Of course, it’s every bit as good a game in handheld mode. (Toss Cappy at them to get a quick gold-coin reward!). The drawback to playing on the go is that the tiny screen doesn’t do nearly as good a job of showing off the scope and detail of the characters and worlds, such as the funny faces Mario makes when performing certain actions and the tiny 8-bit icons hidden on some walls. It’s not that it plays poorly in handheld mode – it runs perfectly smoothly at 60 frames per second in either mode, although there are no touchscreen controls even in minigames where they’d have made sense. “On that note, I strongly recommend playing on a TV whenever possible. Its conclusion is a literal celebration that doubles as a figurative one Odyssey is pure joy that seems to understand and relish that about itself. (Was “plumber” just a euphemism for some kind of goblin all along?) The end of the New Donk City portion might, in fact, be the very peak of the pleasure that Odyssey delivers on a consistent basis. All the while, the sheer artistic contrast between the city and Mario’s consistently cartoony look and proportions have already generated interesting discussions about who – or more specifically what – Mario actually is. Not only do its urban obstacles allow for some kinetic platforming – bouncing off of the hoods of cars and flinging yourself off of city poles, for instance – but tucked-away minigames like an RC car race and a jump-rope challenge are great diversions. We’ve never seen anything like its semi-realistic look of New Donk City in a Mario game before. Of all the disparate lands Mario visits in his Odyssey, the urban-themed Metro Kingdom is my favorite. My favorites include the aviator suit and the retro-colored builder outfit, for no other reason than them being fun looks for the veteran plumber, but you can also mix and match hats and outfits to your heart’s content. “It’s also super fun seeing Mario’s new costumes get translated into the old 8-bit art style. They bend the rules so far they go beyond even the most ambitious creations we saw in Super Mario Maker. Most of these sequences aren’t too long – I wished they were longer, in fact – but each blends pure, weapons-grade retro gameplay with numerous other callbacks while still mixing things up in ways they never appeared in those original games, such as flipping gravity or wrapping the 2D scene around the corner of a 3D object. Entering into a pixelated pipe in the 3D space transports you to a side-scrolling 2D challenge that takes place on the surface of an object in the world, almost like Link’s 2D transformation in The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds. Odyssey’s inspired integration of 2D gameplay – complete with Super Mario Bros.-era 8-bit art – deserves special mention. Throughout the entire campaign, you’re using new creatures in new, game-changing ways on a regular basis. “Many of the cleverest and most smile-inducing possessions are best left to be discovered for yourself, but whether it was thrashing about as a huge, realistic-looking T-rex in the prehistoric-themed Cascade Kingdom or becoming a lowly Goomba but then making a stack of Goombas 10-tall to win over a hard-to-impress Lady Goomba, Odyssey mixes up the gameplay in surprising ways in each of its 16-plus worlds. Cappy’s also used as a jumping pad and a weapon, sparing Mario’s tuchus from an untold number of butt-stomps this time around (though you can still do that, if you wish). (I said it was charming, not original.) Cappy’s power allows you to possess many other characters by throwing Mario’s hat at them, which bizarrely slurps Mario’s physical body inside of the enemy and gives you full control over their powers. has been kidnapped by Bowser along with Princess Peach. In keeping with Nintendo’s decades-long tradition of charmingly nonsensical storylines, he’s a hat with a soul, and he’s teamed up with Mario in order to rescue his sister Tiara who… wait for it. That possession power, embodied by Mario’s new sidekick/headwear Cappy, is Odyssey’s big new idea. But it also has new things to say as well, like fusing classic-style 2D gameplay with the 3D world and using a completely new possession mechanic to add constant variety to Mario’s abilities and exploits. Naturally, it evokes, honors, and is sometimes directly inspired by the games that came before it in its characters, music, and mechanics. “Odyssey looks like a straight successor to the Mario 64 and Sunshine line of sandbox 3D Marios, but it is much more than that.
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