Super Mario Odyssey
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 Let's do the Odyssey!
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Super Mario Odyssey is a platform game released for the Nintendo Switch on October 27, 2017. It is the sixteenth title in the Super Mario series, and the seventh 3D Mario title.
Plot
Bowser kidnaps Peach and this time he plans on marrying her, Mario tries to stop Bower but this time Bowser gets the upper hand and knocks Mario out of his flying ship, destroying his hat in the process. Mario wakes up in the Cap Kingdom and meets Cappy, a ghost-like creature shaped like a hat whose sister Tiara was kidnapped by Bowser to be used as Peach's Tiara for the wedding. Mario and Cappy agree to work together to defeat Bowser and rescue both Peach and Tiara.
Cappy transforms himself into a replica of Mario's old hat and shows off his special power; if Mario throws Cappy into anything not wearing a hat, Cappy can possess it so Mario can take control of it. Soon enough Cappy brings Mario to "The Odyssey", a powerful ship they can use to go after Bowser which is fueled by Power Moons, and they'll need lots of them. Using the Odyssey, Mario and Cappy travel through multiple kingdoms collecting tons of Power Moons, chasing Bowser, and having frequent encounters with The Broodals, a group of evil rabbits that Bowser hired to organize his wedding.
Eventually, Mario and Cappy make it to the Moon and crash the wedding just in time. Bowser, fed up with Mario, battles him only to be defeated. The place collapses leaving Mario, Peach, Bowser, Cappy, and Tiara all trapped underground. Mario uses Cappy to take control of Bowser so they all can escape.
Outside the church, Mario and Bowser both desperately propose to Peach but she turns both of them down.
Why It's Our Super Star
- Similar to Super Mario 64 and Super Mario Sunshine, this game revolves around Mario exploring open world-like settings looking for collectible items (in this case, the Power Moons) to unlock more Kingdoms. You can get whatever Moons you want and in any order you want. You can decide which Moons you want to collect and can skip the ones you don't like.
- Lots and lots of Power Moons to collect, and you do not leave the kingdom until you find enough to fully power-up the Odyssey.
- Gorgeous looking graphics for a Switch game often said to be on par with PS4, Xbox One, and PC games.
- Worlds have small obstacle sections with Power Moons that are very similar to Super Mario Galaxy style levels.
- Mario controls better than ever before and has lots of different types of jumps that can be chained to do some very tricky maneuvers and reach areas you wouldn't think are possible to reach.
- Those hard to reach areas often have rewards such as piles of coins.
- Cappy is a really interesting partner, along with his motivation during boss fights and funny dialogues at some points.
- Occasional 2D sections that are reminiscent to the original Super Mario Bros.
- Cappy allows Mario to take control of enemies and can be used as either a platform for extra jumps or extra firepower, very similar to that of Kirby.
- Capturing enemies and objects adds lots of gameplay variety, essentially functioning as the equivalent of power-ups.
- Coins are now used for currency to buy outfits for Mario, giving them more utility than just extra lives.
- The costumes are very unique and nostalgic. When you look at some costumes, you can tell that there's a reference. You can even get the Super Mario 64 outfit!
- Every kingdom has the Blue Toad from the Toad Brigade (known as Hint Toad in this time), where if you pay him 50 coins he'll point out where a Moon is located. This is great for finding Moons you're missing and while he shows you where the Moon is, he doesn't tell you how to get it so you still have to figure it out on your own.
- A solid storyline, where Bowser wants to marry Princess Peach (again).
- Features tons of throwbacks to previous Mario games, such as Pauline (who, by the way, has been upgraded in terms of characteristics, compared to her previous appearances), all of which do nostalgic references just right, and they don't really come off as nostalgia pandering compared to Sonic Forces.
- Phenomenal soundtrack.
- "Jump Up, Super Star!" is a very catchy theme song. If you buy the game physically, the box comes with the song's lyrics.
- Creative and fun bosses. Especially the Ruined Dragon boss fight in the Ruined Kingdom.
- Once you complete the main campaign, you unlock the Mushroom Kingdom, which is nearly based after Super Mario 64, but expanded.
- There are no game overs or lives in this game. Instead, you only lose a few coins after dying.
- Also after you defeat Bowser, Peach and Tiara go on an adventure together, during which Mario can find them in every Kingdom and get a Power Moon each time.
- Metro Kingdom has become incredibly popular among many gamers due to the fact that this is the first Mario game ever to feature a more realistic setting with realistic people, home of Donkey Kong, one of the well-known arcade games of all time and great for platforming exercise. And unlike Sonic 06, it is portrayed extremely well.
- The game had an update for a new mode called Luigi's Balloon World, where you hide and find balloons in a certain time limit. This mode (for the most part) is a lot of fun and makes it easier to earn a lot of coins, though you do have to pay some coins to find balloons.
- There is an Assist Mode, which gives you double the lives, and arrows to show you where you go. This feature is very helpful for younger players who don't know how to complete the game.
- As a callback to Super Mario Sunshine, some Power Moons require clearing platforming challenges without using Cappy, requiring the player to master Mario's controls and ensuring they don't become over-reliant on Cappy.
- Some skins are awesome, like the 64 version and a silver version of this, an invisibility hat, a pixel hat.
- Capturing other animated objects and characters by Cappy is a REALLY interesting and creative concept in a Mario game with adding new functions in there like Glydon with his gliding technique, Ty-foo with his floating technique, Tropical Wiggler with his accordion stretch technique, Moe-Eye with his shades technique to walk on invisible platforms, Shiverian Racer with his speedy and bouncy techniques to race, Gushen with his water jet controls, and especially for playing as Bowser himself in the ending.
- This game does nostalgia correctly as mentioned per above regarding easter eggs with costumes and levels and doesn't really come off as nostalgia pandering, compared to Sonic Forces.
Qualities That Are Not Our Super Star
- Doing motion control-based moves when not playing with detached Joy-Cons requires you to shake your controller which is rather clunky and too sensitive. For example, you might accidentally move Cappy to the left, right, up, or down, when you don't intend to.
- If you also want to fully 100% this game you also must find all purple coins that are in that level if you also want to buy things in the purple side of that Crazy Cap store, luckily, this is made a bit easier if you own a Bowser amiibo.
- The final boss (while both fun and epic) is kind of hit-and-miss. It's just a remake of the Cloud Kingdom battle with some changes, though the final part after the battle is pretty amazing.
- There's a game-breaking bug that may not record a moon you have collected, thus making the game impossible to 100% complete.
- Some cheaters on the Jump-Rope Challenge mini-game have achieved the maximum score of 99,999 points. Nintendo only patched the Talkatoo camera lock and reset the worldwide and friends' leaderboards once on February 2018, but the Letter out-of-bounds glitch remains un-patched.
- The campaign is short.
- The invisibility cap is considered to be the worst costume.
- Getting all 880 regular Power Moons (999 if you keep buying Moons at the CrazyCap stores afterward) is a very time-consuming task and will require massive amounts of backtracking. Even when using the Blue Toad for hints, it can still take too long to find all the Power Moons.
- Some Power Moons can be a pain to obtain:
- Power Moons that require talking to an NPC with a specific outfit and if you're not wearing it you'll be forced to backtrack to a Crazy Cap store or the Odyssey to change outfits and then go back to that NPC.
- Power Moons that are required by planting seeds in seed pots are very boring, the seeds in some levels are everywhere, this as well as going back to that seed pot after getting that seed requires huge amounts of backtracking.
- Power moons that are required by turning into a Goomba and meeting up with Gombette can be time-consuming and boring. There is one very infamous example in the Desert Kingdom.
- The Jump-Rope Challenge and Beach Volleyball mini-games are the most infamous in the entire game. The timings are too strict because the rope/ball goes too fast and 100 points are too much.
- The infamous Dark Side Moon Breakdown Road Moon 2, which has a ton of difficulty spikes.
- The fact that Luigi's not playable in this game may come across off as really jarring, much like Super Mario Land, Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins, Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars, Super Mario 64, Super Mario Sunshine, and Super Mario Maker, and it's not helping at all that he's still not playable after Luigi's Balloon World update in 2018. Thankfully, this mod fixes the problem.
- The game reuses Mario's audio clips from Super Mario Galaxy, which can come across as lazy for those who wanted new voice clips.
Tips
- If you are running low on health and can not find any hearts, look for a nearby Power Moon that you already collected previously, it'll restore your health and give you a few coins.
- When you see an army of Goombas, it most likely means that you must stack them up to find Goombette to get a Power Moon.
- There's a rather easy trick you can do to skip a large part of the Darker Side challenge: When you reach the section where you have to glide through several whirlwinds, if you shake your controller right before touching a whirlwind you get thrown very high in the air, then if you keep shaking your controller non-stop you'll keep your altitude longer, allowing you to cross the large gap and get to the Bowser section right away.
- The best way to clear the jumping rope minigame is to press A every time you hear "Hey!". You can also throw Cappy at the very top of your jump to perform a double under and thus effectively get two points per jump and make it easier for your thumb to keep up.
- You can make the volleyball minigame easier by activating the two-player mode and taking control of Cappy; he moves faster than Mario so he can hit the ball much more reliably, just make sure Mario is away so Cappy doesn't accidentally attach himself to Mario mid-game.
Tips for the 15 Balloon Combo Achievement
The 15 Balloon Combo Achievement is often considered as one of the hardest Achievements to get in the mini-game, as it requires you to find 15 Balloons in a row with out restarting or losing once, which this can be quite troublesome for many players, so here are some tips.
- Go to a Kingdom that is fairy easy to maneuver around and that you can see almost anywhere in that Kingdom (Mushroom Kingdom, Cap Kingdom and Lost Kingdom are good examples).
- Try to find easy Balloons, as in the locations to find easy Balloons.
- Sometimes after finding that Balloon, there is a 50/50 chance that you can look for that Balloon again.
Reception
Super Mario Odyssey was one of the most anticipated games for the Nintendo Switch since the console was first announced. When the game was released it received universal critical acclaim from fans and critics alike. The game was praised for returning to the classic 3D formula and the addition of Cappy. However, the game was leaked badly shortly before it was released.
The game was considered one of, if not, the best game of 2017 and arguably the best Mario game to date.
The game won the Game of the Year award at the National Academy of Video Game Trade Reviewers Awards (where it also won the other categories it was nominated for, except for Control Precision, which was won by Cuphead, as well as being the first Mario game to win the aforementioned award, since other Mario games that were nominated at the category during past ceremonies didn't win) and was also nominated for the Game of the Year award at the Game Awards 2017, but lost to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of The Wild, despite that, it won Best Family Game at the aforementioned ceremony.
According to reports, Super Mario Odyssey has already sold over 10 million units.
The game's popularity was so high that Nintendo decided to create a web series based on the game called Send Your Letters to Mario.
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