GameMakersToolkit
patreon
Thoughts on Super Mario Odyssey (No Spoilers)
🕑 Added 2017-10-30 08:36:05 +0000 UTC Hey!So, predictably, I’ve been playing a whole lot of Super Mario Odyssey this weekend. In fact, I finished the game! But I’ve still got a whole lot more to see and do.
If you haven’t played it, Mario Odyssey is a pure collect-a-thon platformer, like Super Mario 64 and Banjo Kazooie. You explore densely packed sandbox levels, and look for hidden moons (this game’s version of power stars or jiggies) so you can power up your ship and fly to the next world.
In this article, I wanted to share some spoiler-free thoughts on the game and give you a space to share your opinion, too.
Charm and imagination
The Mario games tend to swing one of two ways: either extremely conservative, using all the old music and characters we’ve come to associate with the series. Or completely batshit crazy.
I’m pleased to announce that Odyssey falls into the latter camp. There’s all sorts of new worlds, characters, and species - meaning each level is full of surprises. This really adds to the game’s exploratory theme: you’re hunting each nook and cranny for more Moons, and also for whatever new idea Nintendo has cooked up.
The game certainly pays homage to Mario’s past adventures, as always. There’s music, art, and other references to everything from Mario’s Picross to Super Mario Kart. But it’s done sparingly, leaving plenty of room for brand new ideas.
The hat
As I’ve spoken about before, Nintendo games often orbit entirely around a single gameplay mechanic. And Odyssey is no different. This time, the game is all about a move where Mario can throw out his hat.
This is a weapon. It adds to your jump (more on that in a second). And most importantly, it lets you posses other characters.
So if you throw your hat onto a goomba, you can now waddle around, and stack yourself onto other goomba to make a huge tower. Then you can break out from the top goomba to get onto a tall tower.
It’s a tiny bit like that old Double Fine game Stacking. But, everything gives you entirely new mechanics to play around with. And some of these things are super smart. Three or four of the things you can possess are so much fun that you could make an entire Snake Pass-style indie game about controlling them.
But in Mario - they’re just one thing! (In a level that beautifully introduces new twists on that concept, and a subtle ramp up of difficulty, of course!)
Because the hat is the main gameplay mechanic, it is reflected in everything else. Enemies wear hats (a hat-wearing enemy is slightly more difficult than one with a bare head), your companion is an anthropomorphic hat, there’s a world made of hats, and so on.
The most expressive Mario ever?
In my video on Mario’s jump, I talked about how Mario’s leap is incredibly expressive because you can modulate it in so many ways (how you press the button, how fast you’re running before you jump, how you can transition out of or into different moves, etc).
Mario Odyssey retains all of the plumber’s moves from other Mario games (such as the long jump, side somersault, triple jump, ground pound leap, dive), but adds one tiny new complication with the hat.
As you may have seen in the trailers, Mario can throw out his hat and then jump on it to get some extra distance. That’s just the start. Throwing out the hat in mid-air gives you a little bit of extra air, like the spin in Mario Galaxy, and it also reorientates Mario in whatever direction you pressed.
Now, you can belly dive onto the hat, in that new direction, to get more distance and height.
The hat lets you make massive jumps both vertically (combine the ground pound leap, a wall jump, and two hat jumps) and horizontally (long jump, then throw out the hat and belly jump twice).
This stuff is super fun to pull off, will make speed runs of the game really interesting, and lets you skip sections of the game when you’re revisiting a place while on the hunt for moons.
Challenge is largely self inflicted
Mario Odyssey is not a difficult game. I mean, it’s challenging to find all the moons, and I appreciate that it tests you on puzzle solving and exploration skills (and has some good hint systems to help out). But your platforming skills aren’t exactly put to the test all that often.
There’s some stuff in there - a recurring race challenge, some of the much-much later levels, and some of those areas you get to through a door or a pipe that look like 3D World stages. But they’re rare, and still not very challenging.
So while Mario has all of these cool new jumping moves, you just have to use them because they’re fun and an efficient way to move around.
In general, Mario Odyssey just doesn’t really challenge long-time Mario players. Which is a shame because the game has so many moons, and so many are optional to get to the end, that it would be cool to have some that are designed for Mario pros. Call them spiky moons or challenge moons or something so casual players know that they should probably ignore them.
(Maybe more difficult platforming segments are in the game, but I haven’t found them yet).
Also, the game has gotten rid of lives altogether. If you die, you just lose a few coins. To be honest, this makes sense for an exploratory game.
New Donk City is the best level
This place is great. For one, it’s an imaginative and off-beat world, that mixes old school Mario/Donkey Kong references with new and original ideas.
But it’s also a densely packed stage, with an amazing sense of verticality. Bounding up buildings and jumping from rooftop to rooftop feels amazing, and this level is really open and free-form. No tunnels or other ways to funnel you around - you can just leap about however you want.
Also, the main event of the stage is brilliant. Like many times in Odyssey, I played this bit with a huge smile on my face.
How many moons?!
In Super Mario 64, Nintendo carefully placed 120 stars.
Each one was the reward for a challenging platforming section, puzzle, or scavenger hunt. You only needed about 70 to finish the game, but anyone who loved the game felt compelled and challenged to grab the lot and get their prize.
Mario Odyssey has... I dunno, over 800 moons? Maybe 900? A metric butt load, to be precise. There are plenty of good ones, but also lots that feel haphazardly strewn about.
And only the most patient and determined will grab the lot, leaving the rest of us unsatisfied. Maybe only a tiny weeny bit, but even those who would actually like to get everything may find themselves overwhelmed and out of time.
Like with Breath of the Wild, it’s hard not to the look at the numbers and think about how you’d like Nintendo to juggle them around a bit. I’d trade in a bunch of shrines and Korok seeds for a fifth dungeon. Likewise, I’d trade in 100 moons for a new kingdom, or more of those classic platforming sections.
Overall
Mario Odyssey is a treat. A non-stop trove of inventive mechanics, cute Mario references, weirdo ideas, and clever challenges. Whether you’re focusing on the main story or just chilling out and scouring a kingdom for stars, you’ll have a good time.
Personally, I prefer the classic platforming challenge of a Galaxy or 3D World - especially because Mario’s amazingly expressive controls feel a tiny bit wasted in a game about poking at rocks, looking for moons. But I’ve been more than happy to get stuck into this game for many hours.
Will I make a video about the game? I’m not sure, but I’m open to any ideas for a topic I could focus on.
Cheers!
Mark (I just typed Mario by accident, then, and had to correct it. Whoops!)
Comments
Hi Mark, new patron here but I've been following your videos for a while. Great post, I've only just bought the game but I can't wait to get stuck in to exploring all the new worlds and challenges and other goodies. I would love you to make a video on this game, it would be a shame if you didn't as you're the defacto Mario youtube guru and Odyssey is probably the biggest Mario game in a decade. My suggestion for a topic would be a follow up to your 2015 video on "game feel", focussing on the design elements that make Odyssey so much fun to explore and how that is so vital in a sandbox-style game.
Hi Mark, late comment , but I think it might be a fun idea to do a video about differences in kind in games. You know, how do developers keep their games fresh and exciting? You could use Mario Odyssey as an example of that; There are so many different ways to collect power moons in the game that the fun of collecting them doesn't wear out (as quickly). You could use a variety of different games for a video like that, and also use examples of games that do this poorly with samey missions.
I'm rather anxious to get my hands on a Switch, but that's for later... *_* So, a video... something about games with wildly varying movesets/control modes? From description alone, the capture mechanic of Mari Odyssey reminds me of a GB game I got for the 3DS long ago called Avenging Spirit, in which you had to possess enemies to progress(as a ghost, you'd fade quickly from existence). Then you have the possession mechanic in Oddworld and some other minor examples(StarFox Zero's many modes? The Lost Vikings? Yoshi's Island's transformations) It's an idea.
Kyle Hinze
I'm absolutely loving it so far. I've been to most of the worlds at this point. My only slight negative critique so far is definitely the placement of some of the moons. I know you mention it a little in the post but I'd even rather have the number smaller and their locations more thought out than some of the randomly placed ones without additional content or anything. I found myself rolling my eyes at times when one was just placed under a bag of trash or something similar.
Didn't finish the game yet, but I love all the details in the game. Like, how the globe on the Odyssey make music when you continuously jump on it. Like, that's useless but so cool. And Mario animation are so expressive, it make the photo mode so coool.
Rich Stoehr
Great article, Mark... As I was reading, I couldn't help but think of No Man's Sky. Your description of Mario Odyssey reminded me a bit of that, but with a stronger design influence and better gameplay. Also, perhaps you need one of those mashup names: Markio, perhaps?
Danny Michaelis
Nintendo, the bastion of `The Helping Hand` is being a little cheeky with Mario. There's a post on Polygon showing a couple of hidden rewards for explorative gamers. <a href="https://www.polygon.com/2017/10/30/16570494/super-mario-odyssey-secrets-coins-exploits" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://www.polygon.com/2017/10/30/16570494/super-mario-odyssey-secrets-coins-exploits</a> Nintendo has hidden literal stacks of coins throughout the worlds, way off the beaten path. These caches do not seem to be highlighted in any way. Meaning the only ways you could find them is through self-directed exploration or by seeing it on the internet. In the Breath of the Wild's "Breaking Convention" GDC talk, one of the key conventions the team wanted to target was "Answers on the Internet." "All the solutions to all the puzzles that you've painstakingly prepared for a dungeon are all made available on the internet"<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QyMsF31NdNc" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QyMsF31NdNc</a>#t=12m00s A lot of the puzzles they are referring to are not skill based like Mario's platforming challenges but looking at the post; I can't help but feel the Mario designers are coming from the same place of embracing the (positive) gaming culture on the internet. The first people to find the hidden treasure are probably speed runners looking for a shortcut or explorative platformers like Mark, looking for a challenge. The curious and talented are rewarded with the prize and then presumably share it on the internet, and like a game of HORSE the challenge is set, `Can you do what I did?` These may not be the most challenging maneuvers Mario has had to pull off but perhaps finding them will be a satisfactory reward. That, and the coins perhaps. The title of the post implies you are breaking the game, and while that isn't strictly true, To find these coins you have to engage with it as a game and no longer as a world. So the pile of coins doesn't feel like a reward for Mario's wardrobe, but instead, it feels more like direct congratulations from the Mario team. You have found them in this secret place, and the coins are their applause for you, not Mario.
Matthew Young
The moons in this are something between the blue coins of sunshine and the stars of 64 in amount/depth imo. Weirdest part is the 30+ you just buy from the stores for coins with a literal 20 you buy from just one store alone(normally 1), would be better to give one to cap off collecting all the purple coins for a level and buying everything at the purple coin shop. Personally I wish they would go full goofy open world and make a game based on the super mario bros 3 cartoon. I remember a power item collecting montage in one episode as a kid that still is my version of the mario world in my head.
ThunderRazor
I've been loving Odyssey but I feel it lacks the tight design from Galaxy and 3D World. It is the Kishotenketsu design I came to love. But I'm sure Nintendo isn't done with that.
Groovy Lemon
Great post! I've just reached the 4th world and enjoyed the ride thus far. I just love how having played all the previous Mario games makes you capable of anticipating many things in this one. But not in a "that was too predictable" way, but rather in a "I was so sure this would work, that's awesome" way. Like, you see the T-Rex, you KNOW straight away you'll be able to control it with your hat because you know Nintendo would not make you dream about the possibility without giving you the chance to actually do it. The game appeals to your imagination, makes you wish you could do this or that and then actually lets you do everything. That's amazing. I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on the 2P mode though. While the second player had almost nothing relevant to do in SMG, I appreciate the effort they made this time. Player 2 is truly able to do cool stuff with the hat and has just enough freedom to enjoy the experience. A friend of mine is playing it with his girlfriend and they are having tons of fun. So the effort deserves a little shout-out imo, but I'm curious to know what other people think.
One more thing I do wish the game had one more type of collectable, because I think it's dumb to get a moon for doing something awesome and just a random butt stomp in places in the world.
Game Maker's Toolkit
The game does have a certain throughline in most of the levels (some more than others - a later level is very linear, New Donk is very open). So, there's a progression of areas you'll pass through on the way to the boss - and there's some of this layering / evolution of mechanics in there. Especially with the creatures you can possess. So yeah, it's definitely different because of the sandbox nature, but I think you can still see elements of it in there. Enough to make sure each mechanic is taught to you, and explored in lots of different ways
Welp this just pinged my phone as I had finished the terrifying DLC for Alien: Isolation and was debating a bit of palate cleanser of some Mario before bed here in LA. A great post! I've played a solid bit of the game this weekend and I found myself thinking much the same things... There are SO MANY moons, and hell I've just been in Toastarena for the majority of my playing thusfar (became very into finding the purple coins), and I gotta say.. it looks and plays great, and I'm certain I had a smile plastered across my dumb face the whole while, but I definitely felt the...limits of it? It feels like the game throws moons EVERYWHERE, and after finding 60-some across the first few stage it sorta diminishes the "wow" factor of it all. Geez after landing in the Lake I practically tripped over the 8 moons I needed to advance. The game seems to me a weird middle ground between the huge expanse of BotW, where still, on my second playthrough and 90someodd hour with it, I'm finding new amazing things about the game. After spending about 5 or so hours running around the desert in boxer shorts, I can't help but feel a little... underwhelmed? But I suppose I'm comparing apples to oranges. "Sanndbox" is relative! Then again..jeez I've only seen 4 levels and here I am complaining about a beautiful, bright game with a totally amazing photo mode. Anyway Mark great post and exceedingly escatsic that I get to support your work. Cheers!
I was thinking about your 4 part level design video and am wondering if this game loses that design idea in favor of exploration.
Game Maker's Toolkit
also, like military titles, the plural of bullet bill is "bullets bill"
Dan Root
I never knew the plural of goombas was "goomba". Interesting. Also, what wth Breath of the Wild, is Nintendo's new thing just to put LOADS of stuff everywhere?
