Thoughts on Super Mario Odyssey (No Spoilers) (Patreon)

So, predictably, I’ve been playing a whole lot of Super Mario Odyssey this weekend. In fact, I finished the game! But I’ve still got a whole lot more to see and do. 

If you haven’t played it, Mario Odyssey is a pure collect-a-thon platformer, like Super Mario 64 and Banjo Kazooie. You explore densely packed sandbox levels, and look for hidden moons (this game’s version of power stars or jiggies) so you can power up your ship and fly to the next world. 

In this article, I wanted to share some spoiler-free thoughts on the game and give you a space to share your opinion, too. 

Charm and imagination

The Mario games tend to swing one of two ways: either extremely conservative, using all the old music and characters we’ve come to associate with the series. Or completely batshit crazy. 

I’m pleased to announce that Odyssey falls into the latter camp. There’s all sorts of new worlds, characters, and species - meaning each level is full of surprises. This really adds to the game’s exploratory theme: you’re hunting each nook and cranny for more Moons, and also for whatever new idea Nintendo has cooked up. 

The game certainly pays homage to Mario’s past adventures, as always. There’s music, art, and other references to everything from Mario’s Picross to Super Mario Kart. But it’s done sparingly, leaving plenty of room for brand new ideas. 

The hat

As I’ve spoken about before, Nintendo games often orbit entirely around a single gameplay mechanic. And Odyssey is no different. This time, the game is all about a move where Mario can throw out his hat. 

This is a weapon. It adds to your jump (more on that in a second). And most importantly, it lets you posses other characters. 

So if you throw your hat onto a goomba, you can now waddle around, and stack yourself onto other goomba to make a huge tower. Then you can break out from the top goomba to get onto a tall tower. 

It’s a tiny bit like that old Double Fine game Stacking. But, everything gives you entirely new mechanics to play around with. And some of these things are super smart. Three or four of the things you can possess are so much fun that you could make an entire Snake Pass-style indie game about controlling them. 

But in Mario - they’re just one thing! (In a level that beautifully introduces new twists on that concept, and a subtle ramp up of difficulty, of course!)

Because the hat is the main gameplay mechanic, it is reflected in everything else. Enemies wear hats (a hat-wearing enemy is slightly more difficult than one with a bare head), your companion is an anthropomorphic hat, there’s a world made of hats, and so on. 

The most expressive Mario ever?

In my video on Mario’s jump, I talked about how Mario’s leap is incredibly expressive because you can modulate it in so many ways (how you press the button, how fast you’re running before you jump, how you can transition out of or into different moves, etc). 

Mario Odyssey retains all of the plumber’s moves from other Mario games (such as the long jump, side somersault, triple jump, ground pound leap, dive), but adds one tiny new complication with the hat. 

As you may have seen in the trailers, Mario can throw out his hat and then jump on it to get some extra distance. That’s just the start. Throwing out the hat in mid-air gives you a little bit of extra air, like the spin in Mario Galaxy, and it also reorientates Mario in whatever direction you pressed.

Now, you can belly dive onto the hat, in that new direction, to get more distance and height. 

The hat lets you make massive jumps both vertically (combine the ground pound leap, a wall jump, and two hat jumps) and horizontally (long jump, then throw out the hat and belly jump twice). 

This stuff is super fun to pull off, will make speed runs of the game really interesting, and lets you skip sections of the game when you’re revisiting a place while on the hunt for moons. 

Challenge is largely self inflicted

Mario Odyssey is not a difficult game. I mean, it’s challenging to find all the moons, and I appreciate that it tests you on puzzle solving and exploration skills (and has some good hint systems to help out). But your platforming skills aren’t exactly put to the test all that often. 

There’s some stuff in there - a recurring race challenge, some of the much-much later levels, and some of those areas you get to through a door or a pipe that look like 3D World stages. But they’re rare, and still not very challenging. 

So while Mario has all of these cool new jumping moves, you just have to use them because they’re fun and an efficient way to move around.

In general, Mario Odyssey just doesn’t really challenge long-time Mario players. Which is a shame because the game has so many moons, and so many are optional to get to the end, that it would be cool to have some that are designed for Mario pros. Call them spiky moons or challenge moons or something so casual players know that they should probably ignore them. 

(Maybe more difficult platforming segments are in the game, but I haven’t found them yet). 

Also, the game has gotten rid of lives altogether. If you die, you just lose a few coins. To be honest, this makes sense for an exploratory game. 

New Donk City is the best level

This place is great. For one, it’s an imaginative and off-beat world, that mixes old school Mario/Donkey Kong references with new and original ideas. 

But it’s also a densely packed stage, with an amazing sense of verticality. Bounding up buildings and jumping from rooftop to rooftop feels amazing, and this level is really open and free-form. No tunnels or other ways to funnel you around - you can just leap about however you want. 

Also, the main event of the stage is brilliant. Like many times in Odyssey, I played this bit with a huge smile on my face. 

How many moons?!

In Super Mario 64, Nintendo carefully placed 120 stars. 

Each one was the reward for a challenging platforming section, puzzle, or scavenger hunt. You only needed about 70 to finish the game, but anyone who loved the game felt compelled and challenged to grab the lot and get their prize. 

Mario Odyssey has... I dunno, over 800 moons? Maybe 900? A metric butt load, to be precise. There are plenty of good ones, but also lots that feel haphazardly strewn about. 

And only the most patient and determined will grab the lot, leaving the rest of us unsatisfied. Maybe only a tiny weeny bit, but even those who would actually like to get everything may find themselves overwhelmed and out of time. 

Like with Breath of the Wild, it’s hard not to the look at the numbers and think about how you’d like Nintendo to juggle them around a bit. I’d trade in a bunch of shrines and Korok seeds for a fifth dungeon. Likewise, I’d trade in 100 moons for a new kingdom, or more of those classic platforming sections. 

Overall

Mario Odyssey is a treat. A non-stop trove of inventive mechanics, cute Mario references, weirdo ideas, and clever challenges. Whether you’re focusing on the main story or just chilling out and scouring a kingdom for stars, you’ll have a good time. 

Personally, I prefer the classic platforming challenge of a Galaxy or 3D World - especially because Mario’s amazingly expressive controls feel a tiny bit wasted in a game about poking at rocks, looking for moons. But I’ve been more than happy to get stuck into this game for many hours.

Will I make a video about the game? I’m not sure, but I’m open to any ideas for a topic I could focus on. 

Cheers!

Mark (I just typed Mario by accident, then, and had to correct it. Whoops!)