Super Mario Odyssey Reviews: What’s All the Buzz About?

Super Mario Odyssey Reviews: What’s All the Buzz About?



The reviews for Super Mario Odyssey are in. Everyone’s hats are off to the latest installment in the Super Mario series. Sometimes you hear a game get hyped so much that when you finally get your hands on it, it doesn’t live up to the billing. Odyssey is not one of those games. Here are a few reasons why you should pick up a copy of the most recent Super Mario installment.

Capturing Foes

The highlight of Super Mario Odyssey is its new capturing mechanic, complete with a hat sidekick named Cappy. This ability allows you to throw Cappy in order to possess and control some of your favorite Mario enemies, like Goombas and Bullet Bills. You can also throw Cappy to interact with the environment and extend Mario’s jump. It doesn’t detract from or replace any classic Mario gameplay, it builds on it. Most of your favorite moves are still there, but now you have a few new ones to play around with.

Colliding Worlds

Odyssey mashes the realms of 2D and 3D gaming together, to the player’s delight. Several times in each Kingdom, you have the option to travel through a pipe to a two-dimensional plane with classic 8-bit graphics. The 2D isn’t old hat. It’s challenging, new, and nostalgic, all at once. Mixing these 2D sections into the Mario’s 3D world makes for a unique and fascinating gaming experience.

Sprawling Kingdoms

With over a dozen themed, sandbox-style Kingdoms (including wardrobe changes to match) Odyssey gives you an entire globe to play in. Each new Kingdom provides more opportunities to explore nooks and crannies, solve intricate puzzles, unlock bonuses, and master the powers of enemies. Discovering hidden gems and gaining new abilities makes revisiting each and every Kingdom totally worth it.

In Metro Kingdom, the star of the game, you can stroll the streets and scale the skyscrapers of a realistic Mario metropolis, New Donk City. This is the first time we’ve seen Mario in a setting like our own world, and it has quickly become the favorite of critics and players alike. With a finale that’ll knock your socks off, New Donk City will win your heart just like that.

Challenging Exploration

Some have said that Odyssey’s main game is not difficult. We’ll leave that for you to decide. However, the true challenge—and thrill—of Odyssey lies in exploring each Kingdom and finding all of the collectable Power Moons. There are not many hints to where these moons are located, like there were in past Mario games. But the efforts of exploration are rewarded with the excitement of finally finding them.

Excellent Aesthetics

Reviewers and players have praised Odyssey’s superb, stunning visuals. Even on high definition TVs, the game’s graphics stay crisp enough to get at least few oohs and ahhs as you marvel at Mario’s surroundings. In addition, the game’s excellent soundtrack is the perfect pairing for Mario’s adventures, with a real earworm of a theme song that you’ll struggle to get out of your head.

The Bad News?

The only con repeated by multiple reviewers is that motion controls are required for some moves. Moments that require motion controls are rare, and often you can find a way around them. This minor quibble does very little to diminish Odyssey’s gaming excellence. We haven’t seen any other major complaints about the game.

Critical Consensus

To cap it off, let’s talk about Super Mario Odyssey’s universal critical acclaim. In IGN’s Super Mario Odyssey review, they give it a 10/10, designating it a “masterpiece.” Polygon rates the game at 9.5/10, calling it one of the best Super Mario games in the series. Trusted Reviews gives it 5/5 stars, saying that it’s “near-perfect” and that it offers “the most satisfying gameplay experience of any Mario game to date.” So what are you waiting for? Throw your Cappy into the ring and get a gently used copy of Super Mario Odyssey on Swappa today.