[img width=700 height=350]https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4499/26259151609_c6b6224c8f_c.jpg[/img]The Switch has been out for roughly 8 months as of this article. It's been selling at or above expectations each month. Software attach rates are incredibly high. In general, people seem quite enthusiastic about the system. I picked one up at launch hoping
Zelda would tide me over while I waited patiently for much of the future software that has been promised.
Zelda didn't strike me like I'd hoped it would.
Arms and
Splatoon 2 are for a different audience than myself, and while I had a bit of fun playing both with my son, they are not games I've returned to or have ever been interested in playing by myself. As a day one Wii U owner, I've played a significant amount of
Mario Kart 8 already, so the deluxe version isn't quite what I want to justify owning the system.
With games like
Fire Emblem,
Shin Megami Tensei V,
Kirby,
Dragon Quest and others looming in the distance, I've never been worried that I'll regret my purchase in the long run. But after 8 months, I really do long for something to play that gets me excited to own a Switch. With that in mind, I have very high hopes for
Super Mario Odyssey and how it will make me feel to be a Switch owner.
I didn't quite realize how excited I was for
Mario Odyssey until the release day grew closer. Sure, it looked quite good the whole time, but as October 27th drew nearer, the anticipation was definitely building. I think that's because I've been starving for a Mario experience that spoke to me like it used to. There have been no lack of Mario games over the last several years, but
3D World,
New Super Mario Bros, and
Mario Run haven't been what
I wanted from a Mario game.
Mario Maker scratched that itch enough to tide me over, but beyond just the solid gameplay of that title, I wanted a fully realized Mario World to explore and get lost in once more. The last game that did that for me was
Super Mario Galaxy and that was 10 years ago!
With the lack of Mario love in my life as of late and the feeling that I should have waited to purchase my Switch until there was more software to suit my tastes,
Mario Odyssey had some pretty lofty expectations to meet.
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Disclaimer: Spoilers ahead | Nearly the Entirety of the game has been played in Two Player Mode with my son. I've mainly been playing Mario with the Pro Controller while he has controlled Cappy with the Joy-Cons docked in the Grip, we do switch off occasionally when he thinks an area would be more fun to play with as Mario or to try a new transformation. We have dabbled a bit with other control methods, but found this to be the most comfortable for us. ***************************************************************************************
[img width=700 height=393]https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4456/26259132399_68937f3751_c.jpg[/img]The whole story behind
Mario Odyssey is ridiculous right from the start. Bowser has once again kidnapped Peach, but this time he has a not-so-elaborate plan of forcing her to marry him. This consists of traveling to different Kingdoms in the world and stealing items for their wedding such as a wedding band, the perfect cake, a special bouquet, and other wedding related items. The tiara he stole for his "fiance" just happens to be a sentient hat-type being and so you team up with it's brother, charmingly named Cappy, to get both your ladies back from old reliable Bowser. In addition to all that silliness, Bowser has employed a fanatical anthropomorphic-rabbit-wedding planner family that act as bosses throughout the game. That is the story of
Mario Odyssey in a nutshell. It's goofy, it's charming, it's dumb, and it's fun all at the same time.
The story took us about 11-12 hours to complete. In that time, we traveled to 14 different Kingdoms, and collected approximately 175 Moons (like Stars in the previous Mario titles). Some of the kingdoms are what you'd expect. An ice themed kingdom, a water themed kingdom, a desert, and other such staples. There were several much more interesting themes though, such as the Lost Kingdom, Luncheon Kingdom, a pre-historic themed kingdom, and the Wooded Kingdom. The latter may not sound too unique, but was a fantastic post-apocalyptic setting full of lush forestry, as well as vast sprawling machinery and robotic lifeforms with a somehow fitting 60's psychedelic rock musical theme. The expected Bowser's Castle stage was easily among my favorites. Instead of the typical grey stone walled, lava-pit and fire-ball-centric design we are used to at this point, Bowser has this absolutely stunning Japanese-styled fortress that is built in the sky across multiple floating islands. I got a very welcome dose of
Jade Empire nostalgia while laying siege on this beautiful, epic castle that will no doubt find itself among my all time favorite Mario stages. All in all, the amount of diversity in the styles of levels was superb. And I didn't even mention the so silly it's delightful, New Donk City.
As with pretty well any Mario game, the controls and physics are spot on. It feels comfortable for someone who has played a lot of Mario over the last 3 decades of my life and the moves we've grown up on from
Mario 64 and
Mario Galaxy feel better than ever. The new abilities you have with Cappy fit in very comfortably. The movement style abilities such as jumping on the cap for an extra bounce or being able to toss Cappy at enemies or objects is intuitive and easy. Mario's arsenal of moves is at an all time high, but not to the point that it is overwhelming like can be the case in other games such as the
Batman Arkham games might feel at times.
[img width=700 height=517]https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4446/38004538402_7bae016d22_c.jpg[/img]Cappy's most exciting ability is definitely his power to take control of different enemies throughout the game. From Dinosaurs to Goombas, from Frogs to Army Tanks, it is never unsatisfying to take control of the various characters. And the first order of business with each new possession is to turn the camera around to take a look at how awesome a Lakitu, Blooper or a Hammer Bro looks when sporting a Mario Hat and Mustache. I consistently find myself grinning as I inhabit characters, even after the dozenth time it happens. It's a really incredible mechanic and always feels good. And once again SPOILERS................The end of the story has you possessing Bowser and using him to smash his way out of the center of the moon to escape with Peach after your battle with him leaves the area destroyed and crumbing. What an amazing sequence to play! The controls and the music and the odd combination of elation and tension is just unparalleled.
Everything up to this point has been really great, but my favorite part about Mario is exploring these wonderfully designed levels, solving puzzles, and overcoming challenges in order to gain more rewards. In my opinion, this is where
Super Mario Odyssey breaks the mold and puts itself above and beyond arguably any other Mario game, or possibly 3D platformer, up to this point. It definitely takes cues from modern design trends of open world style games in that each Kingdom is packed to the brim with content. What I like a lot better about this approach is that each Kingdom is far smaller than your typical open world style game so that every single inch of it is carefully thought out, a pleasure to explore, unique, and most importantly it's got fun stuff to do! There is no dead weight in any of these kingdoms. And the shear amount of different kinds of puzzles is unprecedented. It's got a great mixture of classic ideas such as platforming challenges, fetch quests, collectathons, races, and boss fights with a huge dose of new challenges like hidden art riddles, Moon challenges, secret areas hidden within secret areas, music challenges, retro 8-bit themed areas, and consistently creative uses of the environment or mechanics.
Mario Odyssey is such a massive game that it feels like after finishing the main story line, the "real" game begins. New Kingdoms become available, the amount of objectives to complete more than doubles, the types of objectives increases greatly, remixed objectives open up, and very importantly to me, they offer up an insane dose of fan-service. Running around the Mushroom Kingdom from Mario 64 while decked out in a 64-bit Mario Costume was among the greatest joys I've had playing a game in recent memory. Having 8-bit remixed versions of songs from the new soundtrack is incredible. Being able to dress up as Mario from
Donkey Kong,
Dr. Mario,
Mario Maker,
NES Open Tournament Golf, Luigi, WaLuigi, and dozens of other nostalgic and new costumes is something that normally doesn't appeal to me, but Mario can pull it off like no other. And the fact that all of that content is included with my initial purchase just feels good. I don't need to purchase a season pass or hop onto the e-shop to purchase costumes. Just like when I was a kid, I can earn everything I want in game, the way it should be. Some of costumes are so silly I feel compelled to wear them too. My son and I unlocked the ability to travel to the Dark Side of the Moon which gave us the challenge of defeating the Wedding Planner Rabbits again in a boss rush style battle consecutively with no healing between 4 of the 5 battles. When we finally accomplished that goal, we were awarded with the usual moons, as well as a ridiculous looking
king outfit. Something out of a high school stage production. It was such a joy to bound around in moon gravity stating that we were the "King of the Moon!!"
[img width=700 height=392]https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4474/37326864984_a7148ae1ed_c.jpg[/img]As of this writing, we are about 300 Moons (about 20 hours) into the game and still feel like we've barely scratched the surface. It still feels like there are more Kingdoms to unlock, different types of challenges we've yet to encounter, new enemies to take control of, more fan-service hidden away, and so much more to do. Not once has
Super Mario Odyssey felt like a chore. It's been pure bliss from the start to whatever point in the game we've gotten to this far. I can't remember the last game of any genre that has had me this eager to explore a world. I often get sucked into stories, characters, or gameplay mechanics, but it's extremely rare that I want to spend more time investigating an environment. There have been countless times when we have been heading towards a specific objective and one of us spots something interesting that warrants further investigation that just opens up this huge new quest or area that we didn't know existed up to that point. Every time it happens, we both squeal with joy about the discovery. I can't wait to see what other surprises Mario has for us in the coming weeks. Because unlike every other Switch offering to this point, I am confident I'll be returning back to
Mario Odyssey for many weeks to come.
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