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

Holy shit… That's really all that needs to be said; I could honestly just end the review right there, because that one statement in conjunction with the score that I’ve given the game already speaks a thousand words for me But seriously, holy shit, this game is so unbelievably good I don’t even understand how other video game companies went on making video games after this; this game should’ve just been the finale for video games as a whole To have a game like this that just knocks it out of the park in damn near every aspect is an absolutely insurmountable feat that not many companies can pull off But Nintendo fucking did Now this review is most likely going to be extremely long, simply just because I’m going to try and list everything that I enjoyed about the game and then break down why I enjoy them And that list is fucking massive, so if you haven’t already, get up, take a piss, maybe go grab some popcorn or any snack of some sort, a beverage as well, maybe even an alcoholic beverage if it’s one of those nights But yeah, just sit back and relax, because it’s going to be a long review… Now for starters, the first thing that I want to immensely praise Super Mario Odyssey for is the gameplay Mario Odyssey really takes Mario back to his roots in terms of 3D platforming by having every kingdom in this game be just an absolute platforming sandbox for you to explore every single aspect of And you are always rewarded for exploring every single nook and cranny of a level, whether that’s with coins, a heart, purple coins, or with the main collectible of this game, a power moon And it’s just so unbelievably fun to roam around these beautifully detailed and vibrant levels to try and find all the power moons Some of them might be hidden in plain sight, some of them you might have to go into a sub-area, some of them you have to just talk to someone, or some of them you might have to sit on a fucking bench next to a lonely guy and have a heart-to-heart with him about the hardships of life There are just so many different kinds of moons to get in this game, and it is an absolute blast to find and collect them all And collecting them is made even better by the incredible movement of Super Mario Odyssey, which is without a doubt the best and most fun movement in the whole entire franchise There are just many things that you can do You can throw your cap and bounce off it; you can dive forward; you can throw your cap in the air and then dive forward and bounce off it; you can roll; you can ground pound; you can jump out of a ground pound; you can long jump; you can triple jump; you can fucking fall asleep if you stand still for too long Again, there are just so many things that you can do They went absolutely nuts with the movement and made sure that it was as tight and as fun as possible to control, and they more than succeeded It is so fun in this game to constantly attempt and sometimes make jumps that shouldn’t be possible but are because the movement is so fluid and fun, and it wants you to push it to its absolute limit and pull off wild shit I really can’t praise the movement enough; it is just so damn good And another key piece of the gameplay, that is absolutely amazing, is the capture mechanic Using a ghost that possesses’ Mario’s hat, you’re able to throw your hat at almost any enemy in the game and take complete control of them And this mechanic is absolute genius The team that came up with this must’ve been fucking Nobel Prize winners, because, again, this idea is just brilliant Being able to take control of enemies that have been mainstays in the series for years is such a surreal but fun idea that just leads to countless memorable moments throughout the entire game Like being able to control goombas and then stack a million of them on top of each other to reach high places, or taking control of a hammer bro and destroying everything in sight, or even taking control of a piranha plant and just being able to sit in one place and spit poison… Yeah, that one’s not that good, but you get what I mean It’s just so fun and, again, surreal to control these enemies and roam around with them, and then on top of that have moons that are centered specifically around these enemies as well Like the horny Goomba moons, for example, where you have to capture a Goomba and then take that Goomba to a female Goomba wearing a hat, and then she falls in love with him and gives you a moon Again, this is some Nobel Prize-level shit; the developers of this game were just absolutely in their bag in terms of good ideas And I’ve only talked about the normal Mario enemies so far, but this game introduces multiple new enemies that you get to capture, and they’re all amazing as well You got this multi-colored wiggler creature that you use to stretch and get to places you can’t normally reach; you’ve got a bird that has a sharp ass beak that you use to poke into walls and then fling yourself anywhere; you’ve got a squid that shoots out water, which is able to propel it forward and upwards And there are just so many more as well and so many more captures too that aren’t even enemies Like you can capture a fucking tree and bounce around with it Which, I mean, that’s all you can do with it, but still it’s cool And then the coolest capture of all, of course, is the frog Everyone who’s played Mario since 1988 has been patiently waiting to play as a frog once again in a Mario game, and Nintendo finally delivered It’s an absolute thing of beauty… Oh, and also the T-Rex capture is pretty cool too; I definitely enjoyed that one But actually, calling back to the reference that I just made a second ago about Super Mario Bros. 3, which is the game that had the frog suit, if you didn’t understand my 1988 joke But speaking of references and callbacks to previous Mario games, this game is absolutely chock-full of them, and it is an absolute delight to discover each and every one of them I mean, in the Mushroom Kingdom alone, you’ve got the paintings that you can jump through as well as the Super Mario 64 level start sound effect, you’ve got Yoshi on top of Peach’s castle, you can enter a room that takes you to the fountain from Super Mario 64, you can drain the moat around Peach’s castle, and then when you do that, the satisfying sound effect from Super Mario 64 plays, and then also the moons are turned into power stars for fuck's sake This level just has so many callbacks, and then on top of these, the costume for the level that you can purchase with the purple coins is just the blocky version of Mario from Super Mario 64 It’s amazing, and even though it looks stupid as hell, I still love it anyway And speaking of the costumes, there are even more callbacks and references to the Mario franchise within the collection of costumes in this game. So many, in fact, that I don’t even think I can list them all… So instead I’m just going to list some of my favorites For starters, you’ve got the sunglasses and Hawaiian shirt combo from Super Mario Sunshine, you’ve got the Dr. Mario fit, there’s a Diddy Kong costume, a Wario costume, a Waluigi costume, you’ve got a Mario Maker costume, and you’ve got the Mario nipple costume, which isn’t even a reference to anything, but I just wanted to point it out And then you’ve got the greatest costume of all time, the 8-bit Mario costume Which is this 3D statue of 8-bit Mario that you can just run around as Except there are literally no animations for it; it’s just stuck in the same pose 24/7 It’s unbelievable; I love it And I just love the costumes in general so much, and there are so many combinations of hats and shirts that you can mix and match to make Mario either look slick as hell or like Stevie Wonder picked out his outfit for the day Again, it’s amazing And they aren’t even just for show either, because there are actually a decent amount of power moons centered around each level-specific outfit Like in Bowser’s Kingdom, you have to dress as a samurai to get into a certain room where you have to play a 2D platforming section in order to get the power moons, or in Metro Kingdom, where you have to dress in the Mario maker outfit so that you can go into a building that needs “maintenance” done on it by a construction worker And then what’s funny about that moon in particular is that I’m pretty sure in that specific sub-area in Metro Kingdom there's this uncharted-style chase scene where you’re on a moped running away from a T-Rex This game is just fucking nuts, and I love it But shifting back to the 2D platforming sections that I brought up a little bit ago (when I was talking about the samurai costume), I really like these parts of the game Basically, in every level there are these moments where Mario goes into a pipe and is converted back to his 8-bit Super Mario Bros. 1 self, and you’re put into these small little platforming segments And, again, I like these; they’re pretty fun; they shift up the gameplay slightly by bringing Mario back to his 2D platforming roots, and they have some cool and unique ideas within them For example, I like how in Sand Kingdom there’s this 2D section that has Bullet Bills that start out as 2D, being shot out of the cannon like they usually do, until eventually they escape the 2D portion and become 3D again, which, once they do, you can then use to follow you and blow up a block in order to get further in the level And this is just one example, but they really do go further and further with the concepts and ideas for these 2D portions, and they’re all very interesting and fun to play Also, I really like how each full costume that Mario wears in the regular game is then translated to 2D by them giving Mario a little 8-bit sprite of whatever costume he’s wearing That’s just some nice little attention to detail Although I don’t like how if you mix and match Mario’s hat and shirt, then that sprite won’t translate to 2D; only complete matching outfits will, which is pretty lame to me And while I’m on the topic of something pretty lame, I’ll say that my one flaw with Super Mario Odyssey is that some of the moons in this game are pretty weak Specifically the moons that repeat throughout almost every level Now I’m not saying that all the repeating moons are bad; there are some exceptions I mentioned earlier that I like the horny Goomba moons; the moons where you have to try and blindly trace the shapes are fun. I like the one where you have to try and recreate Mario or a Goomba’s face, and I like the ones where you have to have a dog sniff around for a moon and then dig it up for you Specifically, because I just love the dog, he’s just such a good boy, and I love that you can play with him by throwing your hat so that he can fetch it Oh, and then my favorite of these repeating moons are the Captain Toad moons, where you get a moon for finding Captain Toad in various, hard-to-reach areas throughout pretty much every level And I think I just love these ones so much because, not only is it fun and sometimes challenging to get to Captain Toad, but it’s also hilarious how every time that you find him and talk to him, he just never knows how he got in these locations Like when you find him in Lake Kingdom, for example, he’s just at the bottom of this deep-ass trench, and then when you finally get to him, he basically just says to you, “Yeah, I have no idea how the hell I got down here, but here’s a moon for you” That’s literally every interaction with him, and I love it However, what I don’t love are all the Koopa racing moons, for example, or the ones in every level where all you do is just purchase a moon, or especially the hint art moons These moons just feel like they bog the game down. I mean, they aren’t terrible by any means, and it is still pretty satisfying when you do get the moon (except for the ones where you buy the power moon) But for the moons like the Koopa races and the hint art moons, they just feel so time-consuming to get, and the fact that they’re in every single level just made me start to always resent and dread getting them Which is never really a feeling that you want to have in this game However, shifting back to talking positively about the moons, though, something that I like about them is the names for each of the moons Yeah, every moon in the game has a unique title attached to it, and the naming schemes for the titles of these moons are always either a question/statement/phrase, a really brief description of what you had to do to get the moon, or another brief description of where the moon was. It could be some shitty joke, or sometimes it might blend some of these naming schemes together Like, for example, one of the moons in Metro Kingdom is in a dumpster that’s really high up on a construction beam So naturally the name of the moon is something along the lines of “How did this get up here?” Another example of this naming scheme is from another moon in Metro Kingdom that’s hidden under a pile of garbage, and the moon is just titled “Who Piled Garbage on This?” Yeah, most of these names are pretty ass, but I like them anyway; they’re stupid as hell, but at the end of the day they make me laugh Not gut-busting laughter, though, more so the slight nose exhale type of laughter But regardless, to wind down this review, I’m going to quickly name off a couple other things that I really enjoy about the game as well And the music, for starters, is incredible and is a very underrated part of this game; not many people mention it when talking about Mario Odyssey, but it’s really good, and some of my favorite tracks in this game are from Wooded Kingdom and Bowser’s Kingdom Another thing that I really like as well is the attention to detail in this game, specifically with the little brochures that you get for each kingdom whenever you press the minus button These brochures are amazing; they’re filled with detail, pictures, and little synopses of the kingdom that you're in, and they perfectly fit the “world expedition” theme of this entire game I love them, and the fact that they put so much detail into something on the pause menu that most people probably didn’t even pay any mind to just shows how much complete love and care the developers put into this game Let’s see what else. I like the little stickers and souvenirs that you can get in each kingdom and that you’re able to put on the inside and outside of the Odyssey (which is your ship in this game) Oh, and my favorite Kingdom in the game is Metro Kingdom/New Donk City, and I specifically love how there are a million Donkey Kong references in this kingdom Like with there being a shop called “Diddy’s Mart” (Diddy KONG, not to be confused with the other one), the street that it’s on is called “Dixie Street,” there’s a cafe called “Candy’s Cafe,” and Pauline is the mayor of New Donk City, and she gives one of the greatest musical performances of all time So yeah, again, I love Metro Kingdom And the last thing that I’ll touch on, that I like about this game, is Luigi’s Balloon World Which is this extra mode that was added in an update where you talk to Luigi, and you can play this little side game where you’re timed, and you can either hide a balloon or find balloons that people around the world have hidden And it’s a pretty fun mode. I like looking for good spots to hide balloons; I like looking for people's balloons as well, and it can be incredibly rewarding whenever you do pop a challenging balloon And playing Balloon World is a great way to get coins as well because you get paid after every balloon that you pop I will say, though, that some people, for whatever reason, are just complete loser, dickhead, no-life fucks, and they decide to clip into walls and then hide balloons there Which is just an absolute joke, and it completely destroys the entire fun of the mode To all those people who do that, I hope you seriously stub your toe, because you’re fucking scum But that tirade aside, again, this is a pretty fun mode One nitpick that I do have with it, though, is that they made it specific to Luigi Like, why would they only use Luigi to be just an extra side mode in this game? Why not give him a role throughout the entire game? Maybe they could’ve used him like they did in Mario Galaxy, where in that game he helped Mario retrieve stars So then in this game they could've had Luigi help Mario retrieve moons or just do anything at all with him other than just having him be a side mode I don’t know, it’s just sad how much Nintendo disrespects Luigi One day his time will come, though, but today just isn’t that day Regardless, though, what else do I really need to say about this game I mean, I could probably sit here for like 3 more hours and just list off more things that I love about this game, but then my review would probably be longer than a fucking phone book Because this game is just an absolute masterpiece from start to finish And it is an absolute joy to play and a joy to experience every single thing that this game has to offer The developers of this game put every single microscopic ounce of their love, care, and dedication into making this game as amazing as possible And they absolutely knocked it out of the park And to be honest, I don’t think Nintendo has made a better game since this They genuinely did put everything they had into this game, and honestly, I wouldn’t even have been mad if Nintendo just called it quits after making this game and just retired from video games altogether Because this game would’ve been the absolute perfect sendoff It just does damn-near every single thing to perfection, and it is easily the best 3D Mario game and probably the best Mario game in general that we’ve ever gotten But to end this review, I just want to shed light on something to show how much care and detail that the developers put into this game… In the first Kingdom of the entire game, in the first maybe 10 minutes of the game, you get your first-ever capture, which is the frog And then about 30 hours later, on the last level of the entire game, the last moon that you ever get, the complete end to this long ass journey The one capture that the game gives you, which you need to use in order to get that final moon… is the frog What a special video game 5/5