Nearly ten years ago I experienced Super Mario Galaxy for the first time. My thoughts were that it simply doesn’t get better than this. How could any future Mario game replicate these environments, and unique gameplay. A few years later Super Mario Galaxy 2 was revealed to the world with an abundance of new features. I was in absolute disbelief; Nintendo somehow managed to improve on a near perfect game. Here we are, approaching the end of 2017, the launch year of the Nintendo Switch, and Super Mario Odyssey once again proves that Nintendo’s frontman is anything but a dinosaur… well technically I may be wrong there.

Things kick off with Mario and Bowser battling things out with, you guessed it, Princess Peach being the damsel in distress. A swagger Bowser defeats Mario with an interesting new type of attack, and takes to the skies, with Peach being forced to marry the iconic villain.

Mario eventually comes around and finds himself in Bonneton, which is found in the appropriately named Cap Kingdom. This is where he meets Cappy, a hat shaped, ghost-like character that teams up with Mario, and together they embark on this new adventure.



Super Mario Odyssey shows us how the Mario franchise, particularly the 3D adventures, continue to reinvent themselves while sticking to a tried and tested core mechanic. This time around Mario is introduced to his sidekick Cappy, a self-aware, boomerang-like hat that assists Mario in this new adventure. Cappy is used to attack enemies, interact with environmental objects, and allows Mario to take the form of certain enemies. By essentially becoming your enemy, a new dynamic becomes available and changes the way you play the game. You may be required to take on the form of a Goomba and form a tower in order to acquire a tough-to-reach Power Moon; the items needed to progress through the game's story. In other instances, you’ll need to take on the abilities of other enemies to successfully defeat a boss, or just to reach an area that Mario wouldn’t be able to in his original form. There are always new and exciting game dynamics to look forward to throughout.

Like Super Mario 64 and Super Mario Sunshine, Odyssey returns to an open-word, sandbox design. This isn’t entirely accurate though. While the worlds feel open and vast they are, for the most part, quite self-contained and linear. It’s an illusion that makes you feel as though you have a massive environment in front of you with specific, easily accessible tasks to pull off in a certain area of the world.

While Mario is collecting the Power Moons he comes across a multitude of mini games, each offering a unique experience that breaks the pace and keeps things interesting. In addition to there being coins to collect, each level has a set amount of Regional Coins; both of which can be used to purchase outfits at the Crazy Cap Shop. Other than making Mario look different some of these outfits are required to access certain aspects of the level.



The game features a two-player mode in which each player uses a separate Joy-Con to control Mario and Cappy respectively. The player that chooses to play as Cappy is required to not only execute Cappy’s attack but also control the camera angles for the player controlling Mario. It’s a simple concept but challenges the way you think and play modern adventure titles. You often take things like camera controls for granted and in this mode both players need to either communicate regularly or be perfectly in sync with the task at hand. It takes some time to get used to but in the end, it provided a fun new alternative to the primary gameplay that more than one player can enjoy.

As with most Switch titles there are various control schemes that can be used based on preference. In Odyssey you can use a Pro controller, docked Joy-Cons or a separate Joy-Con control scheme. At the beginning of the game you are encouraged to use the separated Joy Cons as your preferred control scheme. This is due to a number of motion activated features. Most of these relate to having you control Cappy, the direction in which he’s thrown or he rotates around Mario with specific attacks. The motion controls also enable features of enemies you’ve taken over, and allow you to climb objects at a greater pace. At first these motion controls seem like a way to unnecessarily use the Joy-Con functionality, but you quickly realise that this scheme is far more intuitive than the others.



Each environment is made up of unique mini-games and puzzles, exceptional enemies and loads of hidden secrets. There are plenty of sections where you are required to take a far more retro perspective to the Mario universe that bring together the roots of the franchise. Some secret rooms allow you to patiently make your way over a surface while each Joy-Con syncs with the HD rumble feature indicating where you can ground stomp and receive a hidden item. In addition to the Switch's screen capture feature, Odyssey has its own photo capture mode that allows you to change camera angles and apply effects on your newly captured masterpiece; it’s an engaging alternative to simply capturing a traditional screen shot.

Super Mario Odyssey allows for plenty replay value encouraging you to replay levels and collect all the Power Moons with the assistance of Captain Toad. With crisp and colourful visuals, a soundtrack that mixes traditional and modern music scores and out of this world boss battles, Super Mario Odyssey is a milestone in both the highly acclaimed Mario franchise and gaming history in general.