Mario has seemingly traveled everywhere. He’s ventured through the Mushroom Kingdom on numerous occasions, explored the fever dream world of Subcon in Super Mario Bros. 2, and even trekked through space more than once. Where else is there for Nintendo’s plucky plumber to go? The Big N’s answer to this conundrum can be found in Super Mario Odyssey.
Once again, it’s up to Mario to save the princess from the clutches of Bowser. This time, his adventure takes him to a myriad of foreign lands. Some of these worlds are variations of previous themes, such as the mostly-underwater Lake Kingdom, but others take a more dramatic turn. One essentially takes place in Jurassic Park; T-Rex included. In another, Mario is surrounded by more realistically proportioned humans, making us wonder what the heck Mario actually is. The worlds give Mario some fresh new playgrounds to explore.
He is also not alone in this journey. Along for the ride is Cappy, a sentient hat who is on a quest to save his sister, who is also in the clutches of Bowser. Cappy helps you out in a few ways. One, he can be thrown as a projectile to hit enemies or snag items. Two, when Cappy is airborne, Mario can bounce off of Cappy as a makeshift platform. Finally, Cappy can allow Mario to possess enemies or objects when they are wearing the hat.
As a projectile, Cappy is hit-and-miss. Throwing him straight is fine, but all of the more complex throwing techniques require motion controls. Playing with split Joy Con controllers as Nintendo recommends on the boot up screen makes this a touch easier, but it’s particularly problematic when you’re shaking the screen in portable mode. Some throws, such as the spin throw and the downward throw, have clunky alternatives with regular controls, but the upwards throw must be performed with motions. It’s not enough to hurt the game in a meaningful way, but it is a minor annoyance throughout.
As a platform, Cappy might sneakily be the best part of the game. Not only does it act as a means of correcting a misguided jump, When chained together with his other jumping abilities, Mario can scale incredible heights. Clearly aware of this, Nintendo has planted all sorts of goodies throughout each of the world’s for players who master this ability. For kicks, I would routinely scour the world for hard-to-reach areas and use the hat in order to scale tall walls.
What has received the most attention up to this point is Cappy’s ability to possess enemies, NPCs, and other objects in the world. While the original sight of this mechanic in action makes the imagination swirl with what could be, it’s not all that revolutionary in execution. It’s essentially a substitute for suits giving Mario new powers. Instead of giving Mario a handful of suits to use each game, he now gets the powers of dozens of different things in the world in a way that cleanly ties into the story that Nintendo has created. If you think about it in terms of Mario having dozens of new suits, then you can understand the capture mechanic in a nutshell.
A common trick that Nintendo uses to make the transformations unique is that they give Mario interesting new movement options. Capture a Bullet Bill, and you can fly across the level with ease. Capture a Wiggler, and you can stretch to reach distant platforms and other hard-to-reach items. Even a silly-looking onion ends up being one of the cooler transformations in the game, as the world it’s in is almost entirely designed around how it stretches and jumps. There are some silly ones as well, such as transforming into a manhole cover to uncover a secret entrance to the sewers. However, these are in the minority, and changing Mario’s form is one of the most enjoyable aspects of the game.
Over the course of the game, Mario and Cappy are tasked with collecting Power Moons, or the equivalent of Stars from Super Mario 64. As you collect more, you unlock new worlds to explore. Unlike past Mario games that featured a handful of these primary collectibles per level, each world in Super Mario Odyssey features dozens of them.
A handful of them are tied to a main story thread, but most are scattered throughout and earned in a number of different ways. I’m generally play through games with little care for side content, but I found myself enamored with the process of finding as many moons on my own before moving on. Due to the plethora of ways that they can be earned, it was always fun to scour each environment for them. By the end, I had collected hundreds more than I needed to, but also had hundreds more to find. At some point, I may play along with a guide to get the remaining Power Moons.
The unsung hero in this Power Moon hunt is that the game doesn’t kick you back to a hub world after collecting each one. Instead, you get a short celebration screen before pick up where you left off. Without the down time of jumping between levels and the hub world, you can seamlessly drop many hours into the game, trying to collect as many Power Moons as possible.
One more thing I wanted to note before wrapping this up is that the game is wonderfully paced. It builds right up until to a climatic finish. After that – without spoiling anything – the game handles its post-campaign content extremely well. Having largely skipped the endgame of recent Super Mario titles, this game is structured in a way that has already returning for more.
Super Mario Odyssey isn’t quite the revolutionary step forward that I would have hoped for it to be, but it’s an excellent game that builds on the Mario formula in meaningful ways. Mario may not have Cappy in future outings, but being able to augment his jumps with the hat, along with dozens of new powers adds a lot of variety to the gameplay. Combine that with a renewed focus on exploration and you’ve got a 3D Mario game that is a must-have on the Switch.
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