Super Mario Odyssey

the 2d gimmick was cute the first time but they did pretty much nothing with it

there's maybe two sections where the 2d-to-3d passage is allowed to be interesting, the level design within those segments is not interesting enough on its own, and you end up -- as with most of the other interruptions to the central mechanic -- putting down your fun to pick up hm-maybe-fun-but-like-not-as-much-fun

this is the perfect mario game for anyone who got bored of mario 64 after a half hour and decided to play goat simulator

possessing bullet bill vs finding a power star. it is a mario game.

will grant that food land and first-crash-landing island levels felt a bit mario-kazooie

I think the main thing I enjoy in 3d Mario is verticality, my favorite levels in 64 were the mountain ones and my favorites in this are the city and the wooded kingdom. The Galaxy games have a few vertical levels but not on the scale I want, they tend to be content to shuttle you between lots of miniatures rather than one big thing to climb

Yeah, I really hate neon pukey soup land. I hate being a slidey lava monster so bad.

this game owns. I'm up to about 390 moons now, I think.

I hit 500 over the weekend~

the moons are more like pellets in a maze - you get one, it doesn't really feel like it matters much, keep right on moving, some of them are just hanging around in the trees.

utterly otm. some moons are just 'oh look you found a moon!', others have a big fanfare and the red backdrop, but they're all just the same moon. multi-moons have a bigger fanfare and a longer animation, but they're just three of the same moon. they're not rewards for reaching a goal any more, they're just chucked all over the place.

the designers could have addressed this by perhaps making the simpler "congratulations for walking up this hill you were walking up anyway, here's a moon"-type moons blue coins instead, so the incidental rewards led to suits etc and only the proper achievements led to moons. as it stands the blue coins are just placed like slightly trickier gold coins.

which, by the way, don't seem to have much of a point. they're mostly to let you die heaps (they could have just done away with the 1up counter but whatever) and for buying more moons. it seems weird to have 30 gold coins on a difficult-to-access platform you can see from a distance, because by reaching it you only get the same sort of coin you could amass by warping to another flag with easier coins. it's not an incentive.

it's like they read only the very best donkey kong 64 reviews

the only sort of real incentive is the enjoyment of playing the game. they have moon bundles for the boss fights.

im fine with Power Moons. they unlock costumes. they unlock levels. to find a good number of them you have to play through dozens of new areas. what else do they need to do? coins havent had a point since Super Mario Bros. 3 when they started giving out free stuff at various mini-maps (the one room mushroom houses in SMB3 roughly analogous to the costume rooms or power moons hidden around corners of SMO).

the point of it all seems to be exploring and having fun and enjoying the way the game plays. does it need anything more?

i agree re incentives (e.g. big changes after beating bosses), it just feels like a ‘90s collectathon

well, like I say...the storyline in Galaxy 2 is so incredible that in replay it's still like...I have to open up these planets I can see on the line! I have to achieve my goal! here, all that feels...kind of like a convenience that's there to satisfy the needs of it being a Mario game.

It's still good and fun, but it doesn't hook me like one with a stronger narrative.

hopefully those galaxy games come to some kind of switch VC so i can play them

galaxy 2 is pretty much the pinnacle of 'get from point A to point B' mario i think

can’t think how they’d do wii vc games without wii controllers, unless they make a special compatible wii wand thing

the game controllers are basically wii wand things only better? I think they would translate easily

they don’t have the ir thingies though

e.g. collecting star bits would be weird

i think the accelerometer works as well as the infrared used too tbh... i'd need to see it in action but i bet it could fake it.

there’s a story?

good guy mario has to rescue a superstar from a dinosaur rapist

got to 500... might be nearing the end of my play through now

on my 2nd playthrough. just finished the lesser-loved Luncheon Kingdom. i forgot you play as a lava bubble jumping up against the flow of a giant bird's purple vomit waterfall. <3 this game.

also i do like the combo of Greek ruins with giant neon low-poly fruits and veggies. it's kind of like a weird mutant version of classical decadence.

i actually was quite the fan of lunch kingdom

yeah I thought that was the best non vertical level

testament to how good this game is that the usually sucky worlds (ice and water) absolutely own

weird, I think ice levels are normally good and this one is the weakest! where are the Mario 64 style slides?

i beat the final final world. the last gauntlet is quite tough! you have to make it through a bunch of sections all in one life. still have a handful of moons to get in the Mushroom Kingdom and i'm still missing purple coins/souvenirs/stickers in from half the others.

that "Jump Up, Super Star" song has become my number one earworm of 2018. the song just keeps popping into my head. anyone notice the fast 8-bit Woody The Woodypecker jingle in there? wonder what the deal is with that...

lunch kingdom suuuuucked. I did love the caterpillar land, tho.

i beat the final final world. the last gauntlet is quite tough! you have to make it through a bunch of sections all in one life.

far out you are formidable. that is a shitbag of a level. i got that multimoon through the cheat instead, because fuck returning to goombas every time you die.

i feel like if i have the temerity to ever try the moon challenges again i might just have to pick up a Peach amiibo, cuz i am not hardcore

i got that multimoon through the cheat instead

yeah i read about that on Kotaku. is that based on the same concept as the Talkatoo glitch? im going to have to do it, it sounds kind of fun. you turn into a frog and traverse the abyss?

yep

it’s so easy to pull off it’s sort of ridiculous

love the Battle in Bubblaine boss rematch in the Mushroom Kingdom. they really switch up an already awesome boss fight. now there is no ground and no water beneath you, only clouds, and it is constantly raining, so you have infinite water jetpack. it's pretty cool.

http://conceptartworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Nintendo-Super-Mario-Odyssey-Concept-Art-03-680x389.jpg

http://conceptartworld.com/news/super-mario-odyssey-concept-art/
https://nintendoeverything.com/super-mario-odyssey-bonneton-concept-art/

if we don't get a dlc kingdom or 2 for this soon I will take it as proof they are making a second game

Sequel needs playable Peach, she has Tiara so giving her the capture ability is already justified.

i wish someone would add SMB2/peach-style movement to a game character. the low-level hover. it's one of the most satisfying ways to navigate around a videogame, imo

but SMO's triple jump is so sick. apparently it's so versatile you can beat the game without any captures

the Yoshi games are hover platformers though I know it's not quite the same hover

Yoshi seems to have inherited that moveset.

playing Princess on level 4-1 of Super Mario Bros. 2 is forever burned into my brain. sliding across the ice and under buzzards w that hover skill.

i played some of this drunk late last night and it was so wonderful. New Donk City is a huge joy to get around. you can roll your way across town, drive the moped, bounce on taxis/people/window overhangs, turn yourself into electricity and scale buildings that way, triple-jump leap from building to building like Spiderman, etc.

all completely seamless and in a level that uses somewhat holographic or fractal level design. the area as a whole is designed for the "main" game story mission, side areas are plentiful, often including off-shoots of their own. these mini levels are holistically integrated into the environment. it is cool replaying the game after finding all the moons and side areas and realizing how much stuff is accessible right at the start, how all the pipes have a secret 2nd moon in them that usually has a fun acrobatic challenge to it.

it does feel like the natural evolution of the open worlds of say Super Mario Bros. 3, where you had the one-room Toad levels that were just a treasure chest w an item in it or whatever.

btw holy shit this game looks incredible. it really feels like an HD cartoon world. i know technically GTA still trounces it but i don't care, the art design is, as always w Nintendo, wonderful. it really looks like a 3D CGI cartoon at parts. the camera is quite helpful when needed and otherwise generally stays out of the way and lets the avatar loom large in his adventures on the screen. needless to say im beyond excited to see what they do next.

i've been replaying too. as much as this game felt derivative the first time through, it gets more enjoyable every time just being in the levels. i'll probably play this through more times than sm64.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHmL2pv7gQA

so cool the robots were a direct reference to Silent Running. also i loved this answer to the realistic humans controversy and the question "Is Mario a human?"

In an interview with Vice, the game's director Kenta Motorkura confirmed that Mario is human saying "Mario is human (...) in the world, there are many different types of people, you know."

downloading

ready to begin odyssey