Two Months Sunk Into Super Mario Odyssey

There's a lot of talk about hype these days. A lot of gamers seem to really take trailers at face value these days and despite being let down time and time again, we still chomp at the bit at the latest trailers. We, as a community, never really learn our lesson. We swear off pre-orders and day one purchases. We balk at the term, "loot box" or "Season Pass." Yet they get more and more prevalent as time goes by. Heck, major developers also throw in mobile gaming tactics (gatcha gimmicks and buying in-game currency to speed up grinding) into their triple A titles because they the player base is so large, developers will find those so called "whales" to increase revenue.

And while I can understand all of these things as ways to recoup costs of insanely expensive development costs, it sort of ruins the simplicity of gaming. When I was younger, there was a sense of finality in buying a game. A bad game would be completed, forgotten, and left in the sea of mediocrity. A good game (or a great game for that matter) would make you feel this high of emotions once completed. There was this sense of accomplishment when the credits rolled. There was an "I did it!" feeling that would linger for a few days. Yes, there were many times where I wished a game was longer or had more content, but another classic was usually waiting for me around the corner.

I honestly believe the initial intention of DLC and patching to console gaming was to help alleviate my last point to the countless of gamers who felt like I did. There are many developers that have created successful blueprints for implementing new content and balancing in their games, but many of these tools to help have been used for more greedy and sinister purposes by other developers.

(Spark) Mario to rescue!

But Nintendo has shown that one character can always rise from any gaming controversy and bring the gaming community back to its roots: Mario.

Nintendo has had its fair share of controversy with DLC and Amiibos (yeah, I kind of hate them too). But Super Mario Odyssey (SMO) is unaffected by any of this. It's a pure joy to play and is able to cure the itch of playing something modern that still takes you back to your 12-year-old gaming days on the Super Nintendo or N64. All the content is on the cartridge and their are no game breaking glitches that I saw.

The Odyssey is just a big hat that flies you around to the dozen or so levels in the game

SMO is nostalgia done right. The Odyssey in Super Mario Odyssey has a double meaning here since it not only signifies the adventure at hand but incorporation of decades  of Mario gameplay. Aside from players using the same mechanics from Super Mario 64 and Super Mario Sunshine, Nintendo added dozens of section of retro 8-bit platforming sections. But instead of resting on the laurels from the past, SMO kicks it up a notch. Difficulty ramps up slowly, but by the end of the game there will be sections that will be so frustrating that you'll be throwing your controller against the wall.

I'm sure you've never said 8-Bit Sombrero Mario before 

But Nintendo doesn't stop at just playing toward fans' nostalgia, they still somehow find new ideas to implement in 30 year old franchises. The main mechanic in SMO is using your hat to possess certain enemies to solve puzzles, navigate levels, or complete certain objectives. Such a simple concept but so elegantly designed that leads to moire varied puzzles then just jumping and stomping enemies. The types of enemies can allow for different types of levels. Possessing a bullet bill allows for large maps with small islands to land on. Taking control of a Goomba allows for Mario to stack up on top of other Goombas to reach higher places. And becoming a tree...well...allows you move a tree a few feet. There's over fifty enemies to throw your cap on.

You'll be collecting a lot of those Moons

There are over 800 moons to collect in SMO (not including the ones you can straight up buy). Each one locked behind of some sort of challenge, secret, or puzzle. It's easy to collect the first couple hundred you'll need to proceed through the game. But the others are more challenging to find and obtain. But only after 40 to 50 hours of obsessing over this game did I start to get bored. This was toward the end of my odyssey where some of the last 100 or so moons become a pain to find. I wasn't the most hardcore player, I had to look up moons on online guides because I just started to lose patience.

Dancing Mario is Best Mario

But a platformer that keeps my attention for over 40 hours is nothing to shake a stick at. The game is chock full of content and 90% of the content is amazing. And while my screenshots may look a bit fuzzy, the game is beautiful in motion.

Super Mario Odyssey makes me ever so glad I own a Switch. It's a great harbinger for more good things to come in 2018. I can't wait to see what Nintendo has in store for it's new Pokemon and Metroid games. If they take me back to when I was a kid like Odyssey does, it would more than make up for the Switch's purchase price.

All your flowers are belong to us