Super Mario Odyssey

Super Mario Odyssey also arrives accompanied by a sort of mystical curtain of expectations and a court of flag-wavers and flatterers, as well as cliques of disparaging and iconoclastic "for the taste of". Indeed, in the last ten years none of Mario's main adventures has aroused more interest and fueled hopes for revolution and upheaval of the (platform) order established as this debut on Switch. Again, having placed the controller (or console) after spending whole days with the game, it becomes ironic to realize how much Super Mario Odyssey is the triumph and celebration of normalcy and what is simple (but only in appearance ). What is the most important release of this fall for Nintendo collects the structural legacy of Super Mario 64, while not sharing its overwhelming scope. Or, at least, that's the feeling ... As always in these cases, then the story, the one with the tiny "s" of the video games, will speak.

In a continuous cheerful rebound of contradictions and absurdities, however, lies the greatness and the sense of Super Mario Odyssey. That cannot survive the hype like nobody could ever do it, in its position, after having marked the world of video games as it has already done in all these years. This is why Nintendo and Mario change, flee from themselves and from the Mushroom Kingdom, with super powers and a good number of supporting classics, only to find themselves in the end looking in the mirror and recognizing oneself as always. With beautiful mustaches. After having lived for hours and hours an unforgettable adventure to be told, as well as to live.

If you are here only to witness the above story, which passes and turns, for a moment, into an event ... get ready for something different. Not to the upheavals of Super Mario 64 nor to the binary perfection of Super Mario Galaxy. Super Mario Odyssey is simply a great game, you don't need to find anything else in it.

Its representative figure is the renewed attention placed on exploration. The development team went back to reworking the concept that made Super Mario 64 great and new and, in part, Super Mario Sunshine. An idea then diluted up, essentially, to get lost with the subsequent releases, especially in that Super Mario 3D World for Wii U which, in hindsight, has done everything very well but in a way too worried and with the handbrake pulled. Super Mario Odyssey, on the other hand, has the strength of who cares, who is free, who no longer wants to be caught by a thousand parameters, a thousand boxes to tick, a thousand tricks to please everyone and everything. Mario's new adventure does only what it takes to make the most of the exploration mentioned above and this is how he manages to win and convince. If for more than twenty years you have been dreaming of a true sequel to Super Mario 64, this is the game that, conceptually and as a realization, comes closest to it.

In reality the over ten realms that make up the stages of Mario's odyssey are set up in a rather clever and particularly sensible way. In order to bestow satisfaction both to those who want to get lost in that exploration so coveted since the 1996 game, as well as to those who do not have a sense of orientation worthy of note or that essential spark for investigations with the sound of leaps. But even before going deep digging it is more useful to understand exactly what changes, in practice, than the last ex plumber's releases. If in Super Mario Galaxy or Super Mario 3D World there were missions to deal with, each one with its own level, to be completed and never to be returned to (it was not like that, we know) ... in Super Mario Odyssey there is no such scan.

There are, rather, realms. In each kingdom the player is left totally free to do what he prefers and to find his missions alone, which are nothing more than the right movements, the exact hits, the precise jumps that are used to collect or make a small moon appear . To put in your pocket as you did twenty years ago with the stars of Super Mario 64 and at the beginning of the century with the only keepers of Super Mario Sunshine. Theoretically everything is always within reach, at any time. There is no clear cut between one moon and the next, you are not thrown into any level selection screen after reaching the prize. We remain there, in the same world, ready to look for another and then another and then another twenty more. Because the quantity of moons present in the realms touches the ridiculous. There is talk of an average (rounded down) of 40 moons each.

Nintendo knows what it's doing. Recently, the company changed the description of Mario on its website, negating the rumors that our mustached hero was a plumber all his life. And yet this brave wader in his life took on many other professions - he was an athlete, driver and even an astronaut. With the release of Super Mario Odyssey, it turns out that this very nice character can become virtually anyone. All you need is adequate support from the "hat-like" Cappy, a bit of the never-ending creativity of the creators and now. Here's the best platformer ever and one of the best games of the year .

A stone's throw

If beret throw among the most popular video game characters, Mario would not give anyone the slightest chance . Have you seen on promotional materials his strange hat equipped with a pair of eyes? It is Cappy, our best friend during the next chase after Bowser and the princess Peach kidnapped by this gurber. And also his beloved Cappy, which increases the determination of the new representative of Marian world.

Because in full of incredible attractions, Super Mario Odyssey is the new mechanics associated with the hat is the biggest change compared to previous games showing the hero invented by Shigeru Miyamoto in a three-dimensional environment. The first was Super Mario 64 on Nintendo 64 and if you look for any connotation of the new version with the previous parts, then with this one. With the first one, which once again defined the world of platforming.

Gaining a new friend, Mario begins to have new power. It is enough to throw a headgear at the encountered beings to take over their body, which we can now control . Remembering the age-old Messiah they will probably smile under their breath and nod with pity that it was already, but first of all, it is known that what was and is not written in the register, and secondly, the new work of Nintendo makes it a million times better , each time changing the mechanics of the character's movement and the physics of the game, depending on who exactly we decide to play. In total, there are over fifty different creatures to visit, and this is already impressive.

Mario is sliding too much on the ice surface and it's hard to overcome narrow footbridges? Why is the goomba wandering nearby, for whom crossing the ice is like walking on a paved path. By jumping to the next goomby, we gain the opportunity to reach the shelves located higher. The statue's guests hanging around somewhere in the desert will help to walk on the sidewalks invisible to Mario, suspended in space thanks to the use of special glasses, and bullets shot from the cannon (bullet bille) allow you to break through the thick walls. So that we don't run out of oxygen under water, we can enter the body of a cheep cheep, while the dinosaur encountered tears apart spiky and annoying "obstacles" to the pulp . There are many, many more such attractions. The condition for mastering another being is that she is wearing a hat, which is clear information that such ancymon will prove to be useful somewhere.

Almost like Zelda

The new mechanics work fantastic, serving so much fun that you might think that Nintendo was wasting potential in the production of the Galaxy cycle. However, this is a wrong lead, because these are completely different games. Both three-dimensional parts of the series from the Wii console were fantastic platformers, but with a very closed and linear structure. The program took the player's curiosity about the world, directing him and showing him everything during a highly linear game with a small element of exploration. Odyssey is a completely different pair of wellies. Although it doesn't have the form of one big and open world - which in the case of a platformer would probably be deadly boring - thanks to similar procedures used by the authors of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, one of the main motivations is just curiosity. Curiosity about what lies behind the next bend, behind a distant wall, behind another hill.

The crew of the new Super Mario even used the same "myk" as Miyamoto at the new Zelda - binocular-like devices are placed on each level. It's enough to use the cap to take over the device (as you can see, it does not have to be an organic creature, and during the game we sometimes even act as a manhole for a sewer manhole or a large piece of salted meat) and look around. "Oh, far away, on the top of the tower is the moon to collect. The next hangs over the palm. And there is a strange building there, I wonder if you can enter it? " And as we plan, we do so .

High level levels

While playing the game, after some time we realize how much Nintendo has left the competition behind. Level designs are cymes over cymes. They are big, and their exploration is great pleasure. Between the worlds we travel with a kind of steam-powered balloon, which requires finding a certain number of finds, or moons, each time.

The two are brighter

Odyssey is not only a great pleasure for one player, but also a well-designed cooperative mode for two people on one screen. Importantly, you do not need to buy additional controllers, because each participant of the game then uses one Joy-Con. One person controls the character of Mario, the other controls the hat. This completely changes the perception of gameplay and restores faith in couch multiplayer. Nintendo just wants to invent new things so that the player feels contentment and joy.

The Japanese have a lot behind their ears when it comes to distributing their devices and titles, focusing on the hype caused by constant shortages in the market, but when they create something, kneel the nations. In the case of the flagship product of the group, which is Super Mario , no compromises could be made.

Also on bosses. Throughout the game, we constantly encounter Broodala - new, crazy supporters of Bowser, who in a more and more dangerous version are constantly sabotaging Mario's actions. Their design seems a little nod to ubioft rabbits, although those in Odyssey are not so cruelly sluggish and can even work together when in a rolling machine they want to crush our hero. Fighting them turns out to be quite repetitive, but with increasing difficulty. Other bosses also look great, offering much more diverse experiences. In this, of course, Bowser himself, who attacks in the middle of the game, and then in the la grande final. Literally, the campaign finale is stunning, brilliant and I don't post a couple more on the subject. After completing it, I realized that Super Mario Odyssey is a masterpiece.

Attention, there is a disadvantage!

Yes, Odyssey has one drawback. Only one, additionally dictated by the fact that when playing on TV, the character's movement control is so good that the mobile version clearly feels some discomfort, unable to shake Joy-Con, for Mario to slip a booby or throw a hat.