Super Mario Odyssey

 Nintendo Switch, Super Mario Odyssey (2017) game

 

Odyssey is right: the game that keeps on giving... and giving... and giving some more. Until it hurts. Not that it hurts them (though I imagine some Nintendo staff probably needed a long holiday after this!), but it hurts you, the player. Those who have got to the hair-tearing frustration of the Darker Side of the Moon Kingdom with its one-death-and-back-to-the-start-with-you harshness, evoking the hardcore gaming of the 2D era, will understand. But the sheer... numbers of it all. 'Super Mario 64' had 120 Stars to find, I think 'Sunshine' had the same number of 'Shines,' then with the 'Galaxy' games it goes up into the two or three hundreds, I think, but here: 894 Power Moons to find. Some are in groups of three, some are very easy, many are repetitions of the same puzzles, but there really are a huge number of tasks, to the extent it can sometimes feel like a job. That's the quandary for Nintendo, over the years they've been praised for the revolutions (the control in 'SM64,' the auto-jump in 'Ocarina of Time'), then criticised for not innovating enough (probably 'Sunshine'), and their games becoming shallower and shorter for casual players (the Wii era), but with Switch they showed they cared about making games with good value for money, and this one is the most added value Mario game ever! And now here I am complaining there's too much to do. Actually that's not entirely accurate, it isn't the 'how much,' it's the 'what' you do - at the risk of repeating myself, there's a lot of repetition. A lot of repetition.

 

Go here, do this same puzzle you've done before, but at least you know how to do it, the real annoyance doesn't so much come with repeats (many of the concepts and ideas were invented in 'SM64'), as in working out the game's parameters, what it allows, what it doesn't allow. That's always been an issue in games, perhaps one reason why we're drawn back to play the same genres and even the same game series': the familiar. There are good puzzles in here, there are great challenges to suit every level of gamer, accessible for newcomers (including an 'Assist Mode'), yet remaining a suitably challenging task for experienced platformers (I like to think of myself as a pretty good gamer, not on the Olympic level or anything, but decent, and it took many, many attempts for me to conquer Darker Side, for example), but as I've played this and the 'Galaxy' games in recent years for the first time I've come to realise what it is about the Mario titles that doesn't quite work for me, and I sum it up with this: I prefer a playground to an obstacle course. 2D games, limited by their restrictions in memory, graphics and sound, were forced into memory games full of instant death, but that trial and error gameplay has always been rather too restraining for me - I still remember 'Link's Awakening' on the Game Boy that was my awakening to a new way of playing games which wasn't about preventing you from having fun, or mere relief for getting past difficult challenges of dexterity and reaction speed, but allowed a world to grow on you as you explored and investigated, meeting new people, fulfilling tasks and gradually piecing the story and the world together.

 

In Mario's games it's so often about bouncing around with the threat of instant death from falling into the voids all around or deadly lava/ whatever, even in the 3D versions. And that's another thing: the actions. I do find myself increasingly irritated by the fact he has to build up momentum, he doesn't instantly respond to your touch. Or when doing a long jump which ends in hitting something, stopping you dead rather than being able to jump out of it (changing direction in midair isn't realistic, but then what is in Mario's world?). And the impreciseness of stomping on enemies - if you miss slightly you get smacked yourself. Going down to one of the measly three health segments with its annoying warning tone (though this time the sound comes and goes so it's not as painful). These are all fairly irrelevant nitpicks, I'm noting the things I don't like without even acknowledging the many superb features of Mario's acrobatics which thanks to Nintendo's expertise have become practically taken for granted, but the point is, the little details do grate on me! And maybe I'm getting too old for such games, but I sometimes found the day-glo worlds to be off-putting - specifically Luncheon Kingdom with its bubbling pink gloop that simmers like a giant saucepan full of something thick and sickly. If I listened too closely to that noise as I carved through it in the guise of a fire thingy (sorry, 'Lava Bubble'), I'd occasionally feel slightly nauseous. Same with Bowser's Kingdom and its huge turreted castle architecture where flags all over the place are dancing a jig. Off-putting, to say the least. Even the music could sometimes get on my nerves...

 

I'm starting to sound ungrateful for the vast effort and creative reserves that went into this, what has to be the hugest Mario game of all (so far), because I don't mean to, I'm just setting the scene, and despite all the great things in a game, it's going to be the niggles you think of most (as in life - do one thing wrong and that'll be what's noticed, it's just a fact of life!). It always comes back to 'Banjo-Kazooie' for me, the first 3D platformer I ever played, and still my favourite. The variety of the levels (for all they still had desert worlds and snowy worlds, etc), there's something about that game that never gets old, partly nostalgic sentiment, no doubt, but also the inventiveness and perfection of its size and challenge, from collectables to tasks. 'Odyssey' puts 'BK' to shame in scale and textures (gold and stone especially), as you'd expect, but the actual individual worlds (or 'Kingdoms' in this case), are mostly not all that big. You have the towering skyscrapers of Metro Kingdom and its Big Donk City (Donkey Kong...), Seaside Kingdom stretches away clear to the horizon and some worlds are quite vertical (Wooded Kingdom comes to mind), but most are relatively compact when you think of the Switch version of Hyrule which is a realistically vast land full of exploration. The 'Zelda' series truly reached a new pinnacle with 'Breath of The Wild' (the only other first-party Switch title I'd played), and it makes Mario look as if it should have been... bigger.

 

Yet there are so many Kingdoms and, as mentioned, 894 Power Moons to collect, the currency to collect in each world that buys multitudes of souvenirs, costumes and hats for Mario's wardrobe (which doesn't make a lot of difference other than entertainment value and the occasional puzzle where someone wants to see a certain profession or whatever - the Mario 64 outfit was my favourite, it being from my number one Mario game), and coins? SO many coins. I maxed out my 9999 coin purse three times across the course of play (since you have to spend so much, then there's one costume that costs all 9999), but I was disappointed there's still no option to see your coin count record in each world because they aren't finite, they'll just regenerate, which means you don't get an impression of value much of the time, even if you do lose coins each time you die, which is really the only penalty. The missing coin record is a small thing, and I don't think other Mario games did it in recent years, either - in any case, nowadays I don't have the time or inclination to go back to a game I've thoroughly played in order to see if I can beat a high score. It was a great sub-game within 'SM64' and I can see why they didn't bother in later games, but it was one little thing missing.

 

There, see, now I'm complaining about the absence of things I didn't really even want! Where will it end? The actual ending did summon a little emotion for me - not the usual silliness of Mario, Peach and Bowser, that's same-old, same-old, but that final, final moment when you're climbing up the spire of the Empire State (or New Donk State, or whatever), building and the music changes and you realise this is it: it's finally over, those last three Moons hanging at the very top are the final ones in the game, and something I'd played across three months has come to an end... Nintendo are good at building an emotional tie with the player, even to silly, colourful worlds like this, and though Mario is more about cartoony nonsense in its own fanciful, wacky world where everything has eyes, it touched home even here. And it has been an adventure of epic proportions in terms of things to do, I'll say this for the Switch, the games I've played on it so far have exceeded the length of most games on other Nintendo consoles. Part of it is the head-scratchers that cause you to whizz around trying to suss them out, and again it's all part of learning the game's boundaries or style so that once you've found a Moon by spinning your cap on a piece of building you'll start doing it to everything.

 

The cap. That's something I hadn't even mentioned, the big USP of 'Odyssey' - or gimmick, depending on POV. It's a great system, how did we not do that before in the other games: use Mario's headgear as weapon, platform and general tool. We've had other, similar devices, it's true, but this was simplified down and more personal, and works very well indeed to unlock a whole host of other moves (if the tubby little plumber didn't already have enough! - it took some time for me to get used to so many moves and I even had to refer back to the Action Guide on plenty of occasions, not to mention occasionally hitting the wrong button at an awkward time and, oops... dead), not to mention the Capture Actions, where you take over denizens of the various Kingdoms to use their special abilities ('BK' - I'm telling you...), adding another level to puzzles. Some might complain about the purity, but I liked it, it took me back ('BK' - I'm telling you...), and was fun in its own right. But some tasks were a real trial: the skipping in Metro or beach volleyball in Seaside where you get the impression the speed is just going to keep increasing till its impossible, but persevere and you find it plateaus at a high, but possible rate and you eventually succeed (after trying, trying, trying again).

 

No, it's the puzzles that really foxed me that caused (almost), the most frustration, because as much as a physical challenge can be so irritating and dispiriting (see: Darker Side), you know if you keep repeating the same actions you'll improve and eventually win out, but with a brainteaser there's only your two brain cells to rub together to create heat, and that's no guarantee. I remember seeing the hint options early on, the parrot and the mushroom guy, and thinking they must be there for the young children playing this game with no hope of working it all out for themselves. To my shame I eventually had to make use of some of them in just about every level, I should think. Not many, only the last couple or so Moons where I thought I'd done everything, but I used them, I can't deny it, and as I came to the end and was impatient to finish, it was too tempting to give up searching and get a hint. But it was one of those things where you don't realise you have to do such a specific thing, like look through the binoculars dotted around levels to allow a view into the distance and 'see' specific things in the sky. I didn't even realise Mario could go into first-person view on his own until some way into the game and was annoyed such a basic feature didn't seem to be available - my own lack of reading all the control options, though in my defence I'm still not used to discovering things through menus and such, rather than reading a manual, part of the experience I miss in modern gaming and its apparent march towards less and less physical media - ugh!

 

I really did enjoy the Kingdom Art, images in each world pasted on the side of walls which you can then take a photo of to refer back to (although it would've been better to be able to flick to them in-game rather than having to exit to the Switch's main menu - unless I missed a way to review in-game photos). I got most of them no problem, but there were a couple that forced me to go outside the game for help, the ultimate shame, if it wasn't bad enough I was using the in-game hints sometimes - to have to go to YouTube for a solution was very galling, but I was at wit's end, having searched the desert all around that stupid red-shelled Koopa in Sand Kingdom (as usual I should've persevered and gone to the very edge of the land), and as for the 'KEEP' clue, well, I overcomplicated it in my own brain, not remembering anywhere in which words were written out so it must be a subtle hint to pound the ground above the Keep of the Castle, yes? There was a flag in Bowser's Kingdom that was marked 'below the keep,' so that must be the solution, then on YouTube I saw the guy going to Metro Kingdom, instantly realised my mistake, went there and found it immediately as it's not far from the start. One and a half caves to inability isn't too bad, I suppose, but I always prefer to work things out for myself.

Trouble is, I did get a little blasé about it all towards the end, just wanting to finish everything, so I was quicker to look to the in-game hints than earlier in the game. But even if you wanted to be methodical and carefully track down every Moon in each level before moving on, you can't because certain of them only become available after getting further in the game (a lot don't even become accessible until after you first complete it, from opening up the metallic cubes in every Kingdom that previously couldn't be meddled with). But I love it in games where you have to revisit old levels with a new perspective or skills, things have changed or you've gained new insight later in the game, it's all good fun. And as I mentioned, this is one generous game: you've got to the end, beaten Bowser (I can't remember the minimum number of Moons needed to activate your ship that far, but a lot less than the final number), then you can go searching for Peach who's gone off on a travelling holiday, plus races against Koopas, the multitude of Moons to find once the metal boxes have been smashed open... It's a lot more extracurricular gameplay than 'SM64' boasted (find Yoshi on top of the castle! Race against the penguin again!), probably a third more game.

Then there's the in-game camera option where you can pause at any time to take in the whole view, use a variety of filters to have fun and create, it's an astonishing level of detail for a mere extra that no doubt someone had the bright idea to throw in, and if you wanted, could provide endless entertainment (even more than pulling Mario's face on the title screen of 'SM64'!). My favourites were the Game Boy filter to make everything black and green pixels, what a great idea! And the silhouette mode so you could recreate those arty levels from 'Aunt Arctic Adventure.' Hours of fun, should you so wish. There's also a move towards more realistic, real-world graphics at times, so you'll have a full-size Tyrannosaurus Rex to control, or you'll have humans and taxis, Metro Kingdom is obviously a stage more real world than anything else. It was slightly disconcerting to see that graphical style in such a generally stylised game, but they had the power to do it, and why not show 'our' world as being one of the many Mario can visit (technically it isn't ours, I should've said a human world). They even pay a lot of tributes to their own history with lovely adverts and posters of the old style Mario and Donkey Kong, and of course the Mayor is Daisy herself, the original girl Mario had to save from Bowser before Princess Peach barged in, so having been connected to the history for so many years it was an added joy to have it acknowledged. I must also mention the great 2D sections where the music goes retro and whatever costume Mario's wearing is recreated in 8-bit (or was it 16-bit), cleverly combining the 2D gameplay over 3D surfaces, quite innovative.

The reason for my ultimate score, which marks good, solid, and replayable-at-a-future-date kind of titles, rather than a terrific or outstanding game, is I can't quite get past the sensation of redoing the same tasks repeatedly. What environments haven't been done in a game world? I don't blame them for including desert worlds and ice worlds, etc, these places would be missing if they weren't there, and to its credit they do try to bring in a great variety, as well as a large number of lands, but it also means you're going to end up with things like giant food as a source of inspiration. Unlike 'Galaxy 2,' there's no throwback world, which is fair enough, you don't want to directly recycle too much, though I could imagine them having the console power to be able to merge multiple past levels into one Nostalgia Kingdom if they'd wanted. Mind you, the whole game is full of that, anyway (and there is that specific courtyard from 'SM64' in Mushroom Kingdom). Maybe story is a weak point as I feel the old Rare platformers were much better at that, though of course it's really all about the gameplay more than anything. But I always come back to the fact I haven't quite gelled with Mario games post-'SM64,' I've never felt as impressed by them since that title. This one is not bad, but not really pushing it far enough, despite all its technical achievements of scale - and it's very unfair to say this, because it's the old conundrum of giving the people what they want, but more importantly, what they didn't even know they wanted, without being too different. And so you end up with a bit of a job to do. But saying that, if it was my job I'd be happy to go to work every day and will still look forward to clocking on for the next big Mario adventure.

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