Welp, yesterday I wrote about Godzilla: Singular Point in all of its awfulness, and today I’m focusing on a game I finally got around to playing: Super Mario Odyssey. Who knows when I’ll get to publish it, as the Internet is out!
Believe it or not, this is the first 3D Mario game I’ve ever played. I haven’t finished it yet, but I fully intend to and will give a comprehensive review of it when I do. For now, these are just my impressions since the only previous 3D Mario game I ever dabbled at was Super Mario 64, and that was many years ago when the N64 first arrived on the scene. I never got beyond the first level, as I just didn’t have any real interest in it. It didn’t feel right to me.
I also skipped out on Mario Galaxy and any other of the 3D games unless you count Mario Party and Mario Kart.
Plot
Does it matter? It’s a Mario game, which means that there’s really only one plot that gets regurgitated over and over again. Unlike some of Nintendo’s other overused plots, I really could care less about Mario plots.
Anyway, Bowser wants to marry Princess Peach so he kidnapped her. Sound familiar? I’m pretty sure he’s tried this plan about a billion times already.
Anyway, he’s got a bunch of minions that he’s sending to multiple different worlds to steal stuff for his wedding, such as crowns, flowers, dresses, etc. Mario and a sentient hat team up to stop Bowser and restore the worlds he’s wreaked havoc on.
Gameplay
My brother insists that the gameplay for this game isn’t too different from other Mario 3D games, save for the hat mechanic. I tend to find the controls a bit smoother, though. Granted, I only ever tried Mario 64, so take my conclusions with a grain of salt.
Your job is to travel from world to world, helping the denizens by freeing them from the havoc caused by Bowser’s minions. So far, these worlds have been diverse and interesting, although I’m currently on an underwater one that I wish I’d knocked out before the forest one.
Despite my comment, however, it seems that most of the game is quite linear so far. There’s no hub world, which I like (it takes a really good game, like Dark Souls, to make me like hub worlds), so even though the game is quite linear, I’m enjoying it. Mario games are usually linear, after all!
The sentient hat Mario wears has the strange ability to possess certain creatures and objects when you throw it at them. Nothing is more fun than running around as a T-Rex, and finding all the little creatures you can become is a lot of fun. It can throw you for a loop, though, when you toss your hat expecting it to kill or damage an enemy only to find that you’re now possessing its body!
If I had one complaint, it’s that I play with the joycons, and some moves are almost impossible to pull off. For example, I can throw the hat down, but I can’t ever get Mario to toss it upwards. I have a hard time getting some things done because of this, but I haven’t been permanently stumped yet… at least until I realize I missed a bunch of moons that require tossing the hat upwards.
Speaking of moons, that’s another aim of each world or level. To power the ship Mario and his hat friend use to travel to different worlds, called The Odyssey, they must collect power moons. You don’t need to collect every last one on a world in order to leave it, but you do need them to get everything the game has to offer.
These moons are sometimes easy to spot and reach but others are, naturally, more of a challenge. So far, I leave some levels feeling like I’ve collected most of the moons, but others I know I’ll have to go back to because just getting enough to power The Odyssey was a pain.
Music
The music isn’t bad. It’s not the greatest soundtrack of all time, but it’s got some catchy stuff in it. For some reason, it seems that once Mario left the Super Nintendo behind, the music has been a bit lackluster. I can still hum just about everything from the NES and SNES eras (Mario RPG has some fun music!), but I can’t really recall much of Odyssey.
Verdict
If you like something you can just sit back and enjoy, this is the game! I’ve been liking it so far, which is strange for me. Mario isn’t a series I’ve followed too closely for a long time, but I find myself having a blast with this game.
