We’re taking a look at Mario’s latest, greatest adventure today, in this Super Mario Odyssey review. Yes, we know. It’s been out a while, but we’ve just gotten around to playing it through. We’re very glad we did, as it is a stonking return to form for the little plumber after a couple of good, but not that good outings on Wii U.
The headline feature, of course, is the hats and the ability to body swap with various creatures. There is a surprising range of these. Right from the start you’ll be inhabiting frogs, dinosaurs and chain chomps and as the game progresses the feature is used extensively.
Soon, it will be second nature to take over your enemies and exploit their unique abilities to overcome the game’s many challenges. Seasoned players may well find themselves banging their heads against a brick wall trying to reach a hidden item, only to find it can be acquired easily by taking over the appropriate creature.
There are all sorts of hidden things scattered around as you’d expect. 2D murals of old Mario games are painted on walls and in a lovely touch you can jump into them and start playing retro style. This feature is used to climb walls and hide a few cunning secrets, too.
It does look slightly technically dated in places, with limited textures and occasional frame rate drops, even when docked. At first it gives you a sense that Nintendo aren’t quite as perfect as usual.
Artistically though, the graphics are phenomenal, and that’s what matters. Insects flit about here and there, rainbows shimmer in the spray from waterfalls. Flying from place to place in the Odyssey is a joy too. Nintendo have packed the game’s worlds with little details and added a sense of spectacle, with grand vistas and epic sights appearing regularly.
Mario’s new move set can feel a bit clunky at first, but soon starts to gel. The different play styles have been exploited in full by Nintendo and allow the designers to mix up the gameplay. Odyssey feels like more of a departure from the formula than recent entries, the quirkiest game since Mario Sunshine in some respects, though it deviates from the formula more successfully.
The gameplay of course, is second to none. There are plenty of surprises which we’d love to talk about, but feel they’re best left for the player to discover themselves. At times it recalls Sonic Adventure, Majora’s mask and Mario 2. Ideas old and new are packed side by side and cast into a huge range of challenges. Mario games are never short of things to do, but this one is more crammed than ever with hundreds of moons to collect.
There are some surprises in tone, not least of which is the presence of other human beings. Curiously, these look, well, like normal people in contrast to Mario. When you arrive at New Donk City, you’ll find it full of suited citizens going about their business. It feels unusual but is more interesting than weird and makes a nice change to the mushroom kingdom we’re so familiar with.
As well as people you’ll also travel to a level that looks like Dark Souls, a food themed area and many other weird and wonderful locations. The game feels more experimental than the last few entries in the series but the weird diversions never undermine the solidity of Mario’s universe.
The game offers a decent amount of challenge too. Recent Mario games have seen Bowser fall very easily with the challenge for older players coming from unearthing the game’s well hidden secrets. It may be old age creeping in, but we found ourselves dying a few times, even in the game’s early sections – a welcome change from the overly easy opening levels of Mario Galaxy and Super Mario 3D World.
Post game there’s plenty to do too, but again, we’ll leave you to discover that for yourselves.
The game also has a rather nice snapshot feature, which enables you to position the camera independently of the game and apply a range of impressive filters. Cleverly, these include a few based on old Nintendo consoles, so if you want to see how the game would look using the Gameboy’s colour palette, you’re covered.
The map is presented as a travel guide, with the Dark Souls like area’s entry reading like an affectionate satire of From’s epic series.
The levels contain a number of hidden moons, which you collect to power your ship and allow it to reach the next stage. Moons are easier to come by than the stars and shines of Mario’s previous adventures, but there are more of them to collect.
There are two currencies in the game, which allow you to purchase extra health and a moon for each level, as well as a selection of clothing. Some puzzles need to be wearing the appropriate outfit so these aren’t just cosmetic. Each level contains a shop for standard coins and one for the purple collectable coins unique to each area. There are a fixed number of these, and you’ll need to find them all if you want to buy everything.
There are no lives in the game. Fall to your doom and you simply lose 10 coins. This is the first time we can remember this happening in a Mario game, but it makes more sense than lives, which end up being fairly meaningless in long form games, where you rack up dozens of them fairly early.
Adding further variety are the skill challenges, with online leaderboards. These include jump rope, speed running and others. As well as being able to see your world ranking, you can win power moons by hitting particular times.
There is also the balloon hiding minigame, which has you hiding balloons round the level for other players to find and hunting the balloons hidden by other players. Coins are awarded generously for completing these challenges, giving you added motivation to play.
If you’re playing with a friend, then the second player takes control of your hat, making you a real team. This isn’t quite as effective as the multiplayer in Super Mario 3D World and is perhaps the only area where Odyssey is weaker. It’s still good fun though, but player two can feel like a passenger at times.
Control wise, the joycons, which we tested, work well, despite the disconnection issue occasionally rearing its head. One minor frustration is that in portable mode the game’s motion control features aren’t available. These can be seriously useful, especially in the game’s tighter moments, so losing out on them can be annoying. It isn’t a game breaker though.
Portable mode also looks fantastic, with the graphics looking more or less perfect on the small screen. This is by far Mario’s most visually impressive portable incarnation yet.
Is Odyssey Mario’s finest moment? It’s certainly up there. It can never be the game changer Mario 64 was, but it certainly feels like the most different Mario in a long time and Nintendo have drawn all their experience to produce this game that combines the epic with an eye for detail that few outside Kyoto’s finest posses.
A real Odyssey then, and a must buy for Switch owners.
10/10
Mario Odyssey is available to buy and download and is currently 6458 yen on the Japanese Nintendo e-shop.
