5/5 ★ – Sefferson's review of Super Mario Odyssey.

Almost a decade later, Super Mario Odyssey stands head and shoulders above the competition. The freedom in movement here is so fluid, creating some of the most expressive platforming the genre has seen. The level designs are so wildly creative and fun, and the overall charm and design is top notch. Super Mario Odyssey outfits Mario with all sorts of unique movement options, resulting in Mario feeling better than ever. Not that Mario ever felt off in previous 3D outings, but here, the level of control the player has is unmatched. One of my favorite aspects of Mario’s kit this time around is his dive and cap jump. These two movement options alone crack the levels wide open. Ironically, this does end up being a flaw of the game as well, as the vast majority of obstacles can easily be overcome with these moves. This allows massive rewarding skips, but when you sit back and think about it, you’re just kind of doing the same movement over and over again. I don’t blame the game for this, as I could simply not use these moves. The levels, or Kingdoms as the game refers to them, are all so varied and well designed. Each Kingdom feels fleshed out and designed for Mario to move around in perfectly. There’s so much room for player expression with how they tackle a myriad of challenges. Whether skipping massive sections to platforming, or using a unique enemy capture ability to solve something the wrong way, it’s always fun and rewarding to experiment. Every Kingdom feels lovingly crafted from a visual and audio standpoint, never dropping the ball throughout the entirety of the game. The grandiose scale of Super Mario Odyssey can be overshadowed by some by the sheer amount of Power Moons to collect, but when you view Mario Odyssey as a world tour, with the Power Moons simply being a vessel for you to traverse the world, it really shifts that perspective I feel. This game is truly about just exploring these huge environments in fun ways with Mario’s kit, and the Power moons are really just there to make the player want to think outside the box and explore off the main path. Regardless though, it does feel less rewarding when some Power Moons are just chilling right out in the open, and the amount of Power Moons that are just kind of repeated throughout each Kingdom can create a pretty dull sense of discovery as you collect them. Hands down though, my biggest issue with this game comes down to its controls. For the most part, you can play this game very comfortably, but for whatever reason Nintendo decided to add a bunch of extra abilities that can only be used by shaking the controller. Often times you don’t really need to use that ability, but when simply climbing a pole faster is tied to shaking the controller, it starts to show its questionable design choice pretty fast. When you’re playing at home, this is no big deal, but if you’re playing your Switch portably good luck. You’ll be shaking the screen around, and with how loose JoyCon connections on the Original Switch could get you’re probably gonna be disconnecting your JoyCons once or twice. It’s just baffling to me that this is here, when the main draw of the console that this was a launch year game for is being able to take it anywhere. I remember playing this game on a plane in 2017 and feeling like an idiot shaking my switch to climb faster. It’s not a deal breaker though, I still consider this game a masterpiece regardless of the few weird flaws here and there. It’s easily one of my favorite games of all time. I wanted to throw it out there after this review though to mention that the Switch 2 enhancements for this game are chef’s kiss. It might not seem like a huge enhancement at first, or by looking at pictures of it, but actually seeing all the wonderful details as clearly as you can with the resolution bump is so nice. I highly, highly recommend playing the game again on Switch 2 if you’re craving a 3D Mario outing.