SUPER MARIO ODYSSEY (2017)

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there's a lot of different things i want to touch on for this and feel it very important to hit them all in the face of what is otherwise a frigid cold response from my friends in contrast of the critically warm reception mario odyssey has received otherwise. let's just jump right into it one piece at a time and bounce around like a plumber's boot off a hat phantom.

first off, i really loved the game. i loved the experience, and i had a tremendous time sifting through each world's nooks and crannies all the way up to the climactic end. each world feels so creative and bustling with energy and soul that mario games have lacked for, frankly, a decade, his previous entries in 3d on handheld and wii u feeling sucked dry of anything interesting. i loved the various enemy times and playing as them, i loved solving all of the double puzzles locked behind pipes and doors.

when it comes to moon collecting, the most important thing to keep in mind is how odyssey is neither aligned with 64/sunshine nor galaxy/everything else. each world is nonlinear but, rather than individual missions, the worlds are sandboxes outfitted with buried gems for mario to hunt. i like this. i like challenging the boundaries of level design and movement mechanics to reach interesting spots, and i like being rewarded for that. in odyssey, it's a moon or coins, but in duke nukem 3d, it was a message from the level master telling me i "shouldn't be here". and that was enough. i guess it explains why i loved botw, too and, like botw, you are not required to find every single moon on earth to beat the game. (i did anyway, because it was fun!) the only real offenders to this are the consistently boring moons--oh great, time to follow the dog around aimlessly. oh great, time to chase a bird around aimlessly. oh great, time to roll a rock around--you get what i'm saying? i did love tracking down captain toad, though...

i really enjoy physically playing as mario, too. no game from nintendo will ever feel as tight as 64 again, but it's a good compromise over the dreadfulness of his recent 3d games--even galaxy. the dive in particular is a lot of great fun. the worst aspects come crawling out occasionally, though--mario is SO damn slow, especially if you've mastered how to fly through games like sunshine. nintendo's insistence on motion controls is just ass, too. it's assy.

anyway, that's enough praise. this isn't a five star review.

outright, the soundtrack is garbage. absolute, pure fucking garbage, consistently letting me down over and over so many times i can't help but wonder of koji kondo's begging to be released. the best hit to come out of this mess of production is the surfer rock steam gardens theme, oddly complementing an atmosphere unlike surfer rock whatsoever with an incredibly catchy bassline and other organ wobbling. the rest is terrible. cascade kingdom is actually outright offensive, this generic galaxy ost leftover that's SO DUDE EPIC WOAH nonstop over and fucking over for however long you spent in that kingdom. this isn't terrible in galaxy itself when you're in and out of a level pretty quick, but when a game is designed around keeping the player busy in one locale for an extended period, god fucking damn does it start getting grating. another absolute shitter is a theme used much later in a lava area. it sounds, shit you not, like someone just searched "epic mario theme metal cover" on youtube. it's laughably cheesy buttrock. i'm not done, one more--there's a theme at the end that's apeing anime EDs in such a bizarrely american way that the whole thing falls apart and feels ridiculous. why wasn't jump up super--nevermind, it's all stupid.

other niggling things. like i mentioned, repeat objectives are ass. i don't want to break a rock on every world. i don't want to walk your dog aimlessly. this is boring. the bosses are also all really, really easy, and it's unfortunate that the "true" versions of them is locked away for post-game. i think the most frustrating aspect of it all is this treatment of the player like they're braindead--there are CONSTANTLY signs teaching game mechanics thrown around everywhere from the beginning (understandable) to the very end (what the fuck?) and when you read them, their "tip" is stapled onto your screen until you play out your monkey role for peanuts. it gets better. every time you transition to a new world, you have to mash through your partner explaining, for the tenth time, a game mechanic that's very, very difficult, such as "jumping" or "running" or even "jumping and running". it's such a joke.

all of that criticism to say--mario odyssey is far from perfect. all the more to say--it's still ridiculously, ridiculously fun, constantly inventive and creative with itself, and an overall joy to play through and experience. it helped me through my encounter with covid, and then some.