Super Mario Odyssey (Review)

Super Mario Odyssey
Platform: Nintendo Switch
Released October 27, 2017
Designed by Futoshi Shirai and Shinya Hiratake
Directed by Kenta Motokura
Developed by Nintendo
$59.99 in the making of this review.

At the end of August, I finally posted my review for New Pokémon Snap, a game that I named possibly my favorite video game ever. Not the best game ever made, as I’d probably give that honor to Shadow of the Colossus, Portal, or Tetris. But New Snap was the game that I keep going back to the most without getting bored. Outside of pinball launchers like Pinball FX, Zaccaria, or The Pinball Arcade (which contain hundreds of different tables that should each be considered a “game” by themselves), there is no video game I’ve put more time into in my adult life. I used the “adult life” modifier because when I was 11 years old I put a stunning amount of time into NBA 2K1’s GM mode. To all the sportsball haters out there, remember that all sports games are fantasy games and I was living out the far-fetched fantasy of my Golden State Warriors becoming a dynasty in the NBA. Something that could never, ever, ever, EVER happen.

You know what’s coming.

So I’m legitimately not sure if the hundreds of hours I put into New Pokémon Snap beat the time I invested in NBA 2K1 on my Sega Dreamcast as a kid. Honestly, I don’t think it is, but it might not even matter. Super Mario Odyssey is the sole reason I added the word “possibly” to the statement “New Pokémon Snap is possibly my favorite video game ever.” It’s a totally different experience from New Pokémon Snap, where the thrill of getting new high scores is potently addictive. All the high score/fastest times elements of Mario Odyssey are the lowlights for me and stuff I don’t care to challenge. Like the infamous “jump over a rope 100 times” challenge seen below:

That sh*it is boring and probably the low point of the entire game, and there’s no sense in even trying for a high score because Nintendo doesn’t police cheating on it. There’s a famous trick where you can capture letters and arrange them in a way where you don’t need to jump at all. I’m guessing all the people on top of the leaderboard used that tactic. For me at least, that means it’s impossible to take any of the leaderboards all that seriously. But I was still pretty happy with how I nabbed the worst power moon in the game. This was my third time playing Super Mario Odyssey all the way through, and this time around it only took me about five minutes after it became available to score all 100 jumps, and I did it by actually jumping. I had to push buttons and everything!

So Mario Odyssey isn’t about getting high scores, which is usually what the games that sink their hooks deepest into me are all about. Long before New Pokémon Snap, I cited WarioWare Inc.: Mega Microgame$ as my favorite game, and that was largely based on its addictive high score chasing. But Odyssey is just a 3D Mario adventure, and there’s been a few of those. What’s so damn special about this one that someone with a relatively large platform like myself would call it maybe my favorite game ever? Would you believe me if I told you that I still don’t fully understand it myself? Odyssey feels like a game that should rank high, but not THAT high. And I was curious why that is.

Perhaps it’s the sheer volume of crap to do. In Odyssey, you’re not choosing a mission from a hub world and returning once you’ve nabbed the goal, which are moons this time around instead of stars (except post-game, when one level does give you Mario 64 stars, complete with the same theme). While the game does queue you towards story beats, there’s a lot of flexibility to explore as soon as you reach a new level. There’s moons EVERYWHERE in Mario Odyssey. Then, after beating the game, even more moons are added, so when Mario Odyssey is over, it’s not over-over.

Not counting the ability to purchase unlimited power moons after you beat Bowser, there’s 836 total power moons that can be located within the game’s fourteen main story kingdoms and three post-game kingdoms (it’ll tally as 880 counting the multi-moons). Last year I called Donkey Kong Bananza an unofficial sequel to Mario Odyssey, but actually Mario Odyssey has more of its main mystical objects to locate than DKB, which has 777 total bananas to be found. Thirteen of Odyssey’s levels also have between 50 to 100 purple coins hidden, some of which are crazy easy to find and some of which took me hours of searching, and I never got bored with any of it.

It was a scavenger hunt style game, Banjo-Kazooie, that got me deeply into gaming when I was 9 years old. Maybe Odyssey hits so hard for me because it’s essentially one of biggest scavenger hunts in gaming history. If you’re into that sort of gameplay, I doubt any game has ever done a better job at it. I can also understand why people would be raising a skeptical eyebrow. The obvious question is “if there’s THAT many moons, doesn’t finding a new moon lose its sense of accomplishment after a while?” I personally didn’t think so, but obviously not all moons are created equal. During the main quest of the game, each new level has a moon you can buy from the store for 100 normal coins:

It’s basically a 100 coin tax on a new level and, yeah, kind of lame. But nobody is really considering those “event” moons in the same way completing the linear story is. Almost immediately following this, I scored multiple moons in a matter of just a few minutes. I mean, hell, at one point I nabbed a moon while being able to see another moon just behind it. And by the way, according to a now offline article that I found referenced on the Mario Wiki, the reason there’s so many moons in this (and presumably Bananas in Donkey Kong Bananza) is so that players who are killing only a couple minutes of time in handheld mode can still accomplish something of substance. You know what? That’s a hell of a good reason to have so many, don’t you think?

Okay, maybe it’s not the most exciting thing ever, but I found almost every moon to retain a sense of satisfaction. I don’t think they went overboard at all, because this is the Mario collectathon taken to its logical conclusion. Plus, I kind of like that some of the moons are crazy easy because it meant I could play the game with some of my less skilled family members. But really, I enjoyed the search because I’m someone who can’t stand seeing her nieces and nephew being taken to the annual Easter egg hunt because I *know* I would do a much better job of picking up eggs than any of the twerps who aren’t “too old” to participate. Well, there’s no draconian age 12 cutoff for THIS Easter egg hunt. This is MY kind of game.

If you want to beat the game with the minimum amount of power moons, you’ll need to get 124 out of a possible 462 moons before the final battle with Bowser. Since there’s a max total of 880 moons (plus in the post-game you have to buy at least 119 more at 100 coins a pop to max out the 999 count), that means there’s almost a full second game’s worth of power moons post-credits. That’s INSANE, but set your expectations accordingly. I noticed that many of the post-game moons lacked a sense of polish or elegance. Like take this room for example:

For this challenge, you have to navigate invisible platforms using only the goop spit out by piranha plants to see where they’re at. If you can kick a rock into the mouth of the piranhas, you can possess them and spit out more goop, but the goop is also deadly to the touch, so Mario has to clear it out with the hat. It seems like a reasonable challenge, right? Actually I thought the room was way too easy, with the pathways being too large to add any sense of risk. Weirdly, this room shows up twice in the game, and the second time is way too hard since the replay is done without the cap. Players have no way to clear the goop and, if you mess up with the fickle rock kicking part, you have to just sort of accept damage. Okay, so I wasn’t the biggest fan of the capless reruns.

Few titles have as much free after-game content as Odyssey, so it’s hard to complain too much about the quality of bonus material. Had I just counted only the moons I collected before beating Bowser (and for this play session, I got every single one of them, plus every purple coin), I think I would still consider this my favorite game ever. But after the credits rolled, I got another week worth of playtime and didn’t even get every post-game moon! I’m only quitting because I need to get a review up! That’s a lot of bonus content! Even in 2017 you would expect this type of thing to be paid DLC, right? So why wasn’t it? My theory is that the developers paid close attention to what power moons the testers enjoyed the most and what ones just weren’t working, and rather than junk the lower-ranked ones, they just kept them as bonus content but probably didn’t bother to fine tune them.

I have some circumstantial evidence to support this theory. Remember the footraces from, you know, nearly every 3D Mario game before Odyssey? Hell, the second ever 3D Mario mission was racing a Koopa to the top of the game’s first level. They’ve always been my least favorite “levels” in 3-D platformers, BUT I totally acknowledge they have fans and are a staple of the genre for a reason. Those types of power moon missions are in Mario Odyssey as well, but this time around, the footraces (called “Koopa Freerunning” in this game”) are 100% post game content. Except, I don’t think the developers thought that was going to be the case because those races come with online leaderboards.

Again, these types of missions are established tropes in 3D platformers, so I thought it was weird the only races up to this point were ones with R.C. cars or these bizarre bouncy-ball races in the snow level. Oh, and for the record, I also thought were f*cking terrible. Seriously, can we please outlaw racing in platform games?

As for the footraces, in the history of Mario games, none are quite as loose or janky as the ones in Mario Odyssey. The level layouts just don’t lend themselves well to this style of gameplay. It totally makes sense why they’re bonus features this time around and not main courses because, sorry fans, they kind of suck. But, sucky or not, setting up online leaderboards isn’t a nothingburger. It’s not exactly a smoking gun but I think it’s compelling evidence that Nintendo didn’t know until the 11th hour which moons would be played during the main quest and which moons would be bonus material.

I can’t stress enough how much I enjoyed finding (most) power moons regardless of whether it was before or after the end credits. It helps that the game’s levels are ones you want to spend time in. Before the credits roll, you’ll play fourteen levels, and the scope of those levels can be measured by how many purple coins are hidden in them. Two of them, Cloud Kingdom and Ruined Kingdom, are basically mini-levels of little consequence that don’t even have purple coins at all. Even post-game they really feel like they just take up space on the level select screen and probably should have been folded into other stages.

Six of the levels only have fifty purple coins hidden in them: Cap Kingdom, Cascade Kingdom, Lake Kingdom, Lost Kingdom, Snow Kingdom, and Moon Kingdom. It feels weird to say these are essentially half-levels, but it’s technically true. Thankfully, out of the six half-levels, only Lost Kingdom actually feels like a half-level. There’s no bosses or major story segments and the map is tiny in scope and scale. Oh, and it’s still a ton of fun to play. It just feels uneventful. The other five levels are nearly equally as small in size as Lost Kingdom, but because of how they’re staged, they never feel small in scope.

The larger levels have 100 purple coins, and there’s six of them as well: Sand Kingdom, Wooded Kingdom, Metro Kingdom, Seaside Kingdom, Luncheon Kingdom, and Bowser’s Kingdom. And some of those names are a little misleading. Wooded Kingdom feels more like exploring the ruins of a steampunk utopia. The forest theme is incidental, as you never shake the post apocalyptic vibe while navigating it. And I loved every moment of it. It’s a contender for my favorite level in any game.

The only thing that makes me wonder if it really should be a contender for “best level” is that there’s a “basement” where you’re stalked by a T-Rex. The suspense vibe works, as I did get killed a couple times when I was unable to shake the T-Rex. BUT, the actual layout of this area is kind of dull. I wish the developers had leaned heavier into the horror vibe with more scary enemies than just a single dinosaur, and maybe packed the layout with more trees, and maybe made it foggy. Something truly spooky, you know?

There’s two other “all-time great level” contenders. Metro Kingdom, aka New Donk City, could have been an unprecedented disaster. Sticking Mario in a realistic concrete jungle had the potential to feel gimmicky, especially when that city is then populated by what appear to be sentient shopping mall mannequins.

But it works! The level seems so unimaginably big that it’s hard to believe you could hope to find all 100 purple coins in it, but actually Metro Kingdom was one of the few 100 coin levels that I got all the coins before nabbing the last moon (I mean the last moon pre-Bowser). Metro Kingdom also has what probably is the most famous and memorable segment in the entire game: the musical number. It’s funny that it’s so beloved, because the actual level design of this entire segment is pretty bland. I think this sequence, officially called “A Traditional Festival” should be studied in game design school, because it would let prospective game designers know how much presentation matters.

But there’s a third “best level ever” contender. Bowser’s level isn’t the typical fire and lava castle that you would expect. Instead, Bowser’s Kingdom is themed like Feudal Japan, and it’s structured completely different from all other Odyssey stages. In terms of layout, it has a lot more in common with Super Mario Galaxy in that the level is broken up into a variety of bite-sized chunks that you have to activate context-sensitive points in the map to travel between.

However, unlike Mario Galaxy, the bite-sized chunks of Bowser’s Castle are still designed for exploration. You’re incentivized to find ways to get on rooftops or to jump blindly off the sides of buildings. It’s f*cking awesome and yet another contender for not just best level in the game, but best gaming level EVER.

The other levels aren’t slouches either. I’ve never been a fan of the desert stages, and this time around the desert level is the largest in the game. Is that the one I disliked? Nope, actually Sand Kingdom is so good in terms of its design that it feels like a milestone in 3-D platforming history and the only reason I’m not including it among the best stages is that I feel there’s a little too much dead space.

The one and only level among the purple coin stages that I wouldn’t hold up as an all-time classic is Luncheon Kingdom. I think they were trying to visually invoke the Nintendo 64 with its simple, blocky structures and stark colors, but the end result is that Luncheon Kingdom is bland at best, and a f*cking eyesore at worst. But it’s not just ugly to look at. The layout and navigation, along with the lackluster variety of challenge rooms and the boring capture elements, made this easily the worst area in what is probably the best video game I’ve ever played in my life. And even this, the weakest full stage in the game, is probably better than any level in Mario Galaxy.

Mario Odyssey works because you’re not just doing basic Mario running and jumping to explore. The action gimmick with Odyssey is Cappy, a sentient cap that you throw at enemies. As just a straight-up weapon, Cappy is one of the more satisfying boomerangs in gaming. But the actual hook of the game is that any enemy or object that Cappy lands on allows Mario to possess it and take control. It sincerely feels unlimited, but actually there’s only fifty-two possible objects in the game that you can take control of, some of which really didn’t NEED the cap. Taking control of enemies and animals? Fun stuff.

But various rocks, pegs, and cars that show up once, that you only move a teeny tiny bit, also count towards those 52 things. Hell, technically a pair of puzzle rooms where you have to go off memory and match a stock picture of a Goomba and Mario each count for one of the 52 possession objects. I mean, come on, that really isn’t what I had in mind for this mechanic, you know? Also I might need new glasses.

And even Yoshi in the post-game content is possessed instead of ridden. Wait, why is it that Yoshi has to be possessed, but I can climb onto the Jaxi or Vespa? Whatever. Thankfully, in those instances where you do get to take control of classic Mario enemies, it’s usually pretty fun and adds to the sense of exploration. Most importantly, the controls almost never take a hit despite the play style completely changing. When you take control of something like the Uproot, you would think it would have a big learning curve to it. Actually, these became some of my favorite sections in the game.

Add it all together and Super Mario Odyssey is just the perfect platforming adventure. It maintains one of the fastest tempos of any action game that I can remember, and this despite having dozens of play styles and a huge variety of level design archetypes. Hell, even underwater, ice, and fire elements are a cut above Nintendo’s best work. If Mario Wonder was the sum of Nintendo’s accumulated 2D knowledge, Odyssey is the culmination of their 3D experience. Everything led to this moment, and it’s everything you could want in a platforming game. Even the afterthought garbage is so good that it should keep you going long after the credits roll.

So, if you’ve somehow been holding out on playing Mario Odyssey, my pitch is this: I never used to replay linear games, but I’ve played through Mario Odyssey three times over the last nine years and it’s the rare game that lost none of its luster on replay. The only reason I stopped this third one before getting every power moon is I have other games to review. It’s rare in another way, too: it’s perfect for all ages and all skill sets. Apparently Miyamoto felt Nintendo had lost their way with Mario and wanted a 3-D Mario game that appealed most to their core audience, as opposed to the more casual fans that Galaxy and 3-D World were aimed at. You know what? If that’s really the case, that’s the only aspect of Mario Odyssey I think failed, because this is the perfect game for anyone and everyone. My favorite game ever? Yeah, I think it is, and while it seems silly to put Mario Odyssey up against works of art like Portal or Shadow of the Colossus, I think I might still go with it as the greatest video game ever made.
Verdict: YES!