Super Mario Odyssey

A few weeks ago, the latest adventure of our favorite italian, Mario, released to the general public. In a lot of news items we have already seen that Super Mario Odyssey is receiving a lot of praise. If NintendoReporters believes that all the praise is appropriate is something you are going to find out now, because we have made a substantial review of the game.

In advance

We have still not completely finished the game. We’re just over 700 Power Moons but do have a pretty good idea of ​​what Super Mario Odyssey has to offer and how it fits into the overall Mario series.

Since this is our first real game review we’re more then happy to hear back from you about how we write, if we say too much (we work with spoiler tags) etc.

Super Mario Odyssey Story

The story of Super Mario Odyssey should be known to anyone, but if you for some reason do not know it; Bowser has kidnapped Peach (as is always the case) but now with the nefarious plan to get married !

Mario tries immediately to take action but Bowser has the upperhand at that time and Mario must find his way back to Bowser starting from Cap Kingdom where he meets Cappy.

Cappy ensures that Mario can use the new capture move. When Mario throws Cappy at an object, character or enemy wearing no hat, then Mario can take on their shape.

Ok the story should be clear, let’s a go!

Main game

Mario’s goal in Super Mario Odyssey is to collect as much Power Moons as possible so that his ship, the Odyssey has enough power to reach Bowser’s location. To achieve that goal Mario has to visit a lot (14)  of Kingdoms to find the much needed Power Moons.

The worlds / kingdoms are all beautiful and appear very large the first time you visit them. They are full of opportunities to gain more Power Moons. Every Kingdom has its own currency unit, people and challenges.

For the main game you must complete a number of fixed objectives but nothing can hold you back to further explore the world before you go to visit a new Kingdom.

During the journey you discover a new set of enemies the Broodals which for each Kingdom acts as a kind of sub-boss. Something that is very recognizable from Mario games for the past. Altogether if you choose to only follow the fixed objectives it would take you roughly 12-15 hours to reach Bowser for the ultimate showdown in which you try to ensure that the wedding does not continue.

Without going into too much detail; the fight with Bowser is nice but we have had more challenging Bowser encounters. It could have been a bit spicier in our humble opinion.

That is perhaps one of the sad things tob the game, the main game could have been quite a bit longer from our point of view.

Post Game

But post-game there is so much to do, because you can actually confront Bowser with a very small number of Power Moons. 

But haven’t you always wanted to attend a Mario world after Bowser’s tyranny and then see what there it to do? Well this is the game to do that. Like we said post-game, there is just so much to do.

In addition to finding all Power Moons you did not find before there is also something specifically to do in every Kingdom.

In every Kingdom you need to locate a Power Moon stone which can only be opened post-game with Cappy which in return allows you to find a (mostly) double number of Power Moons. This is because new ones are added, but also new options, actions, NPCs are made available. Also Princess Peach has decided to explore  the Kingdoms, lets just hope all goes well. And as icing on the cake, with a certain number of Power Moons the last two Kingdoms that are on the dark side of the moon can be unlocked.

As we mentioned, we also are not finished yet with the Post game because some Power Moons are very well hidden or tricky to achieve. 

The key element to take away from this is that you’re really far from finished after defeating Bowser and you will have to revisit each Kingdoms several more times.

Visuals

Super, just super.

We have played the game in both docked and in handheld mode for hours and hours and on the graphics side have really nothing to complain about. The game runs smoothly, load times are almost not really noticeable when you’re playing. The performance we find particularly stunning.

A solution that Super Mario Odyssey uses, for example, switching elements to 2D if they are far away helps to kee that the frame rate working just as good.

Music

Super Mario Odyssey is a pleasure to look at but certainly to listen to. The music for each Kingdom, but also the selected music for specific areas. The game does contain some sections in which the music can get a little on your nerves if thing are not going the way you want but beyond that, the game’s audio is just super.

Audio spoiler; yes we have one so only click if you want to know!

The fact that post game you can choose which music to play as you’re playing is a very nice addition, because it is as far we know never been possible in a main line Mario game.

Gameplay

If there is one thing certain it is that Mario games are always an absolute pleasure to play because the controls work so well. This with Super Mario Odyssey is also certainly the case. In the beginning, some moves require some getting used to in terms of timing but if you’ve played through the game even just 30 minutes then everything feels so incredibly natural.

We played the game most of the time using a Nintendo Switch Pro Controller and that was super. But the time we spent in handheld mode was also extremely pleasing.

Extra – Throwbacks

Without going into deep on all throwbacks that happen in Super Mario Odyssey (hint there are quite a lot), we can say that all of them are tremendously successful. If you have even experienced something of Mario’s history, there is a chance that you encounter references which will make you think back of other games in the series.

Those small touches are another great example as to why this game is so great because we love thinking back to all the Mario history we have experienced and enjoyed

Best Mario ever?

One question which we simply can not avoid is, is this the best Mario game ever. And we frankly find that a very difficult question to answer with a simple yes or no. Graphically, this is the best Mario game ever, no doubt about it. The whole soundtrack is incredibly good and also scores high in the series. The gameplay is superb as you would expect from a Mario game.

All of that sounds to be the best Mario game ever, right?

But we are unfortunately not agreeing with all the media giving this game a 10/10 100/100 etc. And please understand us well we LOVE Super Mario Odyssey, but there are few things in this game which however great this game is make it not worth a 100/100 score (but also please note 100/100 games are like unicorns)

Super Mario Odyssey due to all the collectibles (999 (no this not a joke) Power Moons, Regional Coins, General Coins, hats, suits) accompanied by the fashion in which some of them can be collected make it really comparable with Banjo-Kazooie (as we already mentiond in our preview).  And even how great of a comparison that is, Mario has never been an so called a collect-a-thon, or at least not on this extent where it seems to much focussed on the collectibles. For us this is a bit how the post game section of the game feels. We had so much rather seen a longer main game opposed to this.

In addition, sometimes you fly so fast through Power Moons that they almost tend to feel as normal collectibles like for instance a standard coin. We had sessions where we had played just a couple of hours and easily got hundreds of Power Moons. If they where just lightly more spread that would have done the game a great good.

Difficulty; this is also something that should have gone more up; we get it with the audience that Mario games target but for us Nintendo fans since day one it would not have hurt to make it just a little more spicier. The fact remains that some Power Moons are really challenging but we mean this more in general.

What the game does well after the main story is give you your own way to explore. We should however in no way compare Super Mario Odyssey at any time with an open world like the one of Breath of the Wild.  Super Mario Odyssey is a sandboxed environment with very specific limits to each of the Kingdoms.

We when writing this last part kinda feel that we might sound very negative, trust us we really are not, but we are realistic and a bit critical of what we still would like to see differentl in a sequel to Super Mario Odyssey. For this one a heck of a game, YES certainly. Would we want a sequel on the Nintendo Switch where Super Mario Odyssey will be used as a blueprint? 110% sure! 

Also we would not mind DLC for this Mario title one bit, we actually even miss the DLC as Nintendo has done DLC  for so many other titles. Surprise us Nintendo, bring us more Super Mario Odyssey!!

But no in all fairness this is not a 100/100 game for us  (I think we will probably not give a 100/100 rating that soon, because perhaps we are too much down to earth, perhaps too honest and also hard (but fair) but because this game comes very close to it, we can not but note that it is a masterpiece.