Video-Game Review: Super Mario Odyssey

Video-Game+Review%3A+Super+Mario+Odyssey

Story by Jorge Soares-Paulino, Editor in Chief

It wouldn’t be an overstatement to claim that Nintendo’s Super Mario series is far and away the most popular and well-recognized series of the Nintendo line of consoles. Starting with Super Mario Bros. on the NES back in 1985, Nintendo has established Mario and his brother Luigi as household names when it comes to gaming, with the series’ simplistic platforming design that specializes in one thing: pure fun. This holds especially true for Mario’s latest adventure: Super Mario Odyssey on Nintendo’s new console, the Nintendo Switch. With the introduction of an entirely new and unique mechanic, as well as a unique blend of modern and classic art styles with several callbacks to the previous games, Super Mario Odyssey is a joy to play and lives up to the series’ reputation.

Nintendo has always been the pioneer of innovative gameplay mechanics, from being the first game developers to really create side-scrolling platformers such as Super Mario Bros. and Metroid, to popularizing motion-control remotes with the Wii in 2006. So it shouldn’t really be a surprise that Super Mario Odyssey introduces a brand new gameplay mechanic that revolutionizes platforming entirely – what is surprising, is how amazingly simple it is. In Odyssey, Mario befriends a sentient hat named Cappy who has the power to allow Mario to possess just about any enemy or object he can get his hat on. So Odyssey essentially revolves around this new mechanic of taking control of different objects to overcome levels and traverse worlds in ways that I’ve never really even considered possible. Mario can become a frog to jump insanely high, or he can throw his hat onto a fish to dive deep underwater, or he can posses a fireball or a squid, or a dinosaur, or a christmas tree, you get the idea. Essentially, this new mechanic really creates a plethora of ways to trek the worlds of Super Mario Odyssey.

Speaking of worlds, Odyssey has fourteen of them to explore and conquer before you beat the game. While at first glance each kingdom might not seem too expansive, every kingdom has a boatload of secrets and collectibles to find that make their small sizes actually justifiable. Super Mario Odyssey’s gameplay is based around collecting the many “moons” scattered across each world. While some moons are pretty straightforward to find (you’ll have certain objectives to follow when you first start each world), other moons require some hardcore treasure-hunting to locate. You’ll often stumble upon clues in one world that’ll give you an idea of where a moon might be in another, or you’ll have to complete certain puzzles to get a moon. For example, in “Metro Kingdom,” I was given a moon after assembling the letters in Mario’s name in the middle of a park. I should emphasize that at many times, the game gives you practically no hints as to what will and what won’t net you a moon. Oftentimes, I’d be running around a kingdom possessing Goombas and whatnot when suddenly a moon would pop up. By the end of the game, I had way too many moons than I actually needed to finish the story, which in a way detracts from the game’s difficulty.

All in all, Super Mario Odyssey is pure delight in the form of a game. While the story is basically nonexistent, the simplistic gameplay and bubbly art style makes the game easy to get into and hard to put down. Possessing random everyday objects is quite possibly the most bizarre idea for a game mechanic I’ve ever heard, and yet Nintendo executes it so perfectly that I can’t imagine playing a Mario game without it.

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