272 moons later, I've "beaten" Super Mario Odyssey, but it feels like I've only scratched the surface of Mario's latest, a breathlessly creative adventure equal parts surprising and bewildering—in a good way. Every moon, a reward for completing one of hundreds of obstacles, is a step towards something new. You don't need many to see the credits, but you'll want to collect more. At 250 moons, a new world unlocks. At 500 moons, something happens, the game promises, with a wink and a smile. Beyond that, who knows? But it's clear I'll be playing Odyssey for months, as I try to mine every secret, wracking my brain to find out what the designers have hidden behind yet another seemingly innocuous corner.
Great write up. I’m gna be honest, I stopped reading halfway through just to avoid specifics but its clear this game is a winner! Additionally on Waypoint Radio episode 24 (I believe) Patrick predicted the unannounced Mario Switch game would be GOTY 2017
It sounds like an outstanding game, I can’t wait for tomorrow to come so I can play it! I could use a hug game just now.
I’m skeptical about it reaching my love of Galaxy though, because I really love Galaxy but we’ll see.
Good job on Nintendo overdelivering in the Switch’s first year too. I really hope they keep this pace of releases up going forward but it seems mental to think of.
Great write-up. Glad to hear the execution was pulled off given that it was a pretty ambitious idea.
This may put me over the edge to buy the switch. I’ve been on the fence for a minute now, but there have been so many great games coming out for it that I feel like now I just need to bite the bullet.
I cannot afford a Switch. I cannot afford a Switch. I cannot afford a Switch.
Just trying to convince myself.
I assume this will drop off next year. Maybe Metroid Prime ones out, but they haven’t stopped 3DS development as far as I can tell so there simply aren’t enough dev teams to continue putting out even 3-4 games a year as they’ve done this year [Arms, BoTW, Mario Oddessey, Mario+rabbids].
I could see them doing more WiiU ports though. I think they announced a Sm4sh port, and they’ve already gotten Mario Kart 8 and Splatoon (which is sort of a new game but not really).
I tell you what, this game sounds like a near-perfect capper on an improbably fantastic launch year for the Switch. You won’t be disappointed if you end up dropping the money on it.
Maaan… Wolfenstein 2 and Mario Odyssey at the same time. This weekend will be most epic. I will arrive at work on Monday morning drained and tired but it’ll have been worth it.
What’s the way you advise playing the game? I don’t know if I should be taking my time exploring every inch of the levels on the first go, or if I should be focusing on the mainline story stuff with the intent to go back later. And I guess also controller-wise, how’d you prefer to play it?
You’ll figure out your own pace as you go along. The sheer amount of moons means you cannot reasonably collect everything before moving on. You’d go numb. In previous Mario games, I tried to exhaust an area before going forward, but that wasn’t possible in Odyssey. I started pushing through really fast towards the end, because I needed to write about it, but I have so much more to go back and explore, and at this point, it’s been 10+ hours since I’ve seen some places, so they’ll be fresh all over again.
How much do you think nostalgia or interest in the Mario universe/designs is required to like this game?
When I saw the possession-mechanic, I feared a significant amount of the game would be built upon the idea of “now you get to be X character/enemy you know and love”. I have very mixed interest in Mario games, with only Galaxy and 3D World being mechanically interesting enough for me to finish: is Odyssey also fun-to-play at heart?
