I review Nintendo's great autumn release.
Super Mario Odyssey! The fistula voice of the world-famous plumber goes out of the speakers and the crush is almost immediate. Can you experience anything but childish eagerness at the thought of a brand new Super Mario? After four years of break, a new console release and a cavalcade of imaginative promotional material, Nintendo is ready with the game world's counterpart to the mobile discotheque: festive colors, colorful parties and tireless eagles - all in a fast and portable format! The question is whether Mario can hold on to the guests for the morning or if the gas goes off the balloon before then.
Mario has been wide around. He is the double conqueror of the galaxy and has been successful as both sports star and roleplay hero. There is hardly room for recording his many adventures, either in their individual details or in their diversity. This time things are not quite as they usually are. Where previous games in the Super Mario series have featured a multitude of snowy obstacle lanes - with enemies, traps and platforms like gears in a larger clockwork - Super Mario Odyssey seems to be more like a sparkling and wide-open playground. And I'll explain immediately why.
Let's take it from the beginning. The game starts right on and hard: Bowser, the luminous toad, has once again put the claws in the famine's defenseless princess Peach. Certain things never change. Mario is just in the heels of the reptiles king, but the good plumber looks at the rescue mission, is sent to the count of a guess in the nostrils, and when he wakes up again, he turns his eyes on to a strange and strange world. Here he meets Cappy, a desperate hat-show with magical qualities and the two (literally) beat the teams together against a common enemy. Thus, a long and adventurous journey begins through all its exotic countries and empires.
So far so good. The earthquake takes place on the hat-shaped airship, Odyssey. However, the ship does not have enough fuel to reach the globe and we have the ballad. The coveted collectors of the series usually like to be stars, but this time the hunt goes on fuel to the ship, in the form of magic moons. Stars, moons, can not it come true? At first sight it seems like an insignificant change, but there is more in it. Where previous games might have had about 200 of the sparkling astraldims, there are far, far more moons in Odyssey. Yes, without having the exact numbers on my hands, I will shoot about one thousand of the kind. Maybe even more.
With so many moons in circulation they obviously can not all be tied to each their tailored and well-designed track. And here you can see the main difference between Odyssey and previous games in the series. Usually, one used to designate a particular mission in a particular world, then to reach the finish line through various obstacles. When the star was in house or the flagpole passed, one returned to the main menu and then it could all start again. This is not the case anymore. In Mario's latest adventure, instead of being thrown into a series of semi-sandboxes, you are free to go hunting for the moon.
"It's freedom like you never knew", it is in the title song, accompanied for the first time by a songtekst. And there is also something about the talk. Mario is in absolute top shape and can jump, jump, roll and stomp like never before. At the same time, freedom in the game worlds is unprecedented. It abounds with hills, mountains, waterfalls and slopes as well as lashes, trampolines and other platforms. There is a single or two main missions associated with each world, but otherwise it is small with the guidelines. Conversely, there are little activities, so it's just about to turn.
The environments range widely between dark forests and red sanded deserts to man-made metropolises and perilous castle ruins. They vary not only in appearance but also in design. 'Wooden Kingdom' is built in the style of conventional Mario lanes, but is much bigger and more snowy. Conversely, flat and rocky 'Sand Kingdom' looks something like a generic sandbox game. Common to all of them, however, is that they seem more open and accessible than the series's traditional lanes. There are of course breadcrumbs and checkpoints to point the player in the "right" direction, but there is often plenty of opportunity to get away.
n fact, there are more ways than, oh, no weighing. You probably remember how to get an extra star in Super Mario 64 by collecting hundreds of coins. It was a fun little bonus, a secret, an alternative. In Odyssey, the alternative has become the starting point, the appetizer has become the main course. Of course, there are still a number of missions of the old school to cope with, but the vast majority of the game content has been created with focus on free play and exploration. The environments, albeit dull and hazy, are also known to be less artificial to navigate through. The worlds of the game are more natural - trustworthy - but it also sets certain limits for their structure.
So Odyssey demonstrates great freedom at certain points, but works more restrictively on others. As said, the airship is a fuel-absorbing beast and once you've landed in a new continent, it's supposed to be hanging a little. The order of destinations is given in advance. You can visit former worlds along the way, but you will not get on the journey until you have collected a certain amount of moons in the current world. That's what the game is about, so it should not be a problem, right? Nevertheless, the monthly quota begins to remind you of a checklist over time. It's up to you how to find them, but there are - they will.
Unfortunately, it does not contribute to a feeling of sitting with a game that, in some cases, is very short cut. Sometimes you have the option to choose which of two worlds you would like to visit next time, but it's not enough to remove the feeling of being friendly but resolutely pushed in the back. The worlds of the game are certainly enjoyable for their own sake, but there are only fourteen-fifteen of the kind (a few of them are very small) and some of them seem a little activity, despite an abundance of associates. Nintendo is well-balanced on a knife egg between quality and quantity, but where they ultimately land, yes, I expect a lot of discussion about that.
Thank you for reading!
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