…why has no one posted in this topic since June? lol
So to no ones surprise, Odyssey is a great game. It takes the best aspects from prior 3D Marios, and streamlines them into a masterpiece. As someone who loves collecting stuff, and has never played the Banjo-Kazooie series, I found this game incredibly fun. The main story is short and simple, but there’s loads to do afterwards, complete with great incentives to keep you getting more moons. It’s not all a collectathon either. There’s quite a few platforming challenges, which in typical Mario fashion, tend to be deceptively difficult.
I do have a few gripes with the game. A minor one is how much this game reminds you of the moves Mario can do. The game has a built in action guide, telling you how to perform everything. That’s fine. What’s not fine is how the game throws about 4 NPCs at you who all ask if you know how to use the action guide. Some of these are later in the game, much later than you would expect this kind of tutorial to appear. Also, every time you travel to a new kingdom, Cappy will inform you of a move you can do, something that you would have already seen in the action guide. In addition, the game will occasionally remind you about actions when traveling throughout maps. For example, you might be near a spot where you can wall jump, and the games flashes a reminder about wall jumping. All of this isn’t a huge issue, but it’s kinda annoying, especially to someone who’s played a 3D Mario game before.
Now a bigger issue that I have with this game is the motion controls. For the record, I’m not one of those guys who despises all motion controls in video games. Motion controls add a fun level of interactivity that bind the gameplay experience with the real life experience. However, specifically with Mario Odyssey, I think it should have been approached differently. The issue stems from the fact that Mario Odyssey is designed to be played with the Joycons separate. If you’re playing in TV mode, this is fine. If you play in handheld mode (like I do 90% of the time), you run into some issues. There are certain actions that require you to flip the Joycons up or down or even shake them around. This is incredibly awkward in handheld, and usually results in me shaking my console around like a 5 year old hyped up on candy. Every time I do it, I feel like I’m going to snap my Joycons right off of my system. This is a bit of an oversight on Nintendo’s part, and could have readily been remedied by adding a button option to replace the motion controls. R/L are barely used in the game. Heck, X/Y and A/B do pretty much the same thing. Commandeer one of those or something.
When I was playing on my TV, I found that every control not related to shaking was clunky and imprecise. The Joycons seem to lose their orientation fairly quickly. It seems weird to say, but I feel motion controls on the Wii were better, thanks to the sensor bar.
From a macro view, the motion controls aren’t a huge deal. This isn’t a Skyward Sword situation where they’re permanently imbedded into the game. 95% of the game can be played without even thinking about them. But that 5% that they do show up…it gets frustrating.
Overall, Odyssey is a good game. I give it a solid 9/10, and a high recommendation to anyone wanting a fun 3D platformer to play.
