wanted to create a dark fantasy setting with this one but ran out of time and data storage to actually put one in. Maybe they’ll get it next time, because I do thoroughly believe Nintendo is good at making dark creepy fantasy worlds that can be approached by any age. Just look at The Legend of Zelda or Luigi’s Mansion series. The one Food Kingdom I nicknamed “diabetes domain” starts off condensed, and takes awhile to fully expand into an explorable area. Yet, it’s probably best to keep them condensed so that the player can go through the main story missions and open up more of the map once they are willing to move on. Anyways, every kingdom is great and there’s some fun ones to add variety to the basic Mario setup. When you go to Bowser’s Castle rather than make it a lava world it is instead a fortress inspired by Japanese culture, and I really liked the theme of this level. The first world is this spooky esque city with cute ghost people and structures shaped into hats. The stereotypical grassland is instead a set of waterfalls with fossils lying around. Then there is my favorite level, New Donk City, which is this bustling block full of people, towers, cars, and musicians which you must assemble for one of my favorite moments in a Nintendo game. Maybe even one of my favorite musical moments in a game.
I love the artstyles and designs they choose for each kingdom, and Super Mario Odyssey remains to be one of the best looking titles on the Nintendo Switch. Personally I don’t really like it as much as Octopath Traveler or Metroid Dread, but Super Mario Odyssey pushes what the device can handle. Generating this cartoonish, yet almost realistic feeling environments and charming animations with each character and creature. That is until you get to New Donk City, because I do have to admit it sucks they went for lazily detailed human models. The game has enough of that “pizzaz!” energy. The soundtrack I actually quite like. Also not one of my favorites, but the soundtracks of some of the 3D Super Mario games have been pretty good. Whether it’s how the orchestra plays or exciting tracks to get your blood pumping.
How is playing Super Mario Odyssey itself? It’s good. It’s real good if you couldn’t tell by now. Mario’s wide arsenal of moves give him a variety of options to navigate the environment, and the pathways the developers intended players to go through can be skipped if you get really good at mastering your moveset. There’s a reason why people still speedrun Super Mario Odyssey and other 3D Mario games to this day, because the controls and movement is so tight that any screws up are on the player rather than the game. It’s fun to capture and control enemies throughout the series, and put them to the test in creative ways. Forming a Goomba high tower to reach a female Goomba, or capturing this squid creature to jet around an open lake. It’s greatly incorporated, although I do admit I hate having to shake the controller to perform any third action. Cappy and actions are mapped to the Y & X button, and jumping is mapped to the A & B button. I don’t understand why they didn’t use those extra buttons to map the third action in, and instead give you two jump buttons to work with. It’s an odd design choice to say the least. For the most part, Super Mario Odyssey does a good job guiding the player towards the right direction, but they never discourage them from going off the beaten path. The level designers knew the player could access any point of the map, so they shoved moons, pipes to secret areas, and even when there isn’t a moon there’s a fat stack of coins to reward them. Such smart design and consideration! The game is easy enough to hook any player in, but not easy enough so that not every situation becomes a cakewalk. It’s the right balance between engagement and accessibility.
Super Mario Odyssey is a great game and I strongly recommend it to anyone who owns or plans to purchase a Nintendo Switch. The main story lasts around ten hours which is a good runtime for a game like this, but there’s enough content to add an additional set of hours. In fact, when I originally played this game I aimed for one hundred percent completion and dumped it in around fifty hours which I find really shocking. I think I had too much free time as a child, and still do since I write reviews for a living. The sixty dollar price tag is justifiable and don’t expect it to go down later, because it seems Nintendo hates discounting their games now for anything below fifty dollars. Super Mario Odyssey is a masterpiece in fun, but that doesn’t mean the game has a few problems. I stated enough how much I love the amount of secrets scattered around the world. It’s fun to collect secret moons, but some of them feel really obscure or bizarre. Like the ones that require you to look towards the sky and find a flying car. Final complaint is that finding everything is fun, but now I realized I don’t want to work towards completion again. You need nine hundred and ninety nine moons to achieve completion, and some of them will have to be purchased as there aren’t that many available in game. There are some moons like the jump rope one which are annoying to get, and some moons require you to meet certain feats. It can feel overwhelming to think about, but I do have to admit this is one of the more fun video games to work towards one hundred percent completion. You get a little thank you card at the end of the game and for me that’s enough to make it feel worth it.
Odyssey is still tremendous. I do prefer Psychonauts 2 more, because the level design was more creative and it had a narrative that got you to care and think. However, this is one of the best entries in the 3D platforming genre and you really owe to yourself to play it. In the end I give Super Mario Odyssey a 9.5/10 for excellence at best.
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