Super Mario Odyssey isn’t just another Super Mario platformer, but a celebration of Mario. It oozes joy out of its every pore. Nintendo has taken a genre that is almost dead – the 3D platformer – and significantly raised the bar.
By platformer standards, Super Mario Odyssey is a massive game. As you play through it, and the hours tick by, it might feel like you’re playing an RPG instead of a Nintendo platformer. It almost makes Mario’s past games seem paltry by comparison. Odyssey has the freedom of exploration that hasn’t been present in a Mario game since Super Mario Sunshine on GameCube – but it has a breadth that far exceeds what Super Mario Sunshine or Super Mario 64 did, or was capable of doing.
The bite-size worlds of the Super Mario Galaxy games are gone. Nintendo has gone back to its Super Mario 64 roots: big worlds packed with stuff to do – and these worlds are bigger than anything that’s been in a Mario platformer before. Mario’s 3D games have always had an open-world design to them, but Odyssey’s scope is on another level completely. It dwarfs previous games in the series by a wide margin.
Odyssey is packed with stuff to do. Everywhere you turn, there are Power Moons to collect – dozens of them on each level, hundreds of them in the whole game. You will get them without trying just by messing around in the different worlds. That’s not to say the game is too easy, but it isn’t as difficult as some of Mario’s past 3D outings either. The difficulty is well-balanced. It eases you in at a slow pace, and as you get farther in the game, you will die, but nothing is ever insurmountable.
Nintendo understands that if you’re going to create giant worlds for the player to be in, you better give them lots to do so they don’t get bored. Games like Banjo-Tooie didn’t always understand this. Thankfully, there is so much to do in Odyssey, it might feel overwhelming at times. Getting to the end can be accomplished in about 30 hours or less, but if you want to get the hundreds of Power Moons, purple coins, and all of Mario’s outfits to complete the experience, you’re looking at 80-100 hours. For a platformer, that is colossal.
A big highlight are its 2D sections. Every world will have a few Power Moons that require Mario to navigate on a 2D plain that looks exactly like the original NES Super Mario Bros. These are only quick bursts of gameplay, and aren’t long, but illustrate perfectly how Odyssey celebrates the legacy of the series it’s now a part of. There are other nods to past Mario games as well, especially Super Mario 64.
The controls are what you would expect from a Mario platformer. He can run, jump, triple-jump, long-jump, backflip, and butt-stomp better than he ever has – and this time he has his hat Cappy to help him. Cappy acts as a boomerang mechanic that he can use to take out enemies, possess enemies to use their abilities, pick up coins, and even use as a springboard when he needs to. You use Cappy constantly throughout the game, and he’s the main way Mario interacts with the different worlds he travels to.
Playing all of Odyssey in handheld mode, it’s surprising how good it looks on the Switch tablet. There were drops in resolution when running around at times, and also sometimes when rotating the camera, which could take you out of the experience. Otherwise, the game looks great. It runs at 720p/60FPS on the tablet. In docked mode, you’re looking at 900p/60FPS. There’s not much to take issue with in Odyssey from a technical standpoint.
The art and use of color is incredibly vibrant, and each world looks unique. Some of the worlds Mario visits are truly new, and some are a fresh take on an old idea – but nothing is recycled, either from itself or from past games. It’s visually engaging from start to finish, and at times is stunning to look at.
The music hits all the right notes, and then some. Touching down in the Cascade Kingdom and hearing the fully orchestrated score rise up is a major highlight. The hip jazz of New Donk City is a treat to listen to. The laid-back rock of the Wooded Kingdom is surprising, but welcome. Tostarena Town Ruins is a throwback nod to Super Mario 64’s Shifting Sand Land. There are lots of remixed classic tunes that fans of the series will immediately recognize as well. Super Mario Odyssey has a good mix of big, rich orchestrated tunes, remixed older tunes, and styles we haven’t heard in a Mario game before, and they all seem to fit.
VERDICT:
There are elements of Mario Sunshine and Mario Galaxy in Odyssey, but the game it takes most after is Super Mario 64. Odyssey looks, sounds, and plays like Mario 64 on hyper-steroids. There’s no gravity mechanic or water pack mechanic this time. It’s the simple Super Mario 64 formula brought into the modern-day, and that formula still very much works. Super Mario Odyssey is spectacular and an absolute joy to play.
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