Super Mario Odyssey was released on October 17, 2017.  It was, in many ways, meant to rival Super Mario 64 and Super Mario Galaxy as the best 3D Mario game of all time.  I believe it definitely did its job. The game has been out for a bit over a year but I just got the game a little bit ago.

Super Mario Odyssey starts with a battle on Bowser’s airship where he’s captured Princess Peach Tiara.  Bowser knocks you off his ship and you fall into a black and white top hat themed world where you meet Cappy.  Cappy is a ghost like hat creature, and when Mario throws him onto the head of an enemy you’re able to take control of it or “Capture” it.  Mario and Cappy decide to team up to save the Princess as well as Cappy’s sister Tiara who’s also been taken by Bowser. Cappy and Mario journey through many diverse kingdoms to try and catch Bowser as well as stop the Broodals. Who are Bowser’s wedding planners.  The Broodals’ goal is to collect wedding themed artifacts from the various kingdoms so they can set up the union of Bowser and Peach.

These are the Broodals, the new enemies in the game.

But, both the Broodals and Bowser have their own airships, so how does Mario get around?  This is where the Odyssey comes in. The Odyssey is a hat shaped ship the Mario and Cappy use to fly to the various kingdoms.  The ship runs on power moons which you get by completing puzzles, beating bosses, and plenty of exploration. After you travel through all of the worlds you then need to go to the moon kingdom, which, appropriately, is on the moon.  You then defeat Bowser and save the Princess and Tiara to complete the main game.

The best way to describe the game is innovative.  The way that you throw your hat onto enemies to become is used perfectly in the game.  Each enemy has its own special abilities like how Goombas can be stacked on top of each other, Bowser can smash through rocks, and hammer bros can jump extra high as well as of course, throw hammers.  The game doesn’t stay on one new idea too long before giving you a new creature to master. There are also some cubic looking pipes that when you go in them turn you into a retro 8-bit Mario and throw you into a 2-D section.  I always got excited when I saw one of these because it was great to look at and fun to play in.

One of the best parts of the game is how open it is.  There’s no linear way to do things and the game let’s the player play the way he wants to.  There’s also so much stuff to uncover in each world. You’re always discovering something to do to get some more precious fuel for your ship.

The plot of a game is the usual deal, you have to save princess peach who’s been kidnapped by Bowser.  You use your ship, the Odyssey, to hunt down Bowser and his wedding planners which were new to this game.  The odyssey is powered by power moons which you get by finding them around the map, beating bosses, completing puzzles and buying them.

Another great thing about the game is that it has great replay ability value.  After you beat the game, it gives you a ton of more moons to collect. When you collect these moons you can go to the dark side, then the darker side, then when you get 999 moon’s a hat gets put on top of peach’s castle and the balloon on top of the odyssey turns gold.

My favorite part of the game has to be the costumes in Mario.  There are so many costumes in the game and it’s so fun to collect them all.  Each costume is unique and adds a zest of freshness to the game with each one you unlock.  You can also mix and match hats with other outfits you collect to make your own unique Mario outfit.  My personal favorite is the Nintendo 64 costume. Which throws a bit of nostalgia into the mix.

The Mario 64 Outfit

Some of the more intangible things in the game are the visuals and the soundtrack.  People often underestimate the Nintendo switch but, the game looked amazing. Each new world was completely unique and I often caught myself just looking around at this totally immersive world that Nintendo dropped me into.  The soundtrack was absolutely amazing and without a doubt is my favorite soundtrack of any game ever. No matter what, the soundtrack always fit where you were and what was going on, it really created a totally immersive environment and as really well composed.

New Donk City, the New York themed Kingdom

One of the things that I think the game could’ve improved upon is diversifying the creatures you find in the game.  Each world really focused on one new creature, but, I think it would’ve been cool if they mixed some creatures from separate worlds together.  Really, the only place this is seen is in the darker side of the moon. I also wasn’t a big fan of the Broodals,(the wedding planners) Their moves were fairly played out and it was really only hard when you have to defeat them all in sequence.

But, most importantly, the game was fun.  It wasn’t perfect by any means perfect but it was a fun game to play and has won a total of 8 major awards and was nominated for 6 more.  Nintendo always does a good job at making their games fun and they hit a home run with this one and I believe it could be one of the best Mario games we’ll ever see.