@@KingKlonoa I'm curious: despite all your criticism, would you say you love odyssey or 64 more than let's say, Echoes, where you were much more positive?
To the point you made about the amount of content, I found it so strange how much "content" was unlocked by getting to the endgame. I think that the copious amount of moons helped with game feel early on; everywhere you went there was something to get (although getting the same reward for ground pounding a clump of dirt and completing a challenging platforming section devalued moons a bit). Knowing rewards were every where made it fun to explore every inch of each course, but by the time the endgame comes around, I had already explored each map extensively, so I had little interest in doing it again.
I feel like including a lot of the endgame moons right away would have easily solved the problem. Even though it feels random and unconnected to enter a door just to enter some random space and do a platforming challenge, I liked them for giving some variation from the collectathon gameplay, even though there was some platforming involved here and there and while I enjoyed it, it lacked the precision of a standard platforming challenge. As KingK already mentioned, the endgame platforming challenges are more challenging and therefore much more fun. I enjoyed some of the endgame for that reason. I do admit that a lot of the other endgame moons as well as a lot of the moons from the initial playthrough are a little unnecessary, but scrapping the entire endgame challenges as a whole like KingK suggested feels like way too much.
It's not even exploring for a lot of them honestly. For the postgame moons. Because they're all marked out and some of them are just lying in the open or a ground-pound spot. That's not exploration, and your movement is so overpowered relative to everything the game offers, that the game isn't really inviting you to figure out cryptic ways on to certain ledges or such and creating platforming out of it.
This was one of my biggest problem's with Odyssey in general. To the point near the end I would start gunning for the story beat mission because most of the moons in the world were locked behind the story gate. I want to collect everything I can when I get to a world and almost all of it isn't there. So it's not just playing the game twice, to me the game asked me to play the whole thing three times over.
That's exactly the problem. I had extensively traversed all the worlds, then beat the boss, just to learn I have to go back and find everything again. That just hurts. It would have been nicer if the new ones were different in some way or harder to get but there were more just ones that just weren't used yet and nothing else. Would have been nice if less grand achievements gave the purple coins or something else for doing them, but moons every time makes them feel so worthless. Why did I just do that platforming challenge when I could have just done bench buddies or just beat my old time on the RC track? There needs to be some reason for the reward otherwise it's more, "have I been here before?"
I like the challenge rooms, a break in pace isnt always a 100% bad thing like you stress. It's good to mix it up and have a short breather from open exploration.
I wish they were harder (not to the extent of Long Journey's End) and that all the post-game ones were all concentrated into one kingdom after Darker Side instead of scattered throughout every single kingdom in the game.
IMO Odyssey should have not used coin expense or gain in balloon world, made coins more valuable and expendable as a necessity if wanting to enter challenge rooms -and some other off the beaten path rooms. It feels like raw coins are everywhere and are useless just like power moons. Only satisfying collectable becomes world-based unique coins(always purple? can't remember) which only gives you some unexciting visual trinkets. It feels like there is no reward for doing anything in Odyssey but pretends like Power Moons are valued by the player. There is no carrot on the stick lol.
dddmemaybe I see what you’re saying but in my opinion, the game is fun enough that I don’t really need any gratifying reward. Odyssey is definitely a “journey matters more than the destination” game
When you started mentioning the "Filler moons", I thought about the power plant in New Donk City. You see THOUSANDS of moons being used for nothing more than powering a city, and that's when it hit me. The game doesn't put moons as these POWER MCGUFFINS that are needed to save the world. Theyre needed to power your ship. In the world of Odyssey, Power Moons are just a power source, that's why you can just get them for literally anything, including buying them at the store. They're massively important to YOU, but to the world theyre just a battery pack. It's why someone who has an RC Car course would hold it back from you, and it wouldnt be weird, compared to Shines being held from you by inhabitants of Delfino Island. The shines are needed for their island to thrive, why would some dude in a cave hold them from you just for a time trial? Odyssey never tells you the moons are super important to the world, it basically tells you that they're just there, and you need them more than other people. But that's just my two cents.
That also raises a couple of eye brows for me atleast. They're treated as so worthless even though the game directly stated they're the same as Power Stars, objects with ungodly power. With how many power moons are in New Donk, any mentally unstable person would just be able to destroy it in its entirety in a couple hours at most.
As someone who loves course clear Mario and 3D sandbox Mario, I loved having platforming worlds sprinkled throughout as well as the final level. I also loved the sheer number of moons just because I enjoy running around the worlds so much and was happy to go back to them and run around. Can definitely understand the opposite opinion though.
It’s not *just* that there are too many moons and that some of them are lame af. It’s that there are too many moons, they are lame af, and you need to do the same boring task over and over again. Let me ask you, did you think getting a moon for playing a music track was fun? How about doing that 6 times. Following a dog around? Better get use to it because you are gonna do it several times. I think Odyssey was a game that was amazing in concept but they development team got overwhelmed. I think Nintendo needed to get this game out and they just copy/pasted a LOT of moons. If you play Mario games to be challenged, you cannot acquire enough moons to beat the game. Even with the freebies (e.g. moons just sitting out in the open), you still will be shy of 500 moons. You are basically forced to follow dogs, deliver seeds, pound random spots on the ground. i think Nintendo nailed the perfect sandbox Mario game with Bowser’s Fury. I’m not sure how Odyssey fans felt about that game but if we are gonna be stuck with sandbox Mario for awhile, I really, really hope they don’t do Odyssey part 2.
0:00 Introduction 1:13 Formal Cinematic 1:36 Restating Previous Episodes Points 3:05 The Boot Out System is Gone in Super Mario Odyssey 8:40, 37:00 It Experimented 4:37 Unfamiliar places, Strange New Lands 5:43 And you enjoy it all without having to have to leave the land 6:32 Purple Coins 7:10 Big World Size 9:05 Expanded Moveset 11:42 Hooray 12:13 BUT..... - The Power Moons don't feel as important a collectable as Power Stars or Shine Sprites 14:00 - Repetition is not good in this situation 17:44 - Reliance on *Challenge Rooms* 19:45 Decent Platforms, but simplistic and somewhat forgetable 23:55 Struggles _Without_ the Boot Out System 24:48 Moon Rocks, Playing The Game Over Again, (Like The Green Stars of Galaxy) 30:54 Super Mario Odyssey does _Not_ Have A Hub World 33:00 The Cloud Kingdom 33:47 The Ruined Kingdom 34:50 Buzz LightYear: Toy Story 2 36:20 So Fun 37:00 It Experimented 37:36 Odyssey doesn't understand what it wants to be 39:44 The End
Night City / DemaGraphix It experimented in story, settings, and *aspects* of gameplay well. It severely failed on many of its experimentations in other major aspects of gameplay. Overall, this paints a hopeful future for Mario, but one that needs to learn from its mistakes.
It depends on what the game is trying to do. Mario is obviously a series that has believable but nonsensical world and settings. Having designs that are more realistic and grounded isn't necessarily a bad thing, it's just inconsistent with Mario. One might also call it uninspired and uncreative, I'm not going to do that because I consider myself extremely uncreative so don't have the means to pass judgment. But for example: I think New Donk City is a good fusion. It looks like a realistic city on the surface. But it's on a floating bowl, and has some truly vibrant visuals to make it feel more surreal. If it looked like Chicago, it would have been gray and white. But there's a lot of yellows, greens, reds, and a bunch of other colors.
@@jacobmonks3722 And they through in a lot of original Donkey Kong references making it feel like the same world. A common thing in the old Super Mario Brothers Super Show (I know weird thing to bring up) was that Mario came from Brooklyn (not sure why specifically there) and came to the Mushroom Kingdom through a secret warp pipe while doing his job as a plumber... whereas here with New Donk City, you could easily see Mario being a legit plumber working there without it feeling like some completely different realm or something.
Its not bad, I just wouldn't encourage metaphoric game design over idiomatic design. You can marry these ideas and get great results (see Breath of the Wild's glider and wind mechanics) or not so great results (also see BoTW's climbing in the rain mechanics).
@@jacobmonks3722and what’s stopping them from taking a creative front and changing it up for once? If you don’t like it there are plenty of other Mario games available, but if I’m being honest it’s quite nice the way they built it in to the levels it was present in
Really good insight and opinions! However I can’t say that any of the problems you highlighted hampered my experience with the game as much as it did to you. Maybe it’s just the natural tone of your voice but it sounds like any game’s issues really get to you easily. Also, the boot out system has never lessened my enjoyment of Super Mario 64 but hey, to each his own. Great video!
I love the boot out system especially as a kid since I was ass at a level it would take me a good 20 minutes to get a star so when it boots me out I'm eager to go into another room rather than just stay in the level
I find it hilarious because I could play this game for hours and not get bored. I just love exploring Odyssey and finding moons. They never felt like filler moons and padding It just made me explore the world more.
"Are you ready to basically play the game a second time?" YES! That's why it's in the postgame! It's there for people who really enjoyed the main game and just want more of that! I feel like a lot of your criticisms of this game and the series in general is from the perspective of someone who is trying to finish it 100%, whereas it's really designed for people to play as much of it as they like and stop when it gets boring. I personally finished this game 100% including all of Toadette's achievements and I never felt bored, but that's far above and beyond what most people will get out of it. I enjoyed going back to every world and doing the same challenges but slightly harder. In fact by the time I finished all the achievements I was still left wanting more.
Yeah, I was a little confused by the criticism thinking “well, it’s the post game, what do you expect? You expect them to create an entire new game in the post game?” No, in a post game, you expect them to add content to the previous levels, and if you don’t want to do it, it’s fine, you already beat the game. I’m not much of a completionist, I usually beat the mani game and dabble a bit in the post game. So, I think Mario Odyssey is pretty much a flawless game. I think it’s the best Mario game of all time
@@julianbell9161 That was half of the criticism. His full point is not that there's more game to play, and that's bad. It was that there's more game to play, but they just took all of the asinine, done in two seconds' content and sprinkled it around the map. It would be like getting told you're having a five course meal, but only two of the courses are actually substantial. The other three are just a plate of potato chips. While some people will be fine just eating junk food there will be other people pointing out that something is off.
Yeah, Mario Galaxy's spin jump is based off of the Wii motion controls. There have been mechanics made around the hardware the game is on since the N64.
As much as I agree with everything you say, I completely understand why odyssey was designed The way it is. It was designed with the switch and its audience in mind, with a ton of short, varied content that appeals to a wide range of people. While it’s not the best collectathon, it is an enjoyable game for the majority of people.
@@sneed915 I'm pretty sure IGN takes a guess on how much the majority will like the game rather than actually reviewing. When it doesn't work(tropical freeze...)they look god damn stupid. But that's the case for almost any game journalist.
@@user-fy1nq3nf1q ah yes, and every single seed moon has the seed in the same location and the pot in the same location. no, it obviously doesn't. it may be a recycled idea but every time there is a new way of using said idea. and if you didnt like that type of moon, no one was forcing you to get it. there are 880 unique power moons in the game and only 124~ are required to complete it, 500 for the final level. No one is forcing you to get every single power moon, so if there are moons you don't like, you can completely skip them.
They had to choose: either a pure sand-box collect-a-thon or a pure course clear game. They tried to accomplish both and both sides came out half-baked.
Some games nail the balance of linear and open level design (favourite example being Spyro 3) but it's hard to do right. I'll give Super Mario Odyssey a full playthrough soon to see how I'll feel.
I don't usually go out of my way to comment on a video, but something you mentioned in your video kind of hit home for me. You said (or basically said), "What we end up with is a game that is only enjoyable in very, very short bursts." I don't disagree with this statement, but I'd like to point out that there are people, like me, that have so far enjoyed 100% of their playthrough of the game. I beat the game solo and didn't go past surface Mushroom Kingdom content before putting it down, and then I went back and played it again, 100%-ing it with my girlfriend watching and helping deciding what I do. I can tell you, with certainty, that the combination of those two playthroughs has been the most fun I've had on the Switch. Maybe it's the kind of gamer I am, maybe it's the type of games I like, I'm not sure. Not saying everyone should feel how I do, by any means. Just trying to reflect a different light on the opinion of someone who I highly respect. In any case, thank you KingK. I really appreciate your reviews and retrospectives, and I really hope you don't stop. Phenox1707
I agree completely with him tbh. I couldn't play Oddysey for more than an hour at a time. It just became a chore. Unlike with BotW which I'd play for 5 hours without realising. I need to go back and do the new game+ moon rock challenge rooms. I've done a few of them. But I'm just so burnt out with it. I actually did two play through but the second playthrough I began from the beginning, I overwrote my initial save, because doing the game the first time round is a lot better than going back to all the kingdoms just for the challenge rooms. I agree with him that all the challenge rooms should have been in one kingdom. The mushroom kingdom could have been set uo like mario 64 with the same number of paintings in the castle, but no you have to travel on the Oddysey back to each previous kingdom and tediously go through finding all the challenge rooms. It's a good game, great even, but it is flawed. It's hard to put into words why, but KingK has managed to do it, I agree with pretty much all he's said about it in this video.
@@duffman18 comparing Odyssey to BOTW is like apples vs. oranges to me. Of course with BOTW you can play for hours and hours; it's open world and there is endless exploring. Whereas Mario is much more linear and level based. I agree that I can't play Odyssey for more than an hour, but I don't know how that could be fixed, given the nature of Mario games.
@@panicstation7 "hours and hours" It's only took me 2 to sell. Odyssey post game was weak no doubt but the main part was still stellar. The game manages exploration much better than BOTW.
Okay, I'm seeing a lot of agreement on this page, so I'm probably on my own here, but I have a few issues with your assessment of this game. Apologies, this is going to be a long comment. Early on in this video, you stated that you may have been overly critical of Super Mario 3d World because it was something you didn't want it to be. I believe that you're acting the same toward this game. The easiest example of this, in my opinion, was your examination of the challenge levels. You argued that these levels hurt the game's identity as a whole due to their abundance and immersion-breaking. As I'm 16 years old right now, and have grown up with the linear Galaxy games, I thought of them as appeals to those who prefer the linear games. In general, to me at least, it worked. None of them were as good as normal linear levels, but it felt good that we (the ones who grew up with the linear games) weren't being left in the dust, like the open-world fans were for so long. To me, the game blended the genres well, while still showing which genre it was meant to primarily represent, I never felt I didn't know what the game was trying to be. Another example is the moon rocks. You were very critical of these, it was clear you detested going through the same challenges. I never did. I know the argument I'm about to put up has a clear flaw, but I'm going to counterpoint that later, so bear with me. Imagine that all these moons were there at the same time, right when you entered the world. It would be overwhelming, and confusing that some moons were just harder versions of other moons. It made sense to split them between newcomers and more experienced players. Now, I assume I know what you're thinking, why not just get rid of them entirely? Well, because I wanted more of the game. Without these, the game would be stupidly easy, 3d land level easy. It rarely felt like padding to me, although I will admit it did feel that way sometimes. As much as it would have been cool to have entirely new, non-remixed challenges and to have all the linear segments perfectly blended into the world they resided within, I was perfectly satisfied with what they gave me. I think my main issue with your review, and reviews in general is that you do not claim specific things to be issues to you specifically, but issues to everyone, whether or not they realize it. The Mushroom Kingdom is disappointing to everyone. Toadette was a nuisance to everyone. Hint art (the moon kingdom's) was annoying to everyone. Well, I can firmly say that I loved the Mushroom Kingdom, Toadette felt like a good reward, and the hint art, I guess I didn't like the hint art either, but I'm sure someone else enjoyed them. I know for a fact this isn't what you meant to say, that's ridiculous, but it really feels that way. The only reason I wrote this comment was because I was heated about what you said. My main point in writing this is just to tell you to be careful with your words. To tell you that while both our experiences and feelings toward the game weren't and aren't wrong, but our "impartial" opinions of the game very much are. Neither of us can truly judge a game for how good it is, one of us might hate the pacing of a game, and the other might have no problems with it. The thing you loved and hated about the game weren't good or bad to everyone. But they were good or bad to you. Again, apologies, that was really long, and kind of went off topic, and it's written poorly, but I think I got my point across. I hope that you realized something from what I wrote, or at least that you already knew this. If you're confused about anything I said, It would be pretty cool of you to reply. I really enjoy listening to your content, despite what I came across as. Maybe we can have a calm, reasonable conversation that regresses into mindless insults. Thanks for reading this, if you did.
Chaengie 27 exactly. This was the most fun I’ve ever had playing a video game and I feel like that should be the main point of the review. I never had a problem with any of the things he said. It just looks like he’s digging to find things wrong with this game and paint it as everyone has huge problems with this thing.
I wholeheartedly agree with your examination of the little challenge rooms. Everyone was talking about that little graphic Nintendo put up on the screen, with 64 and Sunshine on one line and Galaxy and 3D World on another. I kinda interpreted those rooms as the solution to those lines. Yeah I do think there were still too many moons, but with the little rooms, that’s a very fun way to appeal to both kinds of players. PLUS, I have this thing where I think way too much about lore and fill in a lot of the gaps with imagination, so maybe these rooms explain why the Mario World is so weird. Why are there random floating platforms all over the place, with only a pipe leading to them? Well, maybe that’s how the Mario world gets its resources, and how it builds things so easily. That could also explain over worlds; being represented as little dots that you “warp” into and see Bowser’s forces have already arranged the random resources into obstacles. Idk :)
The biggest problem I have with this criticism of specific types of challenge the game presents is that most of them are completely optional. You want to play this game like an exploration based Mario game? Do it - ignore every pipe, door and rocket. To my knowledge, there's no point where the game requires you to go into one of the disconnected linear platforming sections. I take issue with criticism of how a 100% playthrough feels with a game like this that provides so many different types of content to appeal to different people. If you're deliberately trying to do everything in the game, there's going to be some content that you don't like because it wasn't made to appeal to you. I don't mind if you dont like certain elements - I'd actually prefer to listen to someone break down exactly what problems they have with a game and why they have them - however, when the game allows you the freedom to ignore what you don't want to do and play it how you want, you shouldn't act or speak as if completely optional content somehow detracts from your experience. It's honestly really selfish to expect a game to appeal to specifically people like you and that all of the bits that you don't personally like (that you also had the choice to not play) should be removed and changed to bend to your will, ultimately removing a lot of the game's appeal for many people. A lot of the criticism here also seems to generally not make a lot of sense. Wishing that the game had integrated these platforming sections into the levels themselves would mean that the levels would be larger and more empty, therefore it would end up with a similar problem to Yooka-Laylee. Compromises must be made when creating a game like this in order to maintain such high quality game design. Most of this video seems like blowing minor nitpicks massively out of proportion because Odyssey wasn't 100% exactly what he wants it to be. Honestly, it wasn't completely what I wanted it to be, either, but it is very clear that this game was not designed to exclusively appeal to fans of one specific type of Mario game, and that's why it's so successful.
I got salty when he talked about being booted from the level making the older mario games bad, when its just a different design philosophy. One big reward vs a million small rewards. Mario 64 would have to literally have different level design if you didnt get booted out, as the levels often change after completing different stars. Same with sunshine. If you just aren't enjoying an aspect of the game from a design concept then that is your problem, not a problem with the game itself. (as opposed to say, a game having poor mechanics, you know, actual coded elements of the game)
I imagine he's of the sentiment that DK 64 is bloated, I enjoyed but I've heard many people look to it as the reason the collectathon genre was silent for a number of years before sunshine came out and even then this genre only really now seeing a resurgence due to the n64 era now being old enough to be nostalgicly retro
@@JRWall-hf9mq those complaints are more about the multi colored bananas and medals, I find it harder to play these days because of all the damn back tracking from swap barrels those forced you to do
@@JRWall-hf9mq "It was too big for what those gamers expected" -- no, it wasn't the quantity alone the made it bloated - it was the lack of quality. Everything felt like padding rather than new content, as far as.. well, the "bloat" goes. "Go find a switch place, and come back to this point. You can't have it til you backtrack for no reason."
Amazing retrospective, I kinda disagree about the platforming sections being “immersion breaking” since they kind of feel like a sort of “memory” of that area unlike Mario sunshine’s secret levels. But good stuff nonetheless! Can’t wait for chance time 3
Boy, if this video doesn't perfectly capture my own experience with Super Mario Odyssey. I agree with almost everything you said, from the sheer number of moons devaluing the the satisfaction of finding them to the absolute weariness I felt when I beat the game only to be told to basically start over and find more, more, more! At that point, I shut the game off never to look back, which I would never do with Super Mario 64 where I feel incentivized to get every Power Star. I'll probably play the game again at some point in my life, but I can't imagine a scenario where I'd ever want to complete it. And that, to me, is a real detriment. I can't deny that it's a good game, a great game even. But as far as 3D Mario games go, Super Mario Galaxy is where I feel they hit that perfect sweet spot.
Mario Odyssey dunks on Galaxy in replayability. Mario's extremely varied and deep moveset combined with creative level geometry and captures make for the best sandbox ever made in a platformer. Galaxy just isn't a sandbox at all. I'll take player choice and deep sandbox elements over linear hallway design any day.
You didn't really talk about the capture mechanic, which is a big part of the game. You touched on it a little, discussing individual captures, but not on the mechanic as a whole.
It's fundamentally worse than power-ups because you're switching into far shittier movesets rather than getting any enhancement to your moveset. There you go.
@@antoniomendes7961 except a lot of them actually have movesets that are better suited to the situations that they are used in when compared to Mario, making them more fun to use because of their placement in the game.
@@rohjois Yes obviously. But it doesn't change the fact that want you're doing I'd inherently less interesting. Taking over the green thing just lets you rise. That's it. Nintendo knows for the most part which is why you're usually in transformation for a really short time.
yeah people expected SPM something that it never aimed to be. it took the entire style of paper mario and made it a 2d platformer. but it made itself distinct frmo the other games by adding super infront of it. it's its own game and some people just cant accept it.
@@sorendipitous I honestly thought PM64's world was more connected than TTYD's. I guess the main reason for that would be the fact that all but one or two of TTYD's chapters are linked to Rogueport through a pipe in the sewers, while Toad Town was directly linked to nearly every chapter on the surface without needing to go underground. SPM's world was admittedly less connected than the previous two games, but even judging by the central hubs, I'd say Flipside is more interesting than Rogueport, though Rogueport does have a few neat ideas.
It's a confusing mess with very little sense to where the ways to the worlds are. Paper mario 64 did this perfectly, from the hub itself you could see where every world was. TTYD did this worse, in fact a lot worse... but there were still some hints of it and if world 1,2 and 4 were directly connected to rogueport it would be great. Most of it made some sense though and had a memorable sequence of some sort to get into the world and therefore you remember the entrance. The way you get into worlds in Flipside is just boring after you activate those god awfully hidden heart stones or whatever. I did like SPM and i have admittedly not played it in years but where i could still point you towards any place in the entire world of PM64 i could not tell you off the top of my head where really anything was in SPM.
I felt basically the same way when the game first came out. Halfway through I had to ask myself: Was this moon fun? Really brought the magic out when I realized most weren't. Fun fact time, there's literally a moon in the trash.
Replaying the game again for the first time in a few years out of curiosity. There’s actually a pretty decent amount of fun moons. But there’s also a decent amount of really bad moons and they started to become noticeable when replaying. First time through, I was caught into the loop of wanting to get every moon. Once that wears off though, you start to notice how many of those moons aren’t really that fun or well designed
I enjoy your thoughtful criticism as always, but you seem preoccupied with this being a textbook collectathon that needs to be 100%-ed when it's design is at odds with that concept. As someone who finds equal enjoyment in both course clear and collectathon Mario, I love this game's melding of styles. And given how much more you can inhabit it with, I find the Odyssey a superior "hub" to Galaxy 2's Starship Mario. I can understand how frustrating this game can be to a platforming completionist but as someone who's enjoyment mainly comes from creative platforming challenges rather than collecting all of the shiny things, I love it and enjoy the ride. And that anime ending is so good like are you kidding? 10/10 right there. Quality video, keep up the great work.
Palest Pistachio I can't agree with these criticisms if only because it seems that the point is missing. It's not that it has to be 100% collectathon, but that by making it so easy to advance by littering moons, you sacrifice interesting game design. Even if they have course clear elements, having it repeat so much without even changing the flavor of the walls a waste of the world design that went into the kingdoms
@@banana1231234 In my opinion both sides are valid to that argument. There is too much padding in odyssey (Dark Side as a whole feels like padding), but on the flip side it is true that they gave the player different endings based on how much they WANTED to put in the game. The speedrunning community for this game basically laugh when they finished the game because the categories were already cutout for them. Any%, World Peace (the Story% if you will), Dark Side, Darker Side and All Moons. (100% is also a thing but suffers from padding if you will (coin grinding sucks to grab all costumes and some purple coins are so far out...)) Those categories are basically the endings for each player type. Honnestly, the criticism from KingK is dead on imo, minus the fact that Toy Story 2 is better :P
@paula i agree to an extent, but a lot of the moons are repeated in different kingdoms with no added challenge. The little challenge they do add is stuff like kicking a rock in the ruined kingdom, 20 more times for it to break, or groundpounding in a place that is slightly harder to get to. If they added a unique spin and challenge on every one of these repeated moons, I would actually find them fun. But how it is currently in Odyssey, just feels repetitive and boring imo.
He mentions the "100%" argument in the video... when everything in a collectathon is optional, then where do you draw the line? If the player is not supposed to collect 100%, to what criteria is an optional Moon held against, or is it forgiven because there's another optional Moon next door that can be collected instead? It's completely arbitrary and a non-argument.
Corvus All I said is that it’s design is at odds with being a 100% experience, which could be a flaw if you prioritize that kind of thing like K seems to. His critiques are very valid, I’m not arguing that. I personally enjoy the bloat that a ridiculous amount of moons brings because it makes revisiting in short bursts more often than not rewarding given the high chance of stumbling upon a moon while exploring. And since this games movement and level design are so strong, I enjoy exploring a lot. My satisfaction is not lessened by the time necessary for 100% being so high. Plus I played the post game in handheld mode which probably helped in alleviating the potential pacing issues he mentioned in the video.
For me, one of the weirdest things about Odyssey's complete lack of a hub world is it means that Nintendo crafted a game that is essentially a road trip, but one where Mario is never actually in the car. Who makes a road trip where the characters are in the car?
“What we wind up with is a game that is only fun in very, very short bursts.” I disagree. When I was completing Odyssey (I still haven’t fully done it, but I’m over 800 moons) I had my face glued to the screen for hours. But your critiques aren’t untrue.
I have additional notes and thoughts. Some of this I even cut out of the script, so it should be interesting. First of all, I wanted to point out that the 100% speedrun world records for the Mario collectathons are as follows: 64 - 1:38:51 Sunshine - 2:58:29 Odyssey - 9:47:41 Now, Super Mario Odyssey is the most recent Mario game so there's a ton of room for the speedrun to grow over time. However, the sheer gap between those times is yet another indicator that Odyssey does not necessarily prioritize replayability. I felt like it would be a little overkill including this in the script, so I ended up cutting it. Additionally, even though I did address it in the video, I figured I should say again that I still enjoy Odyssey to some extent. Some of the comments here are insinuating that I hate it or something, and that isn't true. A few of them have gone as far as to say that I only ever make negative/nitpicky videos now. That kinda hurts, but hey: you feel what you feel, I can't hold that against you. If you think I've been too negative lately and it diminishes your enjoyment of my work, I apologize. Finally, I wanted to also say that not only do collectathons build themselves on optional challenges, it's also my duty to make a video about EVERYTHING in a video game. I'm not going to ignore the stuff I don't like just because someone can theoretically "avoid" it. No one would even know what the "bad moons" are on an initial playthrough, so it's just another thing you have to do on a repeat playthrough with a broader knowledge of the level progression. I should be allowed to critique each and every kind of moon precisely BECAUSE most of them are optional. That's basically it for now. Might add onto ot when the need arises. Thanks for watching, keep leaving your differing opinions, and I'll keep reading them!
Dude i fucking love your taste in games, every thing you like in a game, i like in that game and the same goes for the stuff you don't like, also, your favorite games in different franchises are the same as mine. Also, great channel, good job man.
@KingK "the sheer gap between those times" is more an indicator of the amount of bugs and exploits available in the respective games, rather than replayability by design.
The remark about 100% completion is a bit out of place... if you want to compare apples with apples you should compare All Moons (7h35) with the other 100% categories. 100% in odyssey is including buying all the costumes (excluding DLC ones) which is honnestly more of a customization option than a gameplay mechanic. And it's replayability is not in 100% the game everytime. The best category to speedrun if you want to feel like you did 90% of what the game offers is Darker Side. You skip the blatant filler of a kingdom that is Dark Side and get 500 moons. The routing for that category was super enjoyable to make (and enjoyable to read). And since Darker is the closest to "an enjoyable 90%" compare the WR with the other games 100% : 3h10m. I'm not here to deny that there is "filler content" it's just that this content is there for more casual players that will play that game over the course of a month or so. They'll find those sub areas in Darker and remember that they did them with cappy before and appreciate how much better their lives are with him. I do speedrun Odyssey and I love it because of the movement, all the quirky mechanics and the routing of each kingdoms. For me this is the most replayable mario game they made. In the first 2 years of the game there wasn't more than 2 months until something new was discovered that altered the route of a category. (Agreed some of those are Nintendo patching stuff and everyone hates that but there has been only 2 patches so its not that bad)
I like this review, this is the second time I've watched through it and I think I understand where he and I differ on this. I think 70% of the critique is that it is too hard to complete and I think that is a valid critique for a completionist, however, 99% of players don't want a game that is fun to complete, they want one that is fun to play. I think some of the things he says Nintendo could do to make the game more fun to complete would actually make it less fun for the average player
Having to 100% a game every time you replay it doesn't sound like fun at all, no matter how good it is. It feels like almost everything you critized about Odyssey is more on you and the way you decide to enjoy games than on actual Odyssey's flaws.
I'm not sure if you're experienced with the genre, but old platformers and collectathons are very different from modern 80+ hour titles. A 100% run though one of these games is never too complicated and can be done in just a week if played casually. To give you an idea, Banjo-Kazooie's fastest 100% speedrun in just two hours. You really don't need to complete them each time, but it's never feels like you're having to put effort into doing it. I've completed 64 twice, Banjo 1 six times, Banjo 2 twice, and DK64 once (never doing that again), and I enjoyed these games each time. I went through Odyssey once and I already know I'm never touching it again, even though I loved it.
Have you ever done this with Spyro 1? It just lasts a couple hours. I replay it every month if not multiple times a month. That's my perfect game to just go and 100% regularly. I kind of agree with your point that you shouldn't try to 100% every time, but to be honest, it's not that out-there either. Besides, the best games should have that drive and just be that fun that you want to experience all the content (even if not all the content is fun, if it's just 2 or 3 challenges that are meh or something, I still go for it). You shouldn't have to play a game "a certain way" to appreciate it, but you have to go in with so many reservations for Odyssey imho
@@idontcheckmynotifications sadly I've never touched Spyro, but with the remake out now it might be worth a shot. What's your take on it? Nice points too, took the words out of my mouth.
I think its less about having to 100% it every time and moreso making that experience enjoyable so that everybody wins. Because if the normal casual playthrough is a really good time, and people enjoy replaying that experience, then thats cool, but if the 100% experience is dampened a bit, then the completionists wont have as much enjoyment going through it again like the others. And I think thats a valid point, that lessening the more extraneous moons would help to make it a decently compact adventure that more completionists could fully enjoy along side the casual people, but I also think its worth noting that these criticisms hinge on the assumption that Odyssey was trying to be that type of game in the first place. I think the set up he created where 3D mario can only go one of the two styles he mentioned is untrue, and Odyssey went in a sensical coherent direction of being a 3D platformer you can play in small or long time frames (given the switches portability). So tldr, i dont agree with him, but I can see where his mind was going to come to this conclusion.
Having a high number of moons better fits our modern approach when it comes to Mario games. First, Achievers and Completionists are NOT the majority of Mario players. Speed runners will create challenges and compete no matter how many moons or stars there are to collect. The switch is not just a home console, it's also a portable console. For Nintendo, it made more sense into providing you with enough objectives in each world so that all player types would be mostly satisfied with their progress when compared to the time invested into this world. It's the almost the same idea as having a 70 stars requirement out of 120 to finish the game. But here they are asking for a higher count of moons not only to extend the duration of the adventure but also to increase the your feeling of progression and reduce the frustration of not finding anything. Also, when the number is much higher, the player is more likely to skip the 100% collection on each stages in favor of continuing the story. They can comeback at the end of the game and continue to gather missing moons at their own pace or until they don't wish to do it anymore. Are the completionists happy about the direction of this game? Probably not. But do they have a better and more modern approach for most player types? Yes they do. There is a reason why they went with More is MORE instead of Less is MORE here. It's not just useless padding. You see it that way because you are that type of player. One thing I've learn as a Game Designer myself is how the mentality of games has shifted many time in the past few years. Nintendo is trying new things right now. They want to find the balance between pleasing fans, pleasing all player types and selling their product to as many consumer as possible by putting out games with wide appeal. - English is not my first language, I hope I was clear enough. Thank you for the video, they are always interesting King K.
@@thinktempest7457 And another thing, and this goes for both of you. Try to be more concise when explaining a point. Nobody needs to be reading walls of text that are just filled with you reiterating the SAME point, oy gevaltz
@@thinktempest7457 You're hopeless to speak to. And whatever they did with Odysseus it worked. My favorite of the series will always be 64, but I won't write a wall of text about a new game that serves a different purpose
@@thinktempest7457 ooof I struck a nerve. You're allowed to think that, but it doesn't seem very logical. Partially illiterate isn't really a thing. Didn't mean to make you so angry, I'll be on my way.
Same. It's so sad they didn't do that even after there was a leak they'll do remakes but instead they just ported the same version of sunshine through emulation.
Do people not like bubblaine? That level grew on me and is probably my favorite to hangout in. If this is a vacation game its the best vacation spot with the best vibes.
Super Mario Odyssey is a great game. I am not a completionist so I did't feel like I had to get all the moons and play through all the levels again. I can see someone who is an completionist getting annoyed with collecting all the moons.
I’m a completionist and I loved Odyssey. I appreciated the moon rocks and the extra content that they provide. I think once you start thinking of getting each item, moon or achievement as a chore, you slowly stray away from what makes being a completionist enjoyable. I also love that you can play the game in so many different orders and combinations such as skipping all of the broodals and kingdom bosses (minus the ruined kingdom and mecha broodal boss). The possibilities are endless. But then again, my philosophy when playing these Mario games is to just pass time, unwind and relax. I always want to get the most possible playtime out of a game I paid $60 for.
Odyssey definitely shows its flaws on subsequent play-throughs and in the end game, especially in regards to the sheer amount of moons there are. In BOTW, there are 900 korok seeds spread across the map because you arent *meant* to find them all, they just need to be there so you can almost always find one to incentivize exploration and upgrading your inventory. In Odyssey, moons ARE the game and the main collectable. There's no reason for there to be 880 moons, especially when a moon like bench friends has the same value as going through a hellish platforming gauntlet. Or leading a sheep, carrying a seed across the map and waiting or just spending 100 coins. It's a chore and it feels like ticking off a list rather than getting a reward. Going through odyssey again feels like a slog because youre not replaying beloved levels or challenges again, youre doing just a bunch of remedial tasks that have lost their charm. It's a shame because Odyssey has the best movement and world design seen in a mario game, but it doesnt use it to its full potential at all.
Not to sound arrogant, but these flaws were very obvious to me on my first play through. It felt like they took Mario and “Animal Crossing” ized it. I get why casual players enjoy it, but its not very well designed, and it doesnt bring anything new to the table.
This sounds so wild to me, simply putting down the game before picking it back up again sounds like such an easy solution to this problem. The game isn't as enjoyable as a result of you feeling forced to 100% complete the game immediately as you pick it up, rather than just see the endgame as a fun extra for people who really love the game to collect.
The moons are just completion markers, though. The point of the game isn't to collect moons, the point of the game is to play the game. You should do the more involved moon challenges because they're fun, not because they give you a moon. It's like saying that the point of Super Mario Bros is to touch flagpoles. It's just a clear showing of a fundamental lack of understanding of the concept of intrinsic rewards.
He says he's never played the "course clear" Mario games (which is all of them except for 64, Sunshine, and maybe the Galaxy games) and is surprised that Oddyssey isn't entirely a collectathon.
What I understood from this video is that you value replayability in a game more than one long experience. As someone who completed Mario odyssey I can agree that some of the moons seem just kinda thrown in (moons bought at stores and the numerous picture puzzle moons at the end for example) I believe that odyssey was meant to be played as one big experience. There are different levels of completing the game as well (any%, true ending, and all 999 moons) and you can choose at what point you are done with collecting moons. The replayablilty for me came from the challenges such as Luigi’s balloon world and the koopa races. Just trying to master Mario’s movement can be a whole game in itself. But it all comes down to what you enjoy in a game.
@@urskn.7985 I think he shoved it in with the move set being improved. Granted, in the end I kinda just felt it was just a less restrained version of power ups. Think about it. The frog lets you jump just like the spring suit let you, the cheep cheep lets you swim just like the penguin suit or frog hood, etc.
@@Skylancer727 that's funny cause I found it a more restrained version of powerups. Do due the fact that hatted enemies can usually only do one thing while with the powerups, mario has an extra ability on him while keeping his.moveset.
@@CheeseNacho120 It depends on the powerup. We can divide them in restricted and unrestricted. The restricted ones are those that do not use Mario's normal moveset forcing you to a new set of rules, like the Frog or the Hopper. The unrestricted would be the ones that allow you to still play as Mario while adding something on it, like the Fire Mario or Ice Mario.
There's really nothing of note to say about them. It's one of its undercooked elements, given that the game never really elaborates into it. It's always this transformation for this setpiece of the area, and that's about it. The fact that all of them stop you from using Mario's normal moveset plays is a disservice to the game, since Mario's moveset is much more fleshedout than anything else and allows for the most experimentation and combinations.
My mind was blown once finishing the game and realizing there was a whole nother game worth of content to play. definitely one of my memorable gaming moments. I 100% the game.
Right but it's not a whole-nother game worth of content, its the same game's worth of content. Repeating the same tedious thing over again just isn't fun for me and a lot of people.
Here are just a few tiny things that I would hope would change for a sequel, that could make the experience better. I developed these ideas while watching the video, because I feel very similarly on a lot of the things that were brought up. 1) Moons need to be tiered Instead of having Power Moons and Multi-Moons, there need to be 3 or 4 different types of Moons. -Small moons for mundane, very simple tasks. These would be all the filler moons throughout the game, and like Blue Coins, would not equal a full moon. You'd need 5 or maybe even 10 different Small moons to make a normal Power Moon. -Normal Power Moons. These would be for basically any challenge on the overworld that takes at least some type of skill or time to complete. Puzzle Moons, platforming challenges, secrets, etc. -Grand Moons. Instead of Multi-Moons, have a larger, more decorative Moon that can be worth 3, or maybe even 5 moons. These would be rewarded for large-scale quests or boss fights. Having different types of Moons would make the tasks you complete more worthwhile. The reward you receive would be based on how much effort you have to put into it to get. 2) Repeated challenges need to get harder and more interesting. Throughout the game, there are many simple tasks that are repeated throughout different kingdoms. Following dogs, kicking rocks, chasing bunnies. However, they are all basically the same level of challenge throughout. I've come up with a few potential solutions, but I'll share my favorite. -The later the kingdom the challenge appears in, the harder the challenge is. The more obstacles there are to finish, the more challenging it is to complete, and the more satisfying it is to complete. For example, a rock kicking moon in Cascade Kingdom would be very simple, and include kicking a rock about 5 times. But then a rock kicking moon in the ruined kingdom could be a lot more difficult. The rock isn't cracked at all, and the only way to break it is to kick it across some beams that cross over a bottomless pit. You have to be very careful not to kick it off into the pit. It's just long enough to be challenging, but not long enough to become too frustrating. 3) The worlds need to be bigger or have more stuff in them, and there need to be less random sub-areas First of all, sub-areas should not be disconnected from the world. they should fit thematically, and preferably fit naturally. The upside-down pyramid is a good example. What if in Lake Lamode, instead of entering a sub area with the zipper challenge, there would be a secret outcove leading into another part of the kingdom, specifically for that challenge, or maybe a huge cave, where the zippers are part of some weird ancient zipper ruins or something. Speaking of kingdoms, they need to be bigger, or at least hold a lot more within them. The Kingdoms are filled with some fun challenges, but there isn't any meaningful way to get to them. I love the checkpoints that were added, but they take away the ability to make getting somewhere, challenging. It needs to be fun to get to places. Run around basically any kingdom besides Luncheon, and you can basically get anywhere you want by either capturing something, or just running towards it. There aren't any platforming challenges separating anything. The Sand Kingdom dabbled with this a little bit, but the few it had were easy, and there was no reason to ever use them again after you got the moons from the areas they led to. Just by adding more branching paths with different areas would make each kingdom so much more fun to navigate. I don't know how to fix the checkpoint issue, because I don't want to get rid of them. My problem with all the kingdoms is that they feel very small, or very empty. The Cascade Kingdom is pretty small and there isn't much to do, besides climb the mountain, and get all the moons in between. If there were branching paths, and more stuff to explore and find in more areas, separated by a natural platforming challenge, then the kindom would feel so much more complete. I'm rambling with this because I don't know how to properly explain the visions I can see within my mind, so I'll stop here. 4) No pointless kingdoms The Cloud and Ruined Kingdoms had so much potential, but they are literally just a boss arena. Yeah, crash landing in a strange place and fighting a boss is really hecking cool, but it would've been so much cooler to traverse the land to get there first. A mystical cloud kingdom filled with dangerous cloud platforming, so you can get to the top of a cloud mountain and fight Bowser would've been amazing. What if when you got close to the top, the music would change and he'd breath fireballs at you to dodge, culminating in the actual boss at the summit. And the Ruined Kingdom! AGHHHH. The Lord of Lightning was an actual threat. Imagine traversing the ruins of a once thriving town, as you said, filled with boos, and creepy enemies. The area could feel actually disturbing and grim, and it'd really drive home the point that you are only running through here to get the moons you need to fix the Odyssey. Heck, if the cloud and ruined kingdom were actually handled like this, then I'd actually want MORE kingdoms like that. 5) Upgrade the Odyssey I really liked the idea of having the Odyssey be much bigger, and act as its own sort of hub-world. What if moons were not just used to travel to other kingdoms, but to upgrade the Odyssey? And the more you put into it, the more space the Odyssey had, the more stuff it could hold, and there more there would be to do inside of it. On your first visit to the kingdoms, you already have to use SPECIFICALLY moons from that kingdom to move on to the next. After you colelct that many moons to travel to a new place, any other moons you have in that kingdom could be added to a collective amount that you could spend on the Odyssey. At the end of the game, different NPC's travel around the kingdom, but what if there were a lot more unique and special NPC's in every world, and every time you upgrade the Odyssey, there's room for another passenger or two to join you on your quest. It's something really small, but for those who want it, they can really make the Odyssey feel like an alive, amazing place to be. I have many more ideas, but I decided to focus only on ones that involved issues specifically brought up in this video. I have my own fair share of problems with the game that I want to be improved, ranging from a lack of unique characters and areas in each kingdom, a lack of familiar enemies and characters appearing throughout the game, Bowser's wedding, etc. Many people expect a 2020 or 2021 release of an Odyssey sequel, as do I. But if Nintendo were to take an extra year or 2, or maybe even 3 to fix these issues and really go all out with the game, I would be willing to wait.
I've seen many people criticizing the video, and K's views on the whole thing. The question that is posed by these opposing views comes down to this: do you like games that encourage total freedom and are packed full of things to do, even if they can be recycled and not challenging? Or would you rather a more concise experience with more challenging attributes and a greater amount of fresh ideas at the cost of it being a shorter experience? For myself, I find that games that have a greater focus on teaching skills and progressing those skills in a more linear fashion is simply more fun for me. I like to see most of what a game has to offer, but I like to do it in 40 hours or less (judging by my save files this is as long as I spend on a game at a time). When there's a whole bunch of stuff and none of that stuff is particularly challenging or considered, I lose interest. You may not, and that's fine. But consider this: if a game has more content, then how impactful is the moment to moment gameplay? Consider 1 moon from SMO v. 1 star from SM64: 1/999 is worth a lot less that 1/120, simple math. Sure, there are some great moons and some bad stars, but if I were to ask you about a specific one of either of these, chances are much higher that you would recognize the star before the moon, since there weren't a lot of nonspecific stars in the former compared to nonspecific moons in the latter. When you try to make something appeal to everyone, it can come off as mediocre since it doesn't have a specific voice or identity. To sum it up: I don't see the point in being consistently rewarded by a game for doing mundane tasks that I probably would have completed anyway; I want challenge, I want to learn rules and mechanics, I want to *play* a game. It's insulting that they would think that I couldn't be engaged without constant dopamine influx; whats the point of reward without struggle in between to make it worthwhile and meaningful? I've watched K's stuff for a long time, and without reading his mind I think what he is looking for in a game is an experience where new ideas are consistently presented, where the experience doesn't have to be short but where majority completion is manageable. To discount For all the people who say that "he just doesn't get it" or that "he missed the point": he didn't misunderstand it. He saw the point, he just didn't vibe, and he criticized it from his perspective with some perfectly valid points for why someone wouldn't like it. Truth doesn't come from mindless praise and echo chambers, it comes from debate and discussion.
@@crono3015 I do like both really linear games and really open games pretty equally, but the way Oddysey mixed those two really didn't resonate with me at all. It tried to get the best of both worlds but in the end both ideas came out half-baked and unsatisfying.
I really hate how modern game companies sacrifice replayability for a longer run time. So many retro games can be beaten in just a few hours, but the content within them makes their replayability skyrocket. Games like Metroid Zero Mission and Mega Man X excel at this, with the run-time being around 2-3 hours if you're skilled, but the game is so damn fun to play and the content is so meaningful it doesn't matter. You can replay the game, get better at it, and make it shorter and shorter. Every time you play it, you can have a different experience as well, whether by speedrunning it, performing a challenge run, or just playing it for the sake of enjoying it. Odyssey doesn't have much replay value to it because it strives for quantity over quality, and i think that's what's most disappointing about it. You pretty much hit the nail on the head here man.
I can see great (albeit imperfect) quality in Super Mario Odyssey, along with obviously a massive amount of quantity. I don't really think Odyssey suffers from a significant quality deficiency even if it's a little bit or somewhat confused about its identity. The reason why replayability in games like Toy Story 2 exist I believe has a lot to do with hardware limitations- the Switch is a lot more powerful than a N64 and thus you can make longer games. Super Mario Odyssey is a step in the right direction for greatness in video games, I just wish a lot of it wasn't so easy so as to cater to children or unskilled gamers, but that's just me I guess. I'm a longtime gamer and while I adore retro games (as well as newer ones) and my favorite game is actually a N64 game, I think you miiight be stuck in the past a little too much.
I don't want to imply Odyssey is devoid of quality. There's so much love in the game it's astounding, and saying i didn't love it would be a lie. I guess a better way to describe what i mean is that Odyssey lacks...meaningful challenges. As stated in the video, many of the moons are superfluous, and that makes a lot of them feel unnecessary. There's way too many, and it feels like moons were repeated across worlds for the sake of making the game longer and nothing else. I'm not trying to say there's no quality within Odyssey, but rather that the quality of many of the moons that take such a short time to grab wanes because there's just so many of them. Also, keep in mind i've only been playing Metroid Zero Mission and many older games for a year now at most. I'm very late to the retro gaming scene lol. Also yeah, i have no doubt speedrunning Odyssey is the way to go on repeat playthroughs. That method cuts out a lot of the more superflulous moons, but means that a lot of the game's content goes underutilized. As someone who usually always 100%-complete collectathons and Metroidvanias even on subsequent playthroughs, completing Odyssey to 100% just isn't worth it because many of the moons are too simple to find, and there's too many IMO. I can 100% Mario 64 with all of its problems with little grievance because a large majority of Power Stars are satisfying to collect, and while there's 120/150 of them, not many of them feel unnecessary. Whereas with Odyssey, many of the moons aren't satisfying to collect, and there's so goddamn many of them that it just drags after a while. My first playthrough ended with about 400+ moons in tow, and i feel like that's more than enough to get everything i can out of Odyssey.
I do think Odyssey is a really good game, but if we’re going to look at the two major Switch games, I think that Breath Of The Wild did a better job of shaking up the Zelda franchise than Odyssey did of shaking the Mario franchise.
I feel like the 'filler' challenge rooms still have a place in a game like Super Mario Odyssey, but I really feel like all 60+ rooms should have been neatly condensed into a single kingdom. And with all of them having the nonsensical disconnect that Sunshine's did, I feel Odyssey should have had a 4th outer-space kingdom dedicated to deep space, with dozens of floating platforms over nothingness to house all the entry pipes to the challenge rooms. I personally want more hard 3D Mario sprinkled throughout these progressively easier and easier adventures (especially now that the lives system has been eliminated). Maybe not difficult to the level of Galaxy 2's Grandmaster Galaxy or Odyssey's Long Journey's End, but at least to the level of difficulty found in Sunshine's secret courses. Most of Odyssey's "challenge" rooms aren't even challenging enough to overcome the lacking presentations.
The unfortunate thing about removing the boot out system is that instead of the “YOU DID IT!!!” of a star or sprite, you get the “You did it” of a moon.
Probably because most of the names are unwieldy and unmemorable. Most of the kingdoms are based off generic elements and concepts, which while the game does go to interesting places with those concepts, its still the desert stage, the water stage, the ocean stage, and the forest stage, so the generic kingdom names stick in you head more. Ignoring New Donk City, the only location name I remember is Steam Gardens, but even then that's only because I find the song to be amazing so I listen to it often. If it wasn't for the song I'd forget it as well.
I think the preponderance of moons is less to pad out an expected playtime and more because the game is on a hybrid console/handheld. You're accommodating both players who are sitting down for a long spell and people who are trying to accomplish something on a bus ride, so you wind up with both moons that feel difficult and satisfying to get and moons where you're... not doing that. While it's an admirable attempt at accommodating both types of player it ultimately neuters the experience for each in different ways-- on one hand the guy with a twenty-minute commute can get some moons but can't really experience the huge maps properly, while the person who dedicates a whole day to a play session can really appreciate the levels but winds up in that state of reward fatigue, where there are so many Power Moons you just start glossing over them.
This is a very fair retrospective. One of the biggest missed potentials is how the kingdoms could have actually been connected together as one big open world, or at least naturally connected. The captures are hardly used and I'm kinda shocked that there aren't any 2D captures. If anyone is wanting more details and explanation on Odyssey from Last Life, check out my ongoing series for a detailed analysis on every Power Moon in the game and what does and doesn't work.
Well to be fair. That's been an problem like that in 64 & Sunshine as well. At the very least, Odyssey had secrets levels where you feel like they had potential.
@@jjc4924 64 and Sunshine at least had great hub worlds. Odyssey doesn't have one. The capture system also opens up whole new potential transportation options. For instance, imagine capturing a blooper and then traveling across the cap kingdom ocean until the fog dissipates to reveal the cascade kingdom. Now you can also ride the blooper to different cascade islands. There's so much potential here.
Maybe. But honestly, I don't particularly see the problem with that. Yeah. Odyssey doesn't have hub worlds. Buy who cares? It's an brand new experience for an 3D Mario game after all. And the way the missions are handled are so much better & having better pacing than what 64 & especially Sunshine tries & fails to do.
The hub world is a minor point. The missed potential I mentioned is not a hub world but rather taking advantage of possible exploration and captures. There are a lot of kingdoms that could have been cut for the sake of something truly fleshed out. Odyssey improves at certain aspects and fails at others. Nintendo was taking Mario in a new type of collectathon direction that they've never dealt with before, so hopefully they learn from it.
I believe they added hint toad and talk-a-to for a reason. After the final boss, you can pick up the remaining moon rock moons from where they are marked on the map, and use hint toad/talk-a-to for the rest. The game provides players with many many options for gathering the remaining moons, and them being marked on the map streamlines completion without getting in the way of the enjoyment of a clean-sweep the first time through. Besides, even if you don't enjoy the 100% completion process, that doesn't necessarily equate to bad game design. The game provides players who might "want" to 100% with fast travel and hint systems, and it rewards 100% completion very nicely. If the game had fewer collectibles in favor of more substantial missions, the core appeal of the game (creative movement, freedom of direction, and spatial discovery) would be hindered. This is because Odyssey's many moons littered throughout the levels incentivize experiencing the game so that its biggest strengths shine. The coin grind was, admittedly, a little tedious in the base game, but I think Nintendo realized this because Luigi's Balloon World fixes the problem by offering a fun and endlessly replayable way of acquiring more coins. This makes buying out the shop and maxing out the moon count much more satisfying. Reception to Bowser's Fury has me a little nervous in regards to this game's future. While I adore Bowser's Fury and I think it's structured incredibly well, it lacks a lot of the "creative movement, freedom of direction, and spatial discovery" that I mentioned before about Odyssey. People saying Bowser's Fury is what Odyssey "should have been" do not give enough credit to Odyssey's world building and structure. I would adore both a full length game like Bowser's Fury and a sequel to Odyssey, but I don't want to perpetuate this idea that one design trumps another. Games can be different and don't need to be direct evolutions of each other. Ultimately, I just want my favorite Mario game, Super Mario Odyssey, to not fall victim to being misunderstood on a structural basis.
What is it about course-clear do you not like? For a person who does all kinds of retrospectives, not having played all the way through a single course clear Mario is fucking insane.
Wow this video is awesome. I watch the whole thing twice now and your point about dark souls is well taken. I’ve never thought about that before. I’m so taken aback right now by the sheer quality
I think the amount of moons in oddyssey is great, i love how much u can do to get them, and doing the same thing is different kingdoms like finding a bean sprout is fun bc it's a different area each time and u find so many new things doing it
I would still say the term retrospective means that literally years have to go by to warrant using the word. So I agree with you. And, Odyssey did just come out -- it's been fewer than two years. It's really too soon to analyze games/movies/shows like these.
This is still too soon for a retrospective tbh. At least wait until 1 or 2 games later so you can compare the game with the direction the series has gone since. Mario hasn't had a single new game since Odyssey, so you can't show what Nintendo thought worked and what they thought didn't.
The reason why you might be so confused as to why they would include the Sunshine style mini-levels is because those were a really well-received thing in Mario Sunshine, many even consider them proto-Galaxy style levels that were later expanded upon with the gravity mechanic in the Mario Galaxy games. Because before we had Mario Galaxy, it wasnt like there was this "collectathon vs course-clear" mentality that you describe when talking about 3D Mario, we just had 2D Mario and 3D Mario; collactathons just happened to be the flavor of the week in the late 90's and early 2000's likely do to the limited concepts and hardware limitations when it came to early 3D-platformers. Theres a reason why all the early 3D platformers were collectathons and its because that was the only design that was proven to work while also making use of a 3D immersive environment which was the main selling point of 3D games at the time. So I don't think they ever went into any of the 3D Mario games before 3D Land thinking about the game design strictly along the lines of "course clear vs collectathon", I think it was more-so a transition between meaty and time -consuming without care i.e. the boot-out system in 64 and Sunshine or an even broader comparison, the hours of grinding in early 90's JRPGs or the brutal difficulty of many NES games, to a more streamlined experience. This type of streamlining has only become more and more popular since the 90's, especially with Nintendo between roughly 2006 and the release of the Switch were making some really streamlined and less exploration-based games like Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword, the Galaxy games as well as every other 3D Mario iteration, Super Paper Mario, Metroid Prime (not that these games were bad but they were either more streamlined as shallower gameplay, less exploratory, more linear or a combination of the three). So i think they just sort of naturally transitioned from the 3D collectathon of the 90's brought on by Mario 64, then Sunshine started to add some more straight-forward platforming, then Galaxy was much more streamlined and platform oriented, Galaxy 2 was completely linear and then we had a bunch of 2D Mario games with New Super Mario Bros and very linear 3D titles with 3D Land/World until Mario Odyssey where, like with Zelda, Nintendo has started making more open-ended and exploration heavy games BUT they still hold true to the streamlined aspect. No boot-outs in Odyssey but the moons are less substantial and overall easier to get lending to less mandatory time needed for a single session of play which has been the trend in gaming since the mid 2000's. The same thing happened with Breath of the Wild, youre completely free to do whatever you want whenever you want but it results in numerous very short mini-dungeons and only 4 main dungeons that are a fraction of the content of the dungeons in prior titles. Once again this is lending to less mandatory time needed to see at least SOME progression in the game. So to address my main point, while YOU want to see them go all in with a fully immersive 3D exploration Mario game, I dont think they were ever trying to do that. I think the "exploration" in Mario 64 was actually a symptom of the 3D game design and not the concept behind the game itself. What I mean is the REAL starting concept behind the game was likely "well 3D is the future of games and we need to adapt our popular games to 3D, how do we do that with Mario? If we do the same exact thing we did with Super Mario brothers then whats the point of a 3D landscape?" and eventually they settled on basically making multuiple "course clears" in a level, resulting in collecting the stars thus making use of a 3D lanscape rather than funneling you down a linear path to the goal (which would have likely been the only other feasible option in '96). It's like the primitive work-around before you realize you can make games like Mario Galaxy, not to say that Galaxy is superior but i think its closer to what they originally had in mind in the 90's but didnt have the know-how or technology to properly implement. This is why you see the platforming sections in Sunshine, this was their first foray into Galaxy/3D World style gameplay before they knew how to properly implement those mechanics into a more immersive world, which I think they achieved in Galaxy which strikes a middle ground between straight-forward platforming and exploration. We see these mechanics implemeted here because Mario Odyssey is like a game-design-by-numbers game where they just threw everything in the game that they thought people wanted and made the theme "Odyssey" so they didnt have to worry about theming and could just throw everything and the kitchen sink into the game.
I will say that I really really enjoyed all the extra moons and the special rooms. If something, I miss some more moons. I got everything in a few months and I miss looking for secrets and moons. I have just no more reasons to keep playing. I want to play. But I have nothing more to do. And I really loved the final level. Honestly, I respect that every person has his/her own tastes but you complain a lot because the game isn't how it should be. But... it doesn't need to be as you have decided that it should be. Maybe it can be something else. Or even SOMETHING MORE. It has a variety of different challenges and situations, it has something good for all types of players. Some really difficult challenges for veterans, easy moons for newbies and children, open world levels, closed challenge rooms, simple platform challenges, visual puzzles, mechanical challenges ... And I don't understand why that should undermine the supposed goal of the game. Mario Odyssey is not what you wanted it to be. Honestly, it seems much better to me. Someone, in some moment, must have told you that you think too much. And it's true. That's not bad in TH-cam XD, great video.
Yeah, same. I really enjoyed thinking of each sub area as a "mini dungeon", especially since you knew aside from their own gimmick, each one was guaranteed to have a hidden moon somewhere inside of it too that was often more fun to get than just completing the room at all. I also 100%'d the game in the course of a month and each play session I had with it was at least several hours and I didn't get tired of it, so I'm not sure the game is only enjoyable in small bursts. It makes me kinda' sad, though, since Nintendo kept adding new stuff like sending the extra picture art scavenger hunts and stuff over the news network and adding new costumes and each time I was excited to go back into the game! ...Only to realize there wasn't really anything left for me to do. I've even already got every medal possible on Balloon Hunt, bought all the later added costumes, capped the moon count to 999, and gotten every moon in the extra VR mode they added - I'd say I've 110%'d the game at this point and I *still* wish there was more. Also kinda' wished he'd touched on Balloon Hunt in the video because it's frankly an absolutely genius way to handle both asynchronous multiplayer and multiplayer in a collect-a-thon platformer in general, as well as a perfect example of adding hours of extra replayability to your game at a minimal effort/cost yet not being insulting about it. It's also hard to overstate just *how good* the game's finale is. If you're not interested in 100%ing the game beyond the main story, it's perfectly fulfilling leaving it at that.
Idk odyssey has a bunch of ideas it doesn't really do much with and alot of moons that are just there. Sure it's fun to jump and around and see the cool stuff the game can do, but it doesn't really require much of you to use them. Which I think is the biggest issue. Cool stuff with no substance to it.
Fantastic video! Goes well with Joseph Anderson's massive video but adds a new perspective on the 'why' as opposed to what problems there were. Great work
I strongly disagree with a lot of what you said in this video, but I totally get where you are coming from. For me, almost every single moon was a complete joy to collect, so I didn’t mind how bloated it was. The sheer act of running and jumping was so inherently fun that I didn’t mind things like the moon rocks that essentially made you replay the game twice. I also that that the platform challenges, while out of place, offered a nice change of pace. I could do without some repeated moons such as the nuts or remixed bosses as you mentioned, but overall finding everything was super fun. It should be mentioned that when I 100%ed this game, it was over the course of several months where I would pick it up and put it down. I don’t think I’ll do that again, but I’ll definitely be any%ing this thing (or going to darker side) over and over. This is my favorite Mario game currently because it’s the first time since Galaxy that it has given me an emotional response. Mario games are at their best when they do that. Odyssey made me cheer, Galaxy made me awestruck, etc. Anyway, I love your videos because you aren’t afraid to speak your mind even if it may be unpopular, and you are respectful to those that disagree. :)
This sounds like you enjoyed it despite its padding, and not because of it. Yeah, if you focus on the movement, which is honestly amazing, you can have fun. But that doesn't make the sheer amount of filler the game has to go away, which is the problem people have. I'd also argue that it would be better if overworld moons didn't give you the "You got a moon" animation because it stops completely any flow of movement you may have had, which given your position I'd assume should bother you in some capacity. Overall it's not a bad game and has the best movement out of any other Mario, but it has objective flaws that people cannot ignore.
Vlad Dascaliuc I can’t really say for sure if I enjoyed it despite or because of its padding, but I’m leaning towards the latter. I don’t normally replay games too often, so I had a reason to keep on going through this one playthrough of Odyssey because of its many moons. I agree that a couple could be cut out (such as tracing a line for the third time), but most of them had value to me. As for the moon animation stopping the movement, I’m fine with that. It gives a temporary break from all the running and jumping going on to catch your breath in a way. Moons are plentiful, but they’re not so plentiful that I’m constantly stopping. Also, I hesitate to consider any flaws as “objective” because video games are art and art can’t really be objective in quality.
as an adult, yes this game is extremely padded and wasnt as rewarding at some point. If I had this when I was 5-12, I wouldve had a blast playing this considering I didnt get to buy games that often, they needed to last so the endless moons wouldve entertained me. I remember how many hours I put into simpsons hit & run just crashing cars over and over.
20:10 I feel like this particular challenge room (and probably a lot of others too) could have been improved greatly by small stylistic changes. For example, imagine this one was accessed from the luncheon kingdom, and instead of random shapes, you are jumping across pieces of food on a skewer. The platforming challenge would be essentially the same, but this slight aesthetic difference would keep the player immersed, and it could even be quite a memorable moment for people. A lot of the other challenge rooms suffered from the same sort of problem, and despite being decent platforming challenges, there is really nothing memorable about them. Its such a shame they didnt decide to go the extra mile, because even just changing some of the textures would have made a world of difference.
I 100 percented odyssey in a few days when it came out, and haven’t had any desire to return to the game since. Not that I didn’t love it, but it just didn’t make for an easily replayable experience for me. I’d sooner revisit Sunshine or Galaxy. It really needed to have a hub world, or just something to give it more identity. In that way, it feels more like 3D World than any other 3D Mario game
@paula "Garbage" is a harsh word, dude. You truly think the game is worth nothing? I hate the "5 stars or no stars" mentality that so many people carry.
@Sebastian Cruz Rivera The camera itself isn't bad. It's just that me and probably a lot of people have a problem with the galaxy games where when you're circling around a small planet and the camera moves when you start going under it just makes me feel a weird distorted feeling? It's kinda hard to explain but the way the controls and camera feels when running around the small planets just feels really awkward.
That's why Mario Galaxy is my favorite Mario game. It's not a collectathon, but it's paving is awesome, and every star is it's own unique adventure, more to the point
Personally I found Odyssey to become my favorite Mario collectathon, I love both Mario 64 and sunshine, but the way Mario moves, the platforming, the creative creatures and their move sets, the fun bosses and I honestly love the fact that it gives you harder courses after you beat the game. My favorite memory in odyssey is overcoming the Darker Side of The Moon, it felt like forever to finally beat it but it was so rewarding. I got a lot of good memories out of this game and it brought back the feeling I once had with Mario 64 as a kid, and I love that about this game. I see your points and I understand where you are coming from, but I suppose everyone has different experiences with games!
I don't think the amount of moons to collect is a product of padding. To me it feels more like an easy way out for casual gamers to get to the required amounts to advance to the next kingdom.
AndresLionheart I was really daunted by the like 18 moons in seaside, but it took around the same amount of time to complete as the rest of them, because the moons were a bit easy. I definitely agree with you.
It's not like Sunshine where the game wanted you to get the Shine Sprites on every single courses and episodes 1-7 to get to the final level instead of just getting the amount of it. That's padding.
Great stuff as always, I think I agree with everything you said. I love the core controls and a lot of the "main" content for Odyssey, and just how free it can feel, but the sheer amount of boring Moons makes the game a bit lacking, especially after I already got 100% on my first run.
Vlad. Well, for an open ended exploration, it's the best one in my honest opinion. U don't get kick out of the level after completing the missions, the missions; while maybe simple, aren't as tedious as 64 & especially Sunshine has, there's more exploration that u can travel own and while the overbundents of Power Moons are somewhat overkilled; it's not very mandatory, you only need to collect this amount of Power Moons to reach for another kingdom and there optional. Even though I respected 64 & Sunshine for having it's own standard of an 3D sandbox games, it doesn't hold up that well. With Odyssey; while I'm saying the game is perfect, does it better than those 2.
I collected every moon possible on my first visit to every kingdom, beat the game to the fullest at that point, unlocked the post game moons and did it all again. 999 moons I had a blast. I think I didn't mind how mundane some moons could be, I just enjoyed the games controls and kingdoms so much I just wanted to have a reason to move through them and thats what made the game so much fun for me. The games biggest strength is its controls, it just feels so damn good, unlike any other platformer I've played.
I fundamentally disagree with nearly everything you said, this is my favorite game of all time and I think it knows exactly what it wants to be. The goal of this game is making the act of going anywhere feel amazing and rewarding, and I feel that the incredible movement system and terrific world design make it succeed at that goal. That said, I like this video a lot and you do a good job of talking about your perspective, you’re great at articulating your points in a fair way even though i’ll never totally understand your opinion. Greta video
Another brilliant vid, thank you! Gotta say, I love the void levels for a couple of reason though: 1. The atmosphere of them. They're so weird! I love the feeling that in this tangible world Mario inhabits, there are these bizzare alternate dimensions just sitting out there. I know it's strange but I sometimes get an almost cosmic horror vibe from the impossibility of these places just hanging out in infinite space. 2. They allow for the application of game ideas and the extension of concepts that would otherwise perhaps be constrained by the need to have a sense of place in the larger world. From the perspective of designers it must be a lovely way to express the 'what ifs' of level design without breaking the solid feel of the main worlds. I feel like void levels have a place in these Mario games and I'd personally miss them terribly if they weren't there.
I would be curious to see a retrospective on A Hat in Time from you. I feel like that game is missing some of the problems you have with Odyssey, but it also has some of the same problems as this and other 3d Mario games.
I dono if you read comments 3 years later, but I got to experience this retrospective and I can say I partially agree. Mario Odyssey is nearly the best game I ever played. Nearly. To put it in a neat bow, the problems I have is the fact its a bit.. exhausting to play. Cloud and Ruin Kingdom's missed potential also kind of hurts a tiny bit, but I can not ignore the fact Mario Odyssey is still a fun lovely game to play. It reminds me of how games NOW can be modded. Because of this, I was able to replay games for a 4th-5th time with new insight and of course a fresh set of memory-defying systems. It didn't play the same thus it had a renewed level of interest. Lets give an example... I got to replay Super Mario Sunshine, with Sunshine being MODDED with levels edited with warps and the removal of the boot out system. Because of how immersive Sunshine was, the mod creator simply added level warps that lead to the background levels you always where able see. Finally, every level was combined as your Sunshine retrospective suggested. Bianco Hills has both Petey and the First Shine in one. While some levels could not always be 100% combined, it was still possible to complete shines out of order. For example, both Petey wasnt going to be combined, if you wanted to do the rematch, you did have to choose the specific shine, but any blue-coins or shines that didn't HAVE to be mission specific, was able to collected in any mission now. I had a thought of you going back, replaying sunshine with that mod to find out if your criticisms actually held any weight to yourself. The mod was called Super Mario Sunburn. It made me think what Odyssey could of done to the games SYSTEMS like sunburn did. Sunburn merely tweaked systems, rather than add outright new ones (aside from a few custom levels), but I cant see Odyssey really being modified to a degree that can improve upon it systems. If Mario Odyssey is running like an engine, you are asking for it to be a perfectly smooth 100%, but in actuality it occasionally drops down in RPM from 100% to 86% from time to time before ramping back up to being a clean smooth ride. Simply put, I don't think odyssey can be objectively improved with just a slight tweak of any system like what sunburn did. You cant just DISABLE boot-out or add in new warps to facilitate being able to collect more at once and strengthen exploration. Taking away, or maybe adding content might destroy the almost-perfect one-size-fits-all game system Odyssey has going. Sure there are some complaints. but its hard to not recognize as one being a little overly picky. That's why I suggest giving Mario Sunburn a try, its a first time opportunity to find out if your opinions actually hold value in making the game better, or maybe it might give you more insight to why a game may-or-may not be designed in a certain way. It would remind me a little bit about your "Learning to love" series where you attempt to go back and try to find enjoyments in games that had more of a rough time finding love due to for what ever reason. But Mario Sunburn implements many of your criticisms, the no boot-out for one. Does it ACTUALLY work in bettering the experience? Does the QoL changes improve or somehow hamper the game as a whole.
I just started the game a few months ago, put it away for a while, and then resumed in earnest. I remember at times being kind of bored, but when the game hits, it really hits. In regard to your comment about how a Mario game should know what it wants to be and stick to it (you said it better than my paraphrase), I think we should just accept at this point that major Mario titles are going to dabble in a large variety of various gameplay mechanics and styles, with different objectives for different sub-missions. I don't enjoy the tracing games and things like that, but I imagine that someone (probably a kid) does. I was surprised, both pleasantly and unpleasantly, how much content was reserved or the end game. It's kind of neat at how the game itself is pretty easy for new gamers, but the more you want to accomplish the harder it gets. In short, I think the game is better for having a lot of good things at the cost of a few things I don't like, because it means it's more likely that there's some aspect of the game that will appeal to somebody. It's an inelegant shotgun approach, but it has good stuff to offer and that's probably plenty good enough for me.
The platforming and the collecting should've been seamlessly sown together. Instead, Odyssey feels the need to completely split these apart, really dampening the flow of the game. Hopefully they can fix this in the next game. Great video.
Have to strongly agree on a few points in particular here. The moons being so widely available does really diminish them, especially when there are so many repeats. Many of them ought to have been replaced with a more optional, side collectible. Blocking off so many moons to the postgame sucks, too. I'd expect most people would do backtracking, obviously, but fully exploring a world they've already fully explored before? (After all, most people would have fully explored at least ONE world along the way.) This would be more forgivable in 64 or Sunshine because at least their objective select system would show you what was just added. In Odyssey... this should have been new worlds or greatly fleshing out those emptier worlds (like tripling the size of the starter world by opening up a gate somewhere or something). Also, having the Odyssey be a giant customizable hub would have been a very easy way to "pad out" runtime in a far more engaging way. This is what that other collectible should have been to replace many of the moons - ship parts. Add/open up new wings to the ship with enough parts. Let the little hatship be a detachible away vessel that lets Mario land on worlds to preserve that functionality. And, of course, the parts/purple coin unlocks allow you to set up the ship in world-themed customization. You could make a beachlike ship, or a wintry one, for example.
Dang. I remember when I first played this game when it came out. It felt good, but it just felt... Odd? I couldn't place it for a very long time. But you've finally put it into words
I've been coming back to Odyssey ever since it's release trying to 100% it, getting bored after 10-20 moons each time. This video reminded me about how incredible the main game is, and I'm just going to restart. The issue with "too much content" can only be an issue if you force yourself through it.
The challenge rooms are meant for the people that like the platforming. That is what is supposed to be fun about those. The average person isn't going to care if a challenge room doesn't have a correlating theme with the level it is in. But i can get and respect the point your trying to make. It's just that most people playing are playing for the fun platforming rather than exploraton (at least that's why i play Odyssey). I feel like Nintendo leaves their exploration expertise for their other titles like Breath of the Wild.
And the challenge rooms are completely optional unless you're going for 100% completion, such a weird thing to complain about. "This platformer isn't that great because it has platforming in it." Ok.
Id have to say this is one retrospective ive just fundamentally disagreed with but like always I love hearing your thoughts. I thought the moon count was strictly satisfying and I loved the familiar content between levels which helped me know where and how to explore. Like in BOTW I think the method is all to encourage exploration and that exploration is part of the platforming experience. The hard stuff like the hidden coins are the real reward imo whereas the moons are more accessible for more people to satisfyingly complete. Though to get 999 moons you need to have that knack for exploration. The game is allowing everyone entry to these mechanics at any point in game at any level.
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So what you’re telling me is that Toy Story 2 is the best Mario game?
Batman Arkham Asylum is the best Mario game.
Yes
@@KingKlonoa I'm curious: despite all your criticism, would you say you love odyssey or 64 more than let's say, Echoes, where you were much more positive?
Man, I just got a great nostalgia hit with that Toy Story 2 talk. What a great game
It is a really good game.
To the point you made about the amount of content, I found it so strange how much "content" was unlocked by getting to the endgame. I think that the copious amount of moons helped with game feel early on; everywhere you went there was something to get (although getting the same reward for ground pounding a clump of dirt and completing a challenging platforming section devalued moons a bit). Knowing rewards were every where made it fun to explore every inch of each course, but by the time the endgame comes around, I had already explored each map extensively, so I had little interest in doing it again.
I feel like including a lot of the endgame moons right away would have easily solved the problem. Even though it feels random and unconnected to enter a door just to enter some random space and do a platforming challenge, I liked them for giving some variation from the collectathon gameplay, even though there was some platforming involved here and there and while I enjoyed it, it lacked the precision of a standard platforming challenge. As KingK already mentioned, the endgame platforming challenges are more challenging and therefore much more fun. I enjoyed some of the endgame for that reason. I do admit that a lot of the other endgame moons as well as a lot of the moons from the initial playthrough are a little unnecessary, but scrapping the entire endgame challenges as a whole like KingK suggested feels like way too much.
It's not even exploring for a lot of them honestly. For the postgame moons. Because they're all marked out and some of them are just lying in the open or a ground-pound spot. That's not exploration, and your movement is so overpowered relative to everything the game offers, that the game isn't really inviting you to figure out cryptic ways on to certain ledges or such and creating platforming out of it.
This was one of my biggest problem's with Odyssey in general. To the point near the end I would start gunning for the story beat mission because most of the moons in the world were locked behind the story gate. I want to collect everything I can when I get to a world and almost all of it isn't there.
So it's not just playing the game twice, to me the game asked me to play the whole thing three times over.
That's exactly the problem. I had extensively traversed all the worlds, then beat the boss, just to learn I have to go back and find everything again. That just hurts. It would have been nicer if the new ones were different in some way or harder to get but there were more just ones that just weren't used yet and nothing else. Would have been nice if less grand achievements gave the purple coins or something else for doing them, but moons every time makes them feel so worthless. Why did I just do that platforming challenge when I could have just done bench buddies or just beat my old time on the RC track? There needs to be some reason for the reward otherwise it's more, "have I been here before?"
The extra moons did not incentivize us to explore the levels more thoroughly and that's one of the main problems with them.
I like the challenge rooms, a break in pace isnt always a 100% bad thing like you stress. It's good to mix it up and have a short breather from open exploration.
I wish they were harder (not to the extent of Long Journey's End) and that all the post-game ones were all concentrated into one kingdom after Darker Side instead of scattered throughout every single kingdom in the game.
Same, I really dont understand the gripe with them. They even do use some exploration as well
IMO Odyssey should have not used coin expense or gain in balloon world, made coins more valuable and expendable as a necessity if wanting to enter challenge rooms -and some other off the beaten path rooms. It feels like raw coins are everywhere and are useless just like power moons. Only satisfying collectable becomes world-based unique coins(always purple? can't remember) which only gives you some unexciting visual trinkets. It feels like there is no reward for doing anything in Odyssey but pretends like Power Moons are valued by the player. There is no carrot on the stick lol.
dddmemaybe I see what you’re saying but in my opinion, the game is fun enough that I don’t really need any gratifying reward. Odyssey is definitely a “journey matters more than the destination” game
@TurboPikachuX
They could've been put into Peache's castle which would have made that kingdom far more substantial
When you started mentioning the "Filler moons", I thought about the power plant in New Donk City. You see THOUSANDS of moons being used for nothing more than powering a city, and that's when it hit me. The game doesn't put moons as these POWER MCGUFFINS that are needed to save the world. Theyre needed to power your ship. In the world of Odyssey, Power Moons are just a power source, that's why you can just get them for literally anything, including buying them at the store. They're massively important to YOU, but to the world theyre just a battery pack. It's why someone who has an RC Car course would hold it back from you, and it wouldnt be weird, compared to Shines being held from you by inhabitants of Delfino Island. The shines are needed for their island to thrive, why would some dude in a cave hold them from you just for a time trial? Odyssey never tells you the moons are super important to the world, it basically tells you that they're just there, and you need them more than other people. But that's just my two cents.
That makes so much sense.
That also raises a couple of eye brows for me atleast.
They're treated as so worthless even though the game directly stated they're the same as Power Stars, objects with ungodly power. With how many power moons are in New Donk, any mentally unstable person would just be able to destroy it in its entirety in a couple hours at most.
Doesn't change the fact it is overwhelming in a gameplay level
well in 64 the POWER stars (moons) are used to open the doors. period. and since they are considered the same, it is the same principle. good catch !
Basically they're fancy coins
16:49 weakling. Real gamers just groundpounded all the way to the bottom
agreed. KingK is a fake gamergurl
I actually did this my first time not realizing I could just bring a cheep cheep.
That’s what I did the first time
Yep, did that on my first playthrough, felt like a dumbass on my second.
@@GravitarLord Same
As someone who loves course clear Mario and 3D sandbox Mario, I loved having platforming worlds sprinkled throughout as well as the final level. I also loved the sheer number of moons just because I enjoy running around the worlds so much and was happy to go back to them and run around. Can definitely understand the opposite opinion though.
It’s not *just* that there are too many moons and that some of them are lame af. It’s that there are too many moons, they are lame af, and you need to do the same boring task over and over again. Let me ask you, did you think getting a moon for playing a music track was fun? How about doing that 6 times. Following a dog around? Better get use to it because you are gonna do it several times.
I think Odyssey was a game that was amazing in concept but they development team got overwhelmed. I think Nintendo needed to get this game out and they just copy/pasted a LOT of moons. If you play Mario games to be challenged, you cannot acquire enough moons to beat the game. Even with the freebies (e.g. moons just sitting out in the open), you still will be shy of 500 moons. You are basically forced to follow dogs, deliver seeds, pound random spots on the ground.
i think Nintendo nailed the perfect sandbox Mario game with Bowser’s Fury. I’m not sure how Odyssey fans felt about that game but if we are gonna be stuck with sandbox Mario for awhile, I really, really hope they don’t do Odyssey part 2.
0:00 Introduction
1:13 Formal Cinematic
1:36 Restating Previous Episodes Points
3:05 The Boot Out System is Gone in Super Mario Odyssey 8:40, 37:00 It Experimented
4:37 Unfamiliar places, Strange New Lands
5:43 And you enjoy it all without having to have to leave the land
6:32 Purple Coins
7:10 Big World Size
9:05 Expanded Moveset
11:42 Hooray
12:13 BUT.....
- The Power Moons don't feel as important a collectable as Power Stars or Shine Sprites
14:00 - Repetition is not good in this situation
17:44 - Reliance on *Challenge Rooms*
19:45 Decent Platforms, but simplistic and somewhat forgetable
23:55 Struggles _Without_ the Boot Out System
24:48 Moon Rocks, Playing The Game Over Again, (Like The Green Stars of Galaxy)
30:54 Super Mario Odyssey does _Not_ Have A Hub World
33:00 The Cloud Kingdom
33:47 The Ruined Kingdom
34:50 Buzz LightYear: Toy Story 2
36:20 So Fun
37:00 It Experimented
37:36 Odyssey doesn't understand what it wants to be
39:44 The End
Thak you
Heavy Machine gun?
This is fantastic. Thank you.
Night City / DemaGraphix It experimented in story, settings, and *aspects* of gameplay well. It severely failed on many of its experimentations in other major aspects of gameplay.
Overall, this paints a hopeful future for Mario, but one that needs to learn from its mistakes.
@@DemaGraphexTube "True. At least it did what it wanted to do...to have fun with its ideas." What does this mean, exactly?
"themes inspired by actual weather and real locations is a bad thing" I have never understood this argument.
It depends on what the game is trying to do. Mario is obviously a series that has believable but nonsensical world and settings. Having designs that are more realistic and grounded isn't necessarily a bad thing, it's just inconsistent with Mario. One might also call it uninspired and uncreative, I'm not going to do that because I consider myself extremely uncreative so don't have the means to pass judgment.
But for example: I think New Donk City is a good fusion. It looks like a realistic city on the surface. But it's on a floating bowl, and has some truly vibrant visuals to make it feel more surreal. If it looked like Chicago, it would have been gray and white. But there's a lot of yellows, greens, reds, and a bunch of other colors.
@@jacobmonks3722 And they through in a lot of original Donkey Kong references making it feel like the same world.
A common thing in the old Super Mario Brothers Super Show (I know weird thing to bring up) was that Mario came from Brooklyn (not sure why specifically there) and came to the Mushroom Kingdom through a secret warp pipe while doing his job as a plumber... whereas here with New Donk City, you could easily see Mario being a legit plumber working there without it feeling like some completely different realm or something.
Its not bad, I just wouldn't encourage metaphoric game design over idiomatic design. You can marry these ideas and get great results (see Breath of the Wild's glider and wind mechanics) or not so great results (also see BoTW's climbing in the rain mechanics).
Me neither, terrible take. Stylized versions of real life locations are some of the best themes in gaming. Look at Vice City, for instance.
@@jacobmonks3722and what’s stopping them from taking a creative front and changing it up for once? If you don’t like it there are plenty of other Mario games available, but if I’m being honest it’s quite nice the way they built it in to the levels it was present in
Really good insight and opinions! However I can’t say that any of the problems you highlighted hampered my experience with the game as much as it did to you. Maybe it’s just the natural tone of your voice but it sounds like any game’s issues really get to you easily. Also, the boot out system has never lessened my enjoyment of Super Mario 64 but hey, to each his own. Great video!
The boot out system is trash
I love the boot out system especially as a kid since I was ass at a level it would take me a good 20 minutes to get a star so when it boots me out I'm eager to go into another room rather than just stay in the level
@@TheInferno0099 Yeah, call me crazy but I honestly feel like I preferred the boot out system.
I find it hilarious because I could play this game for hours and not get bored. I just love exploring Odyssey and finding moons. They never felt like filler moons and padding It just made me explore the world more.
same
In my case,i got bored on sand kingdom by trying to get all the moons,but despite that,i wasnt bored at all,in any other kingdom.
"Are you ready to basically play the game a second time?" YES! That's why it's in the postgame! It's there for people who really enjoyed the main game and just want more of that!
I feel like a lot of your criticisms of this game and the series in general is from the perspective of someone who is trying to finish it 100%, whereas it's really designed for people to play as much of it as they like and stop when it gets boring. I personally finished this game 100% including all of Toadette's achievements and I never felt bored, but that's far above and beyond what most people will get out of it.
I enjoyed going back to every world and doing the same challenges but slightly harder. In fact by the time I finished all the achievements I was still left wanting more.
Yeah, I was a little confused by the criticism thinking “well, it’s the post game, what do you expect? You expect them to create an entire new game in the post game?” No, in a post game, you expect them to add content to the previous levels, and if you don’t want to do it, it’s fine, you already beat the game. I’m not much of a completionist, I usually beat the mani game and dabble a bit in the post game. So, I think Mario Odyssey is pretty much a flawless game. I think it’s the best Mario game of all time
@Brent Wolgamott I got 150 hours of content out of it. I would say that's pretty good
@@julianbell9161 That was half of the criticism. His full point is not that there's more game to play, and that's bad. It was that there's more game to play, but they just took all of the asinine, done in two seconds' content and sprinkled it around the map.
It would be like getting told you're having a five course meal, but only two of the courses are actually substantial. The other three are just a plate of potato chips. While some people will be fine just eating junk food there will be other people pointing out that something is off.
@@chillchinna4164 yeah exactly, i probably myself wouldnt be annoyed too much with it in the end, but i can see why that is kinda a problem
You like cracking rocks so much you'd do it again?
"Nintendo is dedicated to designing around a hardware philosophy now" Where you been? What do you think SM64 was? They've done that ever since.
Yeah, Mario Galaxy's spin jump is based off of the Wii motion controls. There have been mechanics made around the hardware the game is on since the N64.
@@samt3412 Super Mario sunshine as well with it's press sensitive buttons. For example if you light hold down R bumper you could run and spray water
@@risingrevolt Analog triggers, that's all that fludd was.
They've been doing it since Super Mario World on the SNES
@@adrianpadin1840 They've been doing it since Super Mario Bros. on NES.
As much as I agree with everything you say, I completely understand why odyssey was designed The way it is. It was designed with the switch and its audience in mind, with a ton of short, varied content that appeals to a wide range of people. While it’s not the best collectathon, it is an enjoyable game for the majority of people.
But IGN said it was perfect 10/10!
@@sneed915
Video Game Dunkey
@@sneed915 I'm pretty sure IGN takes a guess on how much the majority will like the game rather than actually reviewing. When it doesn't work(tropical freeze...)they look god damn stupid. But that's the case for almost any game journalist.
Not exactly varied when so much crap is just recycled
Like what, 18 moons to just throwing seeds into pots?
@@user-fy1nq3nf1q ah yes, and every single seed moon has the seed in the same location and the pot in the same location. no, it obviously doesn't. it may be a recycled idea but every time there is a new way of using said idea. and if you didnt like that type of moon, no one was forcing you to get it. there are 880 unique power moons in the game and only 124~ are required to complete it, 500 for the final level. No one is forcing you to get every single power moon, so if there are moons you don't like, you can completely skip them.
Your retrospective feels like the quintessential, "you can't please everyone."
They had to choose: either a pure sand-box collect-a-thon or a pure course clear game. They tried to accomplish both and both sides came out half-baked.
Some games nail the balance of linear and open level design (favourite example being Spyro 3) but it's hard to do right. I'll give Super Mario Odyssey a full playthrough soon to see how I'll feel.
@@roiitzkovich4545 Mario odyssey was perfect.
@@lovesgibson For imbaceles
Roi Itzkovich Imbeciles. But I’m SURE you did that on purpose
I don't usually go out of my way to comment on a video, but something you mentioned in your video kind of hit home for me.
You said (or basically said), "What we end up with is a game that is only enjoyable in very, very short bursts." I don't disagree with this statement, but I'd like to point out that there are people, like me, that have so far enjoyed 100% of their playthrough of the game. I beat the game solo and didn't go past surface Mushroom Kingdom content before putting it down, and then I went back and played it again, 100%-ing it with my girlfriend watching and helping deciding what I do. I can tell you, with certainty, that the combination of those two playthroughs has been the most fun I've had on the Switch. Maybe it's the kind of gamer I am, maybe it's the type of games I like, I'm not sure.
Not saying everyone should feel how I do, by any means. Just trying to reflect a different light on the opinion of someone who I highly respect.
In any case, thank you KingK. I really appreciate your reviews and retrospectives, and I really hope you don't stop.
Phenox1707
I agree completely with him tbh. I couldn't play Oddysey for more than an hour at a time. It just became a chore. Unlike with BotW which I'd play for 5 hours without realising. I need to go back and do the new game+ moon rock challenge rooms. I've done a few of them. But I'm just so burnt out with it. I actually did two play through but the second playthrough I began from the beginning, I overwrote my initial save, because doing the game the first time round is a lot better than going back to all the kingdoms just for the challenge rooms. I agree with him that all the challenge rooms should have been in one kingdom. The mushroom kingdom could have been set uo like mario 64 with the same number of paintings in the castle, but no you have to travel on the Oddysey back to each previous kingdom and tediously go through finding all the challenge rooms.
It's a good game, great even, but it is flawed. It's hard to put into words why, but KingK has managed to do it, I agree with pretty much all he's said about it in this video.
@@duffman18 comparing Odyssey to BOTW is like apples vs. oranges to me. Of course with BOTW you can play for hours and hours; it's open world and there is endless exploring. Whereas Mario is much more linear and level based. I agree that I can't play Odyssey for more than an hour, but I don't know how that could be fixed, given the nature of Mario games.
This should really be pinned
@@panicstation7 "hours and hours" It's only took me 2 to sell. Odyssey post game was weak no doubt but the main part was still stellar. The game manages exploration much better than BOTW.
A little detail I love about Odyssey is that every Kingdom's moons have their own color
Mario: *sneezes*
Game: *bud a Bu-da a bu bump! Pah!*
Callum Booth thanks didn’t know what it ment
deedle deh dee de-de- dee - PAH!
You Got a Moon
Gesundheit
**whistle**
SM64 has way too many stars that are like moons so why do you guys hat on odyssey for it.
So can we all just be real here and adknowlage how flipping great the end of this game was?
How
You ever run into something you expected would brighten up your day? Well, I didn’t see this coming, but - perfect timing.
Okay, I'm seeing a lot of agreement on this page, so I'm probably on my own here, but I have a few issues with your assessment of this game. Apologies, this is going to be a long comment.
Early on in this video, you stated that you may have been overly critical of Super Mario 3d World because it was something you didn't want it to be. I believe that you're acting the same toward this game. The easiest example of this, in my opinion, was your examination of the challenge levels. You argued that these levels hurt the game's identity as a whole due to their abundance and immersion-breaking. As I'm 16 years old right now, and have grown up with the linear Galaxy games, I thought of them as appeals to those who prefer the linear games. In general, to me at least, it worked. None of them were as good as normal linear levels, but it felt good that we (the ones who grew up with the linear games) weren't being left in the dust, like the open-world fans were for so long. To me, the game blended the genres well, while still showing which genre it was meant to primarily represent, I never felt I didn't know what the game was trying to be.
Another example is the moon rocks. You were very critical of these, it was clear you detested going through the same challenges. I never did. I know the argument I'm about to put up has a clear flaw, but I'm going to counterpoint that later, so bear with me. Imagine that all these moons were there at the same time, right when you entered the world. It would be overwhelming, and confusing that some moons were just harder versions of other moons. It made sense to split them between newcomers and more experienced players. Now, I assume I know what you're thinking, why not just get rid of them entirely? Well, because I wanted more of the game. Without these, the game would be stupidly easy, 3d land level easy. It rarely felt like padding to me, although I will admit it did feel that way sometimes. As much as it would have been cool to have entirely new, non-remixed challenges and to have all the linear segments perfectly blended into the world they resided within, I was perfectly satisfied with what they gave me.
I think my main issue with your review, and reviews in general is that you do not claim specific things to be issues to you specifically, but issues to everyone, whether or not they realize it. The Mushroom Kingdom is disappointing to everyone. Toadette was a nuisance to everyone. Hint art (the moon kingdom's) was annoying to everyone. Well, I can firmly say that I loved the Mushroom Kingdom, Toadette felt like a good reward, and the hint art, I guess I didn't like the hint art either, but I'm sure someone else enjoyed them. I know for a fact this isn't what you meant to say, that's ridiculous, but it really feels that way. The only reason I wrote this comment was because I was heated about what you said.
My main point in writing this is just to tell you to be careful with your words. To tell you that while both our experiences and feelings toward the game weren't and aren't wrong, but our "impartial" opinions of the game very much are. Neither of us can truly judge a game for how good it is, one of us might hate the pacing of a game, and the other might have no problems with it. The thing you loved and hated about the game weren't good or bad to everyone.
But they were good or bad to you.
Again, apologies, that was really long, and kind of went off topic, and it's written poorly, but I think I got my point across. I hope that you realized something from what I wrote, or at least that you already knew this. If you're confused about anything I said, It would be pretty cool of you to reply. I really enjoy listening to your content, despite what I came across as. Maybe we can have a calm, reasonable conversation that regresses into mindless insults. Thanks for reading this, if you did.
Exactly, the whole time I was thinking "speak for yourself dude"
Chaengie 27 exactly. This was the most fun I’ve ever had playing a video game and I feel like that should be the main point of the review. I never had a problem with any of the things he said. It just looks like he’s digging to find things wrong with this game and paint it as everyone has huge problems with this thing.
I wholeheartedly agree with your examination of the little challenge rooms. Everyone was talking about that little graphic Nintendo put up on the screen, with 64 and Sunshine on one line and Galaxy and 3D World on another. I kinda interpreted those rooms as the solution to those lines. Yeah I do think there were still too many moons, but with the little rooms, that’s a very fun way to appeal to both kinds of players. PLUS, I have this thing where I think way too much about lore and fill in a lot of the gaps with imagination, so maybe these rooms explain why the Mario World is so weird. Why are there random floating platforms all over the place, with only a pipe leading to them? Well, maybe that’s how the Mario world gets its resources, and how it builds things so easily. That could also explain over worlds; being represented as little dots that you “warp” into and see Bowser’s forces have already arranged the random resources into obstacles. Idk :)
The biggest problem I have with this criticism of specific types of challenge the game presents is that most of them are completely optional. You want to play this game like an exploration based Mario game? Do it - ignore every pipe, door and rocket. To my knowledge, there's no point where the game requires you to go into one of the disconnected linear platforming sections.
I take issue with criticism of how a 100% playthrough feels with a game like this that provides so many different types of content to appeal to different people. If you're deliberately trying to do everything in the game, there's going to be some content that you don't like because it wasn't made to appeal to you.
I don't mind if you dont like certain elements - I'd actually prefer to listen to someone break down exactly what problems they have with a game and why they have them - however, when the game allows you the freedom to ignore what you don't want to do and play it how you want, you shouldn't act or speak as if completely optional content somehow detracts from your experience. It's honestly really selfish to expect a game to appeal to specifically people like you and that all of the bits that you don't personally like (that you also had the choice to not play) should be removed and changed to bend to your will, ultimately removing a lot of the game's appeal for many people.
A lot of the criticism here also seems to generally not make a lot of sense. Wishing that the game had integrated these platforming sections into the levels themselves would mean that the levels would be larger and more empty, therefore it would end up with a similar problem to Yooka-Laylee. Compromises must be made when creating a game like this in order to maintain such high quality game design.
Most of this video seems like blowing minor nitpicks massively out of proportion because Odyssey wasn't 100% exactly what he wants it to be. Honestly, it wasn't completely what I wanted it to be, either, but it is very clear that this game was not designed to exclusively appeal to fans of one specific type of Mario game, and that's why it's so successful.
I got salty when he talked about being booted from the level making the older mario games bad, when its just a different design philosophy. One big reward vs a million small rewards. Mario 64 would have to literally have different level design if you didnt get booted out, as the levels often change after completing different stars. Same with sunshine. If you just aren't enjoying an aspect of the game from a design concept then that is your problem, not a problem with the game itself. (as opposed to say, a game having poor mechanics, you know, actual coded elements of the game)
Seeing you comment on Toy Story 2 makes me deeply curious about your opinion on the Rare 64 tri-fecta: Banjo-Kazooie, DK64 and Banjo-Tooie.
I imagine he's of the sentiment that DK 64 is bloated, I enjoyed but I've heard many people look to it as the reason the collectathon genre was silent for a number of years before sunshine came out and even then this genre only really now seeing a resurgence due to the n64 era now being old enough to be nostalgicly retro
Imagine not including Conker's Bad Fur Day
@@JRWall-hf9mq those complaints are more about the multi colored bananas and medals, I find it harder to play these days because of all the damn back tracking from swap barrels those forced you to do
@@Lazypackmule Its not a colletathon.
@@JRWall-hf9mq "It was too big for what those gamers expected" -- no, it wasn't the quantity alone the made it bloated - it was the lack of quality. Everything felt like padding rather than new content, as far as.. well, the "bloat" goes. "Go find a switch place, and come back to this point. You can't have it til you backtrack for no reason."
Odyssey was truly an odyssey in video game exploration and piecing it all together with some beautiful whimsy.
Amazing retrospective, I kinda disagree about the platforming sections being “immersion breaking” since they kind of feel like a sort of “memory” of that area unlike Mario sunshine’s secret levels. But good stuff nonetheless! Can’t wait for chance time 3
You agreeing or not does not dictate the quality of the review.
Autin. Are you saying you don't like Sunshine's secret level? Though I can understand the hate of the Chuckster one. Screw that!
the song played in most of them is called "Another World", if that helps
@@greeneye2037 Bruh, it’s an opinion.
@@greeneye2037 nothing about what they said talks about the quality of the review
Boy, if this video doesn't perfectly capture my own experience with Super Mario Odyssey. I agree with almost everything you said, from the sheer number of moons devaluing the the satisfaction of finding them to the absolute weariness I felt when I beat the game only to be told to basically start over and find more, more, more! At that point, I shut the game off never to look back, which I would never do with Super Mario 64 where I feel incentivized to get every Power Star. I'll probably play the game again at some point in my life, but I can't imagine a scenario where I'd ever want to complete it. And that, to me, is a real detriment.
I can't deny that it's a good game, a great game even. But as far as 3D Mario games go, Super Mario Galaxy is where I feel they hit that perfect sweet spot.
Holy shit, Mistare? I love your content!
Mario Odyssey dunks on Galaxy in replayability. Mario's extremely varied and deep moveset combined with creative level geometry and captures make for the best sandbox ever made in a platformer. Galaxy just isn't a sandbox at all. I'll take player choice and deep sandbox elements over linear hallway design any day.
although I disagree with quite a few points in this vid, this was an exceptional retrospective as always kingk, keep it up
You didn't really talk about the capture mechanic, which is a big part of the game. You touched on it a little, discussing individual captures, but not on the mechanic as a whole.
It's fundamentally worse than power-ups because you're switching into far shittier movesets rather than getting any enhancement to your moveset. There you go.
@@antoniomendes7961 except a lot of them actually have movesets that are better suited to the situations that they are used in when compared to Mario, making them more fun to use because of their placement in the game.
@@rohjois Yes obviously. But it doesn't change the fact that want you're doing I'd inherently less interesting. Taking over the green thing just lets you rise. That's it. Nintendo knows for the most part which is why you're usually in transformation for a really short time.
@@antoniomendes7961 mario bros is so boring you just press the same button at certain times ewwww mario sucks
@@flex9663 Nice strawman
Flipside isn't bad, people just wanted SPM to be more like TTYD
yeah people expected SPM something that it never aimed to be.
it took the entire style of paper mario and made it a 2d platformer.
but it made itself distinct frmo the other games by adding super infront of it. it's its own game and some people just cant accept it.
@@sorendipitous I honestly thought PM64's world was more connected than TTYD's. I guess the main reason for that would be the fact that all but one or two of TTYD's chapters are linked to Rogueport through a pipe in the sewers, while Toad Town was directly linked to nearly every chapter on the surface without needing to go underground. SPM's world was admittedly less connected than the previous two games, but even judging by the central hubs, I'd say Flipside is more interesting than Rogueport, though Rogueport does have a few neat ideas.
@@sorendipitous you mean the game you access its areas via warp pipes? Only Paper Mario 64 is actually a cohesive world.
It's a confusing mess with very little sense to where the ways to the worlds are. Paper mario 64 did this perfectly, from the hub itself you could see where every world was. TTYD did this worse, in fact a lot worse... but there were still some hints of it and if world 1,2 and 4 were directly connected to rogueport it would be great. Most of it made some sense though and had a memorable sequence of some sort to get into the world and therefore you remember the entrance. The way you get into worlds in Flipside is just boring after you activate those god awfully hidden heart stones or whatever. I did like SPM and i have admittedly not played it in years but where i could still point you towards any place in the entire world of PM64 i could not tell you off the top of my head where really anything was in SPM.
I used to dispise it but when I came to terms with way spm really was I really started to like it
I felt basically the same way when the game first came out.
Halfway through I had to ask myself: Was this moon fun?
Really brought the magic out when I realized most weren't.
Fun fact time, there's literally a moon in the trash.
in the Metro Kingdom, there's 2 in trash bins and 1 underneath trash
I'm surprise Joseph didn't mention the moon in the trash. Seems like the perfect metaphore.
Hahaha. Nintendo knew most of the moons were trash and they put 3 of them in the trash to clarify it xD
Replaying the game again for the first time in a few years out of curiosity. There’s actually a pretty decent amount of fun moons. But there’s also a decent amount of really bad moons and they started to become noticeable when replaying. First time through, I was caught into the loop of wanting to get every moon. Once that wears off though, you start to notice how many of those moons aren’t really that fun or well designed
I enjoy your thoughtful criticism as always, but you seem preoccupied with this being a textbook collectathon that needs to be 100%-ed when it's design is at odds with that concept. As someone who finds equal enjoyment in both course clear and collectathon Mario, I love this game's melding of styles. And given how much more you can inhabit it with, I find the Odyssey a superior "hub" to Galaxy 2's Starship Mario. I can understand how frustrating this game can be to a platforming completionist but as someone who's enjoyment mainly comes from creative platforming challenges rather than collecting all of the shiny things, I love it and enjoy the ride. And that anime ending is so good like are you kidding? 10/10 right there. Quality video, keep up the great work.
Palest Pistachio I can't agree with these criticisms if only because it seems that the point is missing. It's not that it has to be 100% collectathon, but that by making it so easy to advance by littering moons, you sacrifice interesting game design. Even if they have course clear elements, having it repeat so much without even changing the flavor of the walls a waste of the world design that went into the kingdoms
@@banana1231234 In my opinion both sides are valid to that argument. There is too much padding in odyssey (Dark Side as a whole feels like padding), but on the flip side it is true that they gave the player different endings based on how much they WANTED to put in the game.
The speedrunning community for this game basically laugh when they finished the game because the categories were already cutout for them. Any%, World Peace (the Story% if you will), Dark Side, Darker Side and All Moons. (100% is also a thing but suffers from padding if you will (coin grinding sucks to grab all costumes and some purple coins are so far out...))
Those categories are basically the endings for each player type. Honnestly, the criticism from KingK is dead on imo, minus the fact that Toy Story 2 is better :P
@paula
i agree to an extent, but a lot of the moons are repeated in different kingdoms with no added challenge.
The little challenge they do add is stuff like kicking a rock in the ruined kingdom, 20 more times for it to break, or groundpounding in a place that is slightly harder to get to.
If they added a unique spin and challenge on every one of these repeated moons, I would actually find them fun. But how it is currently in Odyssey, just feels repetitive and boring imo.
He mentions the "100%" argument in the video... when everything in a collectathon is optional, then where do you draw the line? If the player is not supposed to collect 100%, to what criteria is an optional Moon held against, or is it forgiven because there's another optional Moon next door that can be collected instead? It's completely arbitrary and a non-argument.
Corvus All I said is that it’s design is at odds with being a 100% experience, which could be a flaw if you prioritize that kind of thing like K seems to. His critiques are very valid, I’m not arguing that. I personally enjoy the bloat that a ridiculous amount of moons brings because it makes revisiting in short bursts more often than not rewarding given the high chance of stumbling upon a moon while exploring. And since this games movement and level design are so strong, I enjoy exploring a lot. My satisfaction is not lessened by the time necessary for 100% being so high. Plus I played the post game in handheld mode which probably helped in alleviating the potential pacing issues he mentioned in the video.
*SOUNDS LIKE SOMEONE NEVER BEAT THE DARKER SIDE.*
I did
@@KingKlonoa Nice! GGs
Best anime ending of all time.
when i first beat mario odyssey all i wanted was for it to keep going forever, so i really enjoyed getting more moons with the moon rocks
For me, one of the weirdest things about Odyssey's complete lack of a hub world is it means that Nintendo crafted a game that is essentially a road trip, but one where Mario is never actually in the car. Who makes a road trip where the characters are in the car?
“What we wind up with is a game that is only fun in very, very short bursts.”
I disagree. When I was completing Odyssey (I still haven’t fully done it, but I’m over 800 moons) I had my face glued to the screen for hours.
But your critiques aren’t untrue.
Another solid analysis and opinion. Some I may disagree with, but definitely makes me look at the game differently now
You agreeing or not does not dictate the quality of the review.
@@greeneye2037 KingK and KingK fanboys are objectively shit, so who is surprised that they have stupid takes.
@@konataizumi5829 Why are you watching this then ?
@@greeneye2037 Why are you replying to comment ?
@@konataizumi5829 Because your comment made me question why you're watching this video.
I have additional notes and thoughts. Some of this I even cut out of the script, so it should be interesting.
First of all, I wanted to point out that the 100% speedrun world records for the Mario collectathons are as follows:
64 - 1:38:51
Sunshine - 2:58:29
Odyssey - 9:47:41
Now, Super Mario Odyssey is the most recent Mario game so there's a ton of room for the speedrun to grow over time. However, the sheer gap between those times is yet another indicator that Odyssey does not necessarily prioritize replayability. I felt like it would be a little overkill including this in the script, so I ended up cutting it.
Additionally, even though I did address it in the video, I figured I should say again that I still enjoy Odyssey to some extent. Some of the comments here are insinuating that I hate it or something, and that isn't true. A few of them have gone as far as to say that I only ever make negative/nitpicky videos now. That kinda hurts, but hey: you feel what you feel, I can't hold that against you. If you think I've been too negative lately and it diminishes your enjoyment of my work, I apologize.
Finally, I wanted to also say that not only do collectathons build themselves on optional challenges, it's also my duty to make a video about EVERYTHING in a video game. I'm not going to ignore the stuff I don't like just because someone can theoretically "avoid" it. No one would even know what the "bad moons" are on an initial playthrough, so it's just another thing you have to do on a repeat playthrough with a broader knowledge of the level progression. I should be allowed to critique each and every kind of moon precisely BECAUSE most of them are optional.
That's basically it for now. Might add onto ot when the need arises. Thanks for watching, keep leaving your differing opinions, and I'll keep reading them!
Ok. Good video by the way.
Will you do KH Dream Drop Distance Now?
Dude i fucking love your taste in games, every thing you like in a game, i like in that game and the same goes for the stuff you don't like, also, your favorite games in different franchises are the same as mine. Also, great channel, good job man.
@KingK
"the sheer gap between those times" is more an indicator of the amount of bugs and exploits available in the respective games, rather than replayability by design.
The remark about 100% completion is a bit out of place... if you want to compare apples with apples you should compare All Moons (7h35) with the other 100% categories. 100% in odyssey is including buying all the costumes (excluding DLC ones) which is honnestly more of a customization option than a gameplay mechanic.
And it's replayability is not in 100% the game everytime. The best category to speedrun if you want to feel like you did 90% of what the game offers is Darker Side. You skip the blatant filler of a kingdom that is Dark Side and get 500 moons. The routing for that category was super enjoyable to make (and enjoyable to read).
And since Darker is the closest to "an enjoyable 90%" compare the WR with the other games 100% : 3h10m.
I'm not here to deny that there is "filler content" it's just that this content is there for more casual players that will play that game over the course of a month or so. They'll find those sub areas in Darker and remember that they did them with cappy before and appreciate how much better their lives are with him.
I do speedrun Odyssey and I love it because of the movement, all the quirky mechanics and the routing of each kingdoms. For me this is the most replayable mario game they made. In the first 2 years of the game there wasn't more than 2 months until something new was discovered that altered the route of a category. (Agreed some of those are Nintendo patching stuff and everyone hates that but there has been only 2 patches so its not that bad)
I like this review, this is the second time I've watched through it and I think I understand where he and I differ on this. I think 70% of the critique is that it is too hard to complete and I think that is a valid critique for a completionist, however, 99% of players don't want a game that is fun to complete, they want one that is fun to play. I think some of the things he says Nintendo could do to make the game more fun to complete would actually make it less fun for the average player
Bingo.
@@noahedwards3090 Breath of the Wild's seeds are a side collectible. Moons here are the main collectible, and it's important to have them all be good.
Having to 100% a game every time you replay it doesn't sound like fun at all, no matter how good it is. It feels like almost everything you critized about Odyssey is more on you and the way you decide to enjoy games than on actual Odyssey's flaws.
I'm not sure if you're experienced with the genre, but old platformers and collectathons are very different from modern 80+ hour titles. A 100% run though one of these games is never too complicated and can be done in just a week if played casually. To give you an idea, Banjo-Kazooie's fastest 100% speedrun in just two hours. You really don't need to complete them each time, but it's never feels like you're having to put effort into doing it. I've completed 64 twice, Banjo 1 six times, Banjo 2 twice, and DK64 once (never doing that again), and I enjoyed these games each time. I went through Odyssey once and I already know I'm never touching it again, even though I loved it.
Have you ever done this with Spyro 1? It just lasts a couple hours. I replay it every month if not multiple times a month. That's my perfect game to just go and 100% regularly.
I kind of agree with your point that you shouldn't try to 100% every time, but to be honest, it's not that out-there either. Besides, the best games should have that drive and just be that fun that you want to experience all the content (even if not all the content is fun, if it's just 2 or 3 challenges that are meh or something, I still go for it). You shouldn't have to play a game "a certain way" to appreciate it, but you have to go in with so many reservations for Odyssey imho
@@idontcheckmynotifications sadly I've never touched Spyro, but with the remake out now it might be worth a shot. What's your take on it?
Nice points too, took the words out of my mouth.
I think its less about having to 100% it every time and moreso making that experience enjoyable so that everybody wins. Because if the normal casual playthrough is a really good time, and people enjoy replaying that experience, then thats cool, but if the 100% experience is dampened a bit, then the completionists wont have as much enjoyment going through it again like the others. And I think thats a valid point, that lessening the more extraneous moons would help to make it a decently compact adventure that more completionists could fully enjoy along side the casual people, but I also think its worth noting that these criticisms hinge on the assumption that Odyssey was trying to be that type of game in the first place. I think the set up he created where 3D mario can only go one of the two styles he mentioned is untrue, and Odyssey went in a sensical coherent direction of being a 3D platformer you can play in small or long time frames (given the switches portability). So tldr, i dont agree with him, but I can see where his mind was going to come to this conclusion.
Commenter from the future here: I 100% No Man's Sky on every replay, I am 800 trillion years old
KingK: 25:00 they don’t suck in a vacuum
Me: lol nice
Having a high number of moons better fits our modern approach when it comes to Mario games.
First, Achievers and Completionists are NOT the majority of Mario players. Speed runners will create challenges and compete no matter how many moons or stars there are to collect.
The switch is not just a home console, it's also a portable console. For Nintendo, it made more sense into providing you with enough objectives in each world so that all player types would be mostly satisfied with their progress when compared to the time invested into this world. It's the almost the same idea as having a 70 stars requirement out of 120 to finish the game. But here they are asking for a higher count of moons not only to extend the duration of the adventure but also to increase the your feeling of progression and reduce the frustration of not finding anything. Also, when the number is much higher, the player is more likely to skip the 100% collection on each stages in favor of continuing the story.
They can comeback at the end of the game and continue to gather missing moons at their own pace or until they don't wish to do it anymore.
Are the completionists happy about the direction of this game? Probably not. But do they have a better and more modern approach for most player types? Yes they do. There is a reason why they went with More is MORE instead of Less is MORE here. It's not just useless padding. You see it that way because you are that type of player.
One thing I've learn as a Game Designer myself is how the mentality of games has shifted many time in the past few years.
Nintendo is trying new things right now. They want to find the balance between pleasing fans, pleasing all player types and selling their product to as many consumer as possible by putting out games with wide appeal.
- English is not my first language, I hope I was clear enough. Thank you for the video, they are always interesting King K.
@@thinktempest7457 That's not what he is "basically saying"
@@thinktempest7457 It isn't about attention spans, it's about the portability of the switch. Read carefully.
@@thinktempest7457 And another thing, and this goes for both of you. Try to be more concise when explaining a point. Nobody needs to be reading walls of text that are just filled with you reiterating the SAME point, oy gevaltz
@@thinktempest7457 You're hopeless to speak to. And whatever they did with Odysseus it worked. My favorite of the series will always be 64, but I won't write a wall of text about a new game that serves a different purpose
@@thinktempest7457 ooof I struck a nerve. You're allowed to think that, but it doesn't seem very logical. Partially illiterate isn't really a thing. Didn't mean to make you so angry, I'll be on my way.
Man, I wish they'd remake Sunshine or do Sunshine 2. It's my favorite in terms of platforming, aesthetic, and soundtrack.
Same. It's so sad they didn't do that even after there was a leak they'll do remakes but instead they just ported the same version of sunshine through emulation.
Do people not like bubblaine? That level grew on me and is probably my favorite to hangout in. If this is a vacation game its the best vacation spot with the best vibes.
Super Mario Odyssey is a great game. I am not a completionist so I did't feel like I had to get all the moons and play through all the levels again. I can see someone who is an completionist getting annoyed with collecting all the moons.
I wish I was a completionist. This game would of been so perfect to me, if it didn't have so any moons. Consider yourself luck man.
I’m a completionist and I loved Odyssey. I appreciated the moon rocks and the extra content that they provide. I think once you start thinking of getting each item, moon or achievement as a chore, you slowly stray away from what makes being a completionist enjoyable. I also love that you can play the game in so many different orders and combinations such as skipping all of the broodals and kingdom bosses (minus the ruined kingdom and mecha broodal boss). The possibilities are endless. But then again, my philosophy when playing these Mario games is to just pass time, unwind and relax. I always want to get the most possible playtime out of a game I paid $60 for.
@@error_4004 everyone is different. I got back to get some more months here and there
@@gregmoisan5629 agree, everyone will always have different preferences and that’s ok :)
Odyssey definitely shows its flaws on subsequent play-throughs and in the end game, especially in regards to the sheer amount of moons there are.
In BOTW, there are 900 korok seeds spread across the map because you arent *meant* to find them all, they just need to be there so you can almost always find one to incentivize exploration and upgrading your inventory.
In Odyssey, moons ARE the game and the main collectable. There's no reason for there to be 880 moons, especially when a moon like bench friends has the same value as going through a hellish platforming gauntlet. Or leading a sheep, carrying a seed across the map and waiting or just spending 100 coins. It's a chore and it feels like ticking off a list rather than getting a reward. Going through odyssey again feels like a slog because youre not replaying beloved levels or challenges again, youre doing just a bunch of remedial tasks that have lost their charm.
It's a shame because Odyssey has the best movement and world design seen in a mario game, but it doesnt use it to its full potential at all.
Not to sound arrogant, but these flaws were very obvious to me on my first play through.
It felt like they took Mario and “Animal Crossing” ized it. I get why casual players enjoy it, but its not very well designed, and it doesnt bring anything new to the table.
This sounds so wild to me, simply putting down the game before picking it back up again sounds like such an easy solution to this problem. The game isn't as enjoyable as a result of you feeling forced to 100% complete the game immediately as you pick it up, rather than just see the endgame as a fun extra for people who really love the game to collect.
It is possible to get all the seeds very very tedious but very possible
The moons are just completion markers, though.
The point of the game isn't to collect moons, the point of the game is to play the game. You should do the more involved moon challenges because they're fun, not because they give you a moon.
It's like saying that the point of Super Mario Bros is to touch flagpoles. It's just a clear showing of a fundamental lack of understanding of the concept of intrinsic rewards.
@@TheAlibabatree Ok, I’m sorry, but I disagree with all of this comment.
Me personally, I love this game. Doubt I’ll ever 100% it again, but it still earned the rank of my favorite Mario title
Mine are Galaxy 1 & 2
"Doubt I’ll ever 100% it again, but it still earned the rank of my favorite Mario title"
Nice contradiction
@@mep6302 I don’t see how this is a contradiction tbh
"Odyssey has an identity crisis." Disagree, I think it is successfully a combination of both types of Mario games. You just don't like one of them lol
He says he's never played the "course clear" Mario games (which is all of them except for 64, Sunshine, and maybe the Galaxy games) and is surprised that Oddyssey isn't entirely a collectathon.
@@samt3412 Except he has gone on record saying Galaxy is his favorite 3D Mario game.
@@jacobmonks3722 did he actually say that? I actually never knew about that
It's great to see a retrospective of 3D collectathon Mario finally be wrapped up.
What I understood from this video is that you value replayability in a game more than one long experience. As someone who completed Mario odyssey I can agree that some of the moons seem just kinda thrown in (moons bought at stores and the numerous picture puzzle moons at the end for example) I believe that odyssey was meant to be played as one big experience. There are different levels of completing the game as well (any%, true ending, and all 999 moons) and you can choose at what point you are done with collecting moons. The replayablilty for me came from the challenges such as Luigi’s balloon world and the koopa races. Just trying to master Mario’s movement can be a whole game in itself. But it all comes down to what you enjoy in a game.
The thing is that the game failing at replayability also affects the core gameplay.
Such a good video. The only thing I would’ve liked to hear you talk about your opinion on the capture ability and it’s strengths and weaknesses
yeah, for a 40 minute essay its kinda necessary to address the main gameplay mechanic that is unique to this particular game
@@urskn.7985 I think he shoved it in with the move set being improved. Granted, in the end I kinda just felt it was just a less restrained version of power ups. Think about it. The frog lets you jump just like the spring suit let you, the cheep cheep lets you swim just like the penguin suit or frog hood, etc.
@@Skylancer727 that's funny cause I found it a more restrained version of powerups. Do due the fact that hatted enemies can usually only do one thing while with the powerups, mario has an extra ability on him while keeping his.moveset.
@@CheeseNacho120 It depends on the powerup. We can divide them in restricted and unrestricted. The restricted ones are those that do not use Mario's normal moveset forcing you to a new set of rules, like the Frog or the Hopper. The unrestricted would be the ones that allow you to still play as Mario while adding something on it, like the Fire Mario or Ice Mario.
There's really nothing of note to say about them. It's one of its undercooked elements, given that the game never really elaborates into it. It's always this transformation for this setpiece of the area, and that's about it. The fact that all of them stop you from using Mario's normal moveset plays is a disservice to the game, since Mario's moveset is much more fleshedout than anything else and allows for the most experimentation and combinations.
My mind was blown once finishing the game and realizing there was a whole nother game worth of content to play. definitely one of my memorable gaming moments. I 100% the game.
Right but it's not a whole-nother game worth of content, its the same game's worth of content. Repeating the same tedious thing over again just isn't fun for me and a lot of people.
@@KingHeatrayodyssey sucked man
Odessy is a master piece in my opinion. The extra content moons were a great challenge
Here are just a few tiny things that I would hope would change for a sequel, that could make the experience better. I developed these ideas while watching the video, because I feel very similarly on a lot of the things that were brought up.
1) Moons need to be tiered
Instead of having Power Moons and Multi-Moons, there need to be 3 or 4 different types of Moons.
-Small moons for mundane, very simple tasks. These would be all the filler moons throughout the game, and like Blue Coins, would not equal a full moon. You'd need 5 or maybe even 10 different Small moons to make a normal Power Moon.
-Normal Power Moons. These would be for basically any challenge on the overworld that takes at least some type of skill or time to complete. Puzzle Moons, platforming challenges, secrets, etc.
-Grand Moons. Instead of Multi-Moons, have a larger, more decorative Moon that can be worth 3, or maybe even 5 moons. These would be rewarded for large-scale quests or boss fights.
Having different types of Moons would make the tasks you complete more worthwhile. The reward you receive would be based on how much effort you have to put into it to get.
2) Repeated challenges need to get harder and more interesting.
Throughout the game, there are many simple tasks that are repeated throughout different kingdoms. Following dogs, kicking rocks, chasing bunnies. However, they are all basically the same level of challenge throughout. I've come up with a few potential solutions, but I'll share my favorite.
-The later the kingdom the challenge appears in, the harder the challenge is. The more obstacles there are to finish, the more challenging it is to complete, and the more satisfying it is to complete.
For example, a rock kicking moon in Cascade Kingdom would be very simple, and include kicking a rock about 5 times. But then a rock kicking moon in the ruined kingdom could be a lot more difficult. The rock isn't cracked at all, and the only way to break it is to kick it across some beams that cross over a bottomless pit. You have to be very careful not to kick it off into the pit. It's just long enough to be challenging, but not long enough to become too frustrating.
3) The worlds need to be bigger or have more stuff in them, and there need to be less random sub-areas
First of all, sub-areas should not be disconnected from the world. they should fit thematically, and preferably fit naturally. The upside-down pyramid is a good example. What if in Lake Lamode, instead of entering a sub area with the zipper challenge, there would be a secret outcove leading into another part of the kingdom, specifically for that challenge, or maybe a huge cave, where the zippers are part of some weird ancient zipper ruins or something.
Speaking of kingdoms, they need to be bigger, or at least hold a lot more within them. The Kingdoms are filled with some fun challenges, but there isn't any meaningful way to get to them.
I love the checkpoints that were added, but they take away the ability to make getting somewhere, challenging.
It needs to be fun to get to places. Run around basically any kingdom besides Luncheon, and you can basically get anywhere you want by either capturing something, or just running towards it. There aren't any platforming challenges separating anything. The Sand Kingdom dabbled with this a little bit, but the few it had were easy, and there was no reason to ever use them again after you got the moons from the areas they led to. Just by adding more branching paths with different areas would make each kingdom so much more fun to navigate. I don't know how to fix the checkpoint issue, because I don't want to get rid of them.
My problem with all the kingdoms is that they feel very small, or very empty. The Cascade Kingdom is pretty small and there isn't much to do, besides climb the mountain, and get all the moons in between. If there were branching paths, and more stuff to explore and find in more areas, separated by a natural platforming challenge, then the kindom would feel so much more complete. I'm rambling with this because I don't know how to properly explain the visions I can see within my mind, so I'll stop here.
4) No pointless kingdoms
The Cloud and Ruined Kingdoms had so much potential, but they are literally just a boss arena. Yeah, crash landing in a strange place and fighting a boss is really hecking cool, but it would've been so much cooler to traverse the land to get there first. A mystical cloud kingdom filled with dangerous cloud platforming, so you can get to the top of a cloud mountain and fight Bowser would've been amazing. What if when you got close to the top, the music would change and he'd breath fireballs at you to dodge, culminating in the actual boss at the summit.
And the Ruined Kingdom! AGHHHH. The Lord of Lightning was an actual threat. Imagine traversing the ruins of a once thriving town, as you said, filled with boos, and creepy enemies. The area could feel actually disturbing and grim, and it'd really drive home the point that you are only running through here to get the moons you need to fix the Odyssey. Heck, if the cloud and ruined kingdom were actually handled like this, then I'd actually want MORE kingdoms like that.
5) Upgrade the Odyssey
I really liked the idea of having the Odyssey be much bigger, and act as its own sort of hub-world. What if moons were not just used to travel to other kingdoms, but to upgrade the Odyssey? And the more you put into it, the more space the Odyssey had, the more stuff it could hold, and there more there would be to do inside of it. On your first visit to the kingdoms, you already have to use SPECIFICALLY moons from that kingdom to move on to the next. After you colelct that many moons to travel to a new place, any other moons you have in that kingdom could be added to a collective amount that you could spend on the Odyssey.
At the end of the game, different NPC's travel around the kingdom, but what if there were a lot more unique and special NPC's in every world, and every time you upgrade the Odyssey, there's room for another passenger or two to join you on your quest. It's something really small, but for those who want it, they can really make the Odyssey feel like an alive, amazing place to be.
I have many more ideas, but I decided to focus only on ones that involved issues specifically brought up in this video. I have my own fair share of problems with the game that I want to be improved, ranging from a lack of unique characters and areas in each kingdom, a lack of familiar enemies and characters appearing throughout the game, Bowser's wedding, etc.
Many people expect a 2020 or 2021 release of an Odyssey sequel, as do I. But if Nintendo were to take an extra year or 2, or maybe even 3 to fix these issues and really go all out with the game, I would be willing to wait.
I've seen many people criticizing the video, and K's views on the whole thing. The question that is posed by these opposing views comes down to this: do you like games that encourage total freedom and are packed full of things to do, even if they can be recycled and not challenging? Or would you rather a more concise experience with more challenging attributes and a greater amount of fresh ideas at the cost of it being a shorter experience?
For myself, I find that games that have a greater focus on teaching skills and progressing those skills in a more linear fashion is simply more fun for me. I like to see most of what a game has to offer, but I like to do it in 40 hours or less (judging by my save files this is as long as I spend on a game at a time). When there's a whole bunch of stuff and none of that stuff is particularly challenging or considered, I lose interest. You may not, and that's fine. But consider this: if a game has more content, then how impactful is the moment to moment gameplay? Consider 1 moon from SMO v. 1 star from SM64: 1/999 is worth a lot less that 1/120, simple math. Sure, there are some great moons and some bad stars, but if I were to ask you about a specific one of either of these, chances are much higher that you would recognize the star before the moon, since there weren't a lot of nonspecific stars in the former compared to nonspecific moons in the latter. When you try to make something appeal to everyone, it can come off as mediocre since it doesn't have a specific voice or identity.
To sum it up: I don't see the point in being consistently rewarded by a game for doing mundane tasks that I probably would have completed anyway; I want challenge, I want to learn rules and mechanics, I want to *play* a game. It's insulting that they would think that I couldn't be engaged without constant dopamine influx; whats the point of reward without struggle in between to make it worthwhile and meaningful?
I've watched K's stuff for a long time, and without reading his mind I think what he is looking for in a game is an experience where new ideas are consistently presented, where the experience doesn't have to be short but where majority completion is manageable. To discount For all the people who say that "he just doesn't get it" or that "he missed the point": he didn't misunderstand it. He saw the point, he just didn't vibe, and he criticized it from his perspective with some perfectly valid points for why someone wouldn't like it. Truth doesn't come from mindless praise and echo chambers, it comes from debate and discussion.
How about liking both? Pretty human thing.
@@crono3015 I do like both really linear games and really open games pretty equally, but the way Oddysey mixed those two really didn't resonate with me at all. It tried to get the best of both worlds but in the end both ideas came out half-baked and unsatisfying.
I really hate how modern game companies sacrifice replayability for a longer run time. So many retro games can be beaten in just a few hours, but the content within them makes their replayability skyrocket. Games like Metroid Zero Mission and Mega Man X excel at this, with the run-time being around 2-3 hours if you're skilled, but the game is so damn fun to play and the content is so meaningful it doesn't matter. You can replay the game, get better at it, and make it shorter and shorter. Every time you play it, you can have a different experience as well, whether by speedrunning it, performing a challenge run, or just playing it for the sake of enjoying it.
Odyssey doesn't have much replay value to it because it strives for quantity over quality, and i think that's what's most disappointing about it. You pretty much hit the nail on the head here man.
I can see great (albeit imperfect) quality in Super Mario Odyssey, along with obviously a massive amount of quantity. I don't really think Odyssey suffers from a significant quality deficiency even if it's a little bit or somewhat confused about its identity. The reason why replayability in games like Toy Story 2 exist I believe has a lot to do with hardware limitations- the Switch is a lot more powerful than a N64 and thus you can make longer games. Super Mario Odyssey is a step in the right direction for greatness in video games, I just wish a lot of it wasn't so easy so as to cater to children or unskilled gamers, but that's just me I guess. I'm a longtime gamer and while I adore retro games (as well as newer ones) and my favorite game is actually a N64 game, I think you miiight be stuck in the past a little too much.
I don't want to imply Odyssey is devoid of quality. There's so much love in the game it's astounding, and saying i didn't love it would be a lie. I guess a better way to describe what i mean is that Odyssey lacks...meaningful challenges. As stated in the video, many of the moons are superfluous, and that makes a lot of them feel unnecessary. There's way too many, and it feels like moons were repeated across worlds for the sake of making the game longer and nothing else. I'm not trying to say there's no quality within Odyssey, but rather that the quality of many of the moons that take such a short time to grab wanes because there's just so many of them. Also, keep in mind i've only been playing Metroid Zero Mission and many older games for a year now at most. I'm very late to the retro gaming scene lol.
Also yeah, i have no doubt speedrunning Odyssey is the way to go on repeat playthroughs. That method cuts out a lot of the more superflulous moons, but means that a lot of the game's content goes underutilized. As someone who usually always 100%-complete collectathons and Metroidvanias even on subsequent playthroughs, completing Odyssey to 100% just isn't worth it because many of the moons are too simple to find, and there's too many IMO. I can 100% Mario 64 with all of its problems with little grievance because a large majority of Power Stars are satisfying to collect, and while there's 120/150 of them, not many of them feel unnecessary. Whereas with Odyssey, many of the moons aren't satisfying to collect, and there's so goddamn many of them that it just drags after a while. My first playthrough ended with about 400+ moons in tow, and i feel like that's more than enough to get everything i can out of Odyssey.
It especially annoys me when people complain about action games being too short. Some people are okay with repitition but don't replay games.
I do think Odyssey is a really good game, but if we’re going to look at the two major Switch games, I think that Breath Of The Wild did a better job of shaking up the Zelda franchise than Odyssey did of shaking the Mario franchise.
@@yzois BOTW is overrated.
I feel like the 'filler' challenge rooms still have a place in a game like Super Mario Odyssey, but I really feel like all 60+ rooms should have been neatly condensed into a single kingdom. And with all of them having the nonsensical disconnect that Sunshine's did, I feel Odyssey should have had a 4th outer-space kingdom dedicated to deep space, with dozens of floating platforms over nothingness to house all the entry pipes to the challenge rooms.
I personally want more hard 3D Mario sprinkled throughout these progressively easier and easier adventures (especially now that the lives system has been eliminated). Maybe not difficult to the level of Galaxy 2's Grandmaster Galaxy or Odyssey's Long Journey's End, but at least to the level of difficulty found in Sunshine's secret courses. Most of Odyssey's "challenge" rooms aren't even challenging enough to overcome the lacking presentations.
I always felt challenge rooms were pretty fun and was excited each time I found one
The unfortunate thing about removing the boot out system is that instead of the “YOU DID IT!!!” of a star or sprite, you get the “You did it” of a moon.
Why does everyone call The Metro Kingdom by its Location name but every other Kingdom is called by their Kingdom Name.
I think it's because New Donk City sounds silly and people enjoy saying it.
For what it's worth, speedrunners call it Metro.
Always liked the location names. They’re more obscure and fun.
Probably because most of the names are unwieldy and unmemorable. Most of the kingdoms are based off generic elements and concepts, which while the game does go to interesting places with those concepts, its still the desert stage, the water stage, the ocean stage, and the forest stage, so the generic kingdom names stick in you head more. Ignoring New Donk City, the only location name I remember is Steam Gardens, but even then that's only because I find the song to be amazing so I listen to it often. If it wasn't for the song I'd forget it as well.
Because honestly I keep forgetting the other names besides New Donk City, Bubblaine, and Tostarena.
Perhaps Mario Odyssey isn't having an identity crisis, rather your idea of what the game should be is.
We need a SMG/SMG2 Retrospective!!!
3d land and world as well
I think the preponderance of moons is less to pad out an expected playtime and more because the game is on a hybrid console/handheld. You're accommodating both players who are sitting down for a long spell and people who are trying to accomplish something on a bus ride, so you wind up with both moons that feel difficult and satisfying to get and moons where you're... not doing that. While it's an admirable attempt at accommodating both types of player it ultimately neuters the experience for each in different ways-- on one hand the guy with a twenty-minute commute can get some moons but can't really experience the huge maps properly, while the person who dedicates a whole day to a play session can really appreciate the levels but winds up in that state of reward fatigue, where there are so many Power Moons you just start glossing over them.
Play Banjo Kazooie already
This is a very fair retrospective. One of the biggest missed potentials is how the kingdoms could have actually been connected together as one big open world, or at least naturally connected. The captures are hardly used and I'm kinda shocked that there aren't any 2D captures.
If anyone is wanting more details and explanation on Odyssey from Last Life, check out my ongoing series for a detailed analysis on every Power Moon in the game and what does and doesn't work.
Well to be fair. That's been an problem like that in 64 & Sunshine as well. At the very least, Odyssey had secrets levels where you feel like they had potential.
@@jjc4924 64 and Sunshine at least had great hub worlds. Odyssey doesn't have one. The capture system also opens up whole new potential transportation options. For instance, imagine capturing a blooper and then traveling across the cap kingdom ocean until the fog dissipates to reveal the cascade kingdom. Now you can also ride the blooper to different cascade islands. There's so much potential here.
Maybe. But honestly, I don't particularly see the problem with that. Yeah. Odyssey doesn't have hub worlds. Buy who cares? It's an brand new experience for an 3D Mario game after all. And the way the missions are handled are so much better & having better pacing than what 64 & especially Sunshine tries & fails to do.
The hub world is a minor point. The missed potential I mentioned is not a hub world but rather taking advantage of possible exploration and captures. There are a lot of kingdoms that could have been cut for the sake of something truly fleshed out. Odyssey improves at certain aspects and fails at others. Nintendo was taking Mario in a new type of collectathon direction that they've never dealt with before, so hopefully they learn from it.
Ok. But like I said. It's not an big problem for me or the game as a whole for that matter. It's; like you said, an minor nitpick.
I believe they added hint toad and talk-a-to for a reason. After the final boss, you can pick up the remaining moon rock moons from where they are marked on the map, and use hint toad/talk-a-to for the rest. The game provides players with many many options for gathering the remaining moons, and them being marked on the map streamlines completion without getting in the way of the enjoyment of a clean-sweep the first time through.
Besides, even if you don't enjoy the 100% completion process, that doesn't necessarily equate to bad game design. The game provides players who might "want" to 100% with fast travel and hint systems, and it rewards 100% completion very nicely. If the game had fewer collectibles in favor of more substantial missions, the core appeal of the game (creative movement, freedom of direction, and spatial discovery) would be hindered. This is because Odyssey's many moons littered throughout the levels incentivize experiencing the game so that its biggest strengths shine. The coin grind was, admittedly, a little tedious in the base game, but I think Nintendo realized this because Luigi's Balloon World fixes the problem by offering a fun and endlessly replayable way of acquiring more coins. This makes buying out the shop and maxing out the moon count much more satisfying.
Reception to Bowser's Fury has me a little nervous in regards to this game's future. While I adore Bowser's Fury and I think it's structured incredibly well, it lacks a lot of the "creative movement, freedom of direction, and spatial discovery" that I mentioned before about Odyssey. People saying Bowser's Fury is what Odyssey "should have been" do not give enough credit to Odyssey's world building and structure. I would adore both a full length game like Bowser's Fury and a sequel to Odyssey, but I don't want to perpetuate this idea that one design trumps another. Games can be different and don't need to be direct evolutions of each other. Ultimately, I just want my favorite Mario game, Super Mario Odyssey, to not fall victim to being misunderstood on a structural basis.
You missed Bubblaine's theme. It's a beach level themed around drinks. The water there is fizzy, and the walls are made out of Cork.
24:58 "they don't suck in a vacuum"
Huh
Pretty good unintentional pun there
What is it about course-clear do you not like? For a person who does all kinds of retrospectives, not having played all the way through a single course clear Mario is fucking insane.
Wow this video is awesome. I watch the whole thing twice now and your point about dark souls is well taken. I’ve never thought about that before. I’m so taken aback right now by the sheer quality
I think the amount of moons in oddyssey is great, i love how much u can do to get them, and doing the same thing is different kingdoms like finding a bean sprout is fun bc it's a different area each time and u find so many new things doing it
Retrospective? It only just came out!
*checks release date*
Oh.
I would still say the term retrospective means that literally years have to go by to warrant using the word. So I agree with you. And, Odyssey did just come out -- it's been fewer than two years. It's really too soon to analyze games/movies/shows like these.
This is still too soon for a retrospective tbh. At least wait until 1 or 2 games later so you can compare the game with the direction the series has gone since. Mario hasn't had a single new game since Odyssey, so you can't show what Nintendo thought worked and what they thought didn't.
True. The title will make more sense when the game is at least 1 generation of consoles old. A better title would be "Super Mario Odyssey - Analysis"
The reason why you might be so confused as to why they would include the Sunshine style mini-levels is because those were a really well-received thing in Mario Sunshine, many even consider them proto-Galaxy style levels that were later expanded upon with the gravity mechanic in the Mario Galaxy games. Because before we had Mario Galaxy, it wasnt like there was this "collectathon vs course-clear" mentality that you describe when talking about 3D Mario, we just had 2D Mario and 3D Mario; collactathons just happened to be the flavor of the week in the late 90's and early 2000's likely do to the limited concepts and hardware limitations when it came to early 3D-platformers. Theres a reason why all the early 3D platformers were collectathons and its because that was the only design that was proven to work while also making use of a 3D immersive environment which was the main selling point of 3D games at the time.
So I don't think they ever went into any of the 3D Mario games before 3D Land thinking about the game design strictly along the lines of "course clear vs collectathon", I think it was more-so a transition between meaty and time -consuming without care i.e. the boot-out system in 64 and Sunshine or an even broader comparison, the hours of grinding in early 90's JRPGs or the brutal difficulty of many NES games, to a more streamlined experience. This type of streamlining has only become more and more popular since the 90's, especially with Nintendo between roughly 2006 and the release of the Switch were making some really streamlined and less exploration-based games like Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword, the Galaxy games as well as every other 3D Mario iteration, Super Paper Mario, Metroid Prime (not that these games were bad but they were either more streamlined as shallower gameplay, less exploratory, more linear or a combination of the three). So i think they just sort of naturally transitioned from the 3D collectathon of the 90's brought on by Mario 64, then Sunshine started to add some more straight-forward platforming, then Galaxy was much more streamlined and platform oriented, Galaxy 2 was completely linear and then we had a bunch of 2D Mario games with New Super Mario Bros and very linear 3D titles with 3D Land/World until Mario Odyssey where, like with Zelda, Nintendo has started making more open-ended and exploration heavy games BUT they still hold true to the streamlined aspect. No boot-outs in Odyssey but the moons are less substantial and overall easier to get lending to less mandatory time needed for a single session of play which has been the trend in gaming since the mid 2000's. The same thing happened with Breath of the Wild, youre completely free to do whatever you want whenever you want but it results in numerous very short mini-dungeons and only 4 main dungeons that are a fraction of the content of the dungeons in prior titles. Once again this is lending to less mandatory time needed to see at least SOME progression in the game.
So to address my main point, while YOU want to see them go all in with a fully immersive 3D exploration Mario game, I dont think they were ever trying to do that. I think the "exploration" in Mario 64 was actually a symptom of the 3D game design and not the concept behind the game itself. What I mean is the REAL starting concept behind the game was likely "well 3D is the future of games and we need to adapt our popular games to 3D, how do we do that with Mario? If we do the same exact thing we did with Super Mario brothers then whats the point of a 3D landscape?" and eventually they settled on basically making multuiple "course clears" in a level, resulting in collecting the stars thus making use of a 3D lanscape rather than funneling you down a linear path to the goal (which would have likely been the only other feasible option in '96). It's like the primitive work-around before you realize you can make games like Mario Galaxy, not to say that Galaxy is superior but i think its closer to what they originally had in mind in the 90's but didnt have the know-how or technology to properly implement. This is why you see the platforming sections in Sunshine, this was their first foray into Galaxy/3D World style gameplay before they knew how to properly implement those mechanics into a more immersive world, which I think they achieved in Galaxy which strikes a middle ground between straight-forward platforming and exploration. We see these mechanics implemeted here because Mario Odyssey is like a game-design-by-numbers game where they just threw everything in the game that they thought people wanted and made the theme "Odyssey" so they didnt have to worry about theming and could just throw everything and the kitchen sink into the game.
I will say that I really really enjoyed all the extra moons and the special rooms. If something, I miss some more moons. I got everything in a few months and I miss looking for secrets and moons. I have just no more reasons to keep playing. I want to play. But I have nothing more to do.
And I really loved the final level.
Honestly, I respect that every person has his/her own tastes but you complain a lot because the game isn't how it should be. But... it doesn't need to be as you have decided that it should be. Maybe it can be something else. Or even SOMETHING MORE.
It has a variety of different challenges and situations, it has something good for all types of players. Some really difficult challenges for veterans, easy moons for newbies and children, open world levels, closed challenge rooms, simple platform challenges, visual puzzles, mechanical challenges ...
And I don't understand why that should undermine the supposed goal of the game. Mario Odyssey is not what you wanted it to be.
Honestly, it seems much better to me.
Someone, in some moment, must have told you that you think too much. And it's true. That's not bad in TH-cam XD, great video.
Yeah, same. I really enjoyed thinking of each sub area as a "mini dungeon", especially since you knew aside from their own gimmick, each one was guaranteed to have a hidden moon somewhere inside of it too that was often more fun to get than just completing the room at all. I also 100%'d the game in the course of a month and each play session I had with it was at least several hours and I didn't get tired of it, so I'm not sure the game is only enjoyable in small bursts.
It makes me kinda' sad, though, since Nintendo kept adding new stuff like sending the extra picture art scavenger hunts and stuff over the news network and adding new costumes and each time I was excited to go back into the game! ...Only to realize there wasn't really anything left for me to do. I've even already got every medal possible on Balloon Hunt, bought all the later added costumes, capped the moon count to 999, and gotten every moon in the extra VR mode they added - I'd say I've 110%'d the game at this point and I *still* wish there was more.
Also kinda' wished he'd touched on Balloon Hunt in the video because it's frankly an absolutely genius way to handle both asynchronous multiplayer and multiplayer in a collect-a-thon platformer in general, as well as a perfect example of adding hours of extra replayability to your game at a minimal effort/cost yet not being insulting about it.
It's also hard to overstate just *how good* the game's finale is. If you're not interested in 100%ing the game beyond the main story, it's perfectly fulfilling leaving it at that.
Idk odyssey has a bunch of ideas it doesn't really do much with and alot of moons that are just there. Sure it's fun to jump and around and see the cool stuff the game can do, but it doesn't really require much of you to use them. Which I think is the biggest issue. Cool stuff with no substance to it.
Fantastic video!
Goes well with Joseph Anderson's massive video but adds a new perspective on the 'why' as opposed to what problems there were.
Great work
I strongly disagree with a lot of what you said in this video, but I totally get where you are coming from. For me, almost every single moon was a complete joy to collect, so I didn’t mind how bloated it was. The sheer act of running and jumping was so inherently fun that I didn’t mind things like the moon rocks that essentially made you replay the game twice. I also that that the platform challenges, while out of place, offered a nice change of pace. I could do without some repeated moons such as the nuts or remixed bosses as you mentioned, but overall finding everything was super fun.
It should be mentioned that when I 100%ed this game, it was over the course of several months where I would pick it up and put it down. I don’t think I’ll do that again, but I’ll definitely be any%ing this thing (or going to darker side) over and over.
This is my favorite Mario game currently because it’s the first time since Galaxy that it has given me an emotional response. Mario games are at their best when they do that. Odyssey made me cheer, Galaxy made me awestruck, etc. Anyway, I love your videos because you aren’t afraid to speak your mind even if it may be unpopular, and you are respectful to those that disagree. :)
This sounds like you enjoyed it despite its padding, and not because of it. Yeah, if you focus on the movement, which is honestly amazing, you can have fun. But that doesn't make the sheer amount of filler the game has to go away, which is the problem people have.
I'd also argue that it would be better if overworld moons didn't give you the "You got a moon" animation because it stops completely any flow of movement you may have had, which given your position I'd assume should bother you in some capacity.
Overall it's not a bad game and has the best movement out of any other Mario, but it has objective flaws that people cannot ignore.
Vlad Dascaliuc I can’t really say for sure if I enjoyed it despite or because of its padding, but I’m leaning towards the latter. I don’t normally replay games too often, so I had a reason to keep on going through this one playthrough of Odyssey because of its many moons. I agree that a couple could be cut out (such as tracing a line for the third time), but most of them had value to me. As for the moon animation stopping the movement, I’m fine with that. It gives a temporary break from all the running and jumping going on to catch your breath in a way. Moons are plentiful, but they’re not so plentiful that I’m constantly stopping. Also, I hesitate to consider any flaws as “objective” because video games are art and art can’t really be objective in quality.
as an adult, yes this game is extremely padded and wasnt as rewarding at some point. If I had this when I was 5-12, I wouldve had a blast playing this considering I didnt get to buy games that often, they needed to last so the endless moons wouldve entertained me. I remember how many hours I put into simpsons hit & run just crashing cars over and over.
20:10 I feel like this particular challenge room (and probably a lot of others too) could have been improved greatly by small stylistic changes. For example, imagine this one was accessed from the luncheon kingdom, and instead of random shapes, you are jumping across pieces of food on a skewer. The platforming challenge would be essentially the same, but this slight aesthetic difference would keep the player immersed, and it could even be quite a memorable moment for people.
A lot of the other challenge rooms suffered from the same sort of problem, and despite being decent platforming challenges, there is really nothing memorable about them. Its such a shame they didnt decide to go the extra mile, because even just changing some of the textures would have made a world of difference.
I 100 percented odyssey in a few days when it came out, and haven’t had any desire to return to the game since. Not that I didn’t love it, but it just didn’t make for an easily replayable experience for me. I’d sooner revisit Sunshine or Galaxy. It really needed to have a hub world, or just something to give it more identity. In that way, it feels more like 3D World than any other 3D Mario game
Why go over the galaxy games. They're probably my favorite mario games.
@paula "Garbage" is a harsh word, dude. You truly think the game is worth nothing? I hate the "5 stars or no stars" mentality that so many people carry.
paula enriching analysis man. In fact, it only took you one word with out going over any points, and you instantly made me agree with you.
You genius.
I think this trilogy was meant to go over the collectathon games. Maybe he’ll get to the course clear games in the future.
@paula Nice bait, loser.
@Sebastian Cruz Rivera The camera itself isn't bad. It's just that me and probably a lot of people have a problem with the galaxy games where when you're circling around a small planet and the camera moves when you start going under it just makes me feel a weird distorted feeling? It's kinda hard to explain but the way the controls and camera feels when running around the small planets just feels really awkward.
That's why Mario Galaxy is my favorite Mario game. It's not a collectathon, but it's paving is awesome, and every star is it's own unique adventure, more to the point
Thank you so much for reminding me the game toy story 2 exists
Personally I found Odyssey to become my favorite Mario collectathon, I love both Mario 64 and sunshine, but the way Mario moves, the platforming, the creative creatures and their move sets, the fun bosses and I honestly love the fact that it gives you harder courses after you beat the game. My favorite memory in odyssey is overcoming the Darker Side of The Moon, it felt like forever to finally beat it but it was so rewarding. I got a lot of good memories out of this game and it brought back the feeling I once had with Mario 64 as a kid, and I love that about this game. I see your points and I understand where you are coming from, but I suppose everyone has different experiences with games!
I don't think the amount of moons to collect is a product of padding. To me it feels more like an easy way out for casual gamers to get to the required amounts to advance to the next kingdom.
You're right, I feel so much better knowing that they made the game worse for other people's sake and not mine.
AndresLionheart I was really daunted by the like 18 moons in seaside, but it took around the same amount of time to complete as the rest of them, because the moons were a bit easy. I definitely agree with you.
But then why is there so much content unlocked after the endgame?
It's not like Sunshine where the game wanted you to get the Shine Sprites on every single courses and episodes 1-7 to get to the final level instead of just getting the amount of it. That's padding.
But then you could simply lower the requirements to avoid creating so much uninspired content, right?
Great stuff as always, I think I agree with everything you said. I love the core controls and a lot of the "main" content for Odyssey, and just how free it can feel, but the sheer amount of boring Moons makes the game a bit lacking, especially after I already got 100% on my first run.
Despite all that though, the game is still good.
@@jjc4924 How so?
Vlad. Well, for an open ended exploration, it's the best one in my honest opinion. U don't get kick out of the level after completing the missions, the missions; while maybe simple, aren't as tedious as 64 & especially Sunshine has, there's more exploration that u can travel own and while the overbundents of Power Moons are somewhat overkilled; it's not very mandatory, you only need to collect this amount of Power Moons to reach for another kingdom and there optional.
Even though I respected 64 & Sunshine for having it's own standard of an 3D sandbox games, it doesn't hold up that well. With Odyssey; while I'm saying the game is perfect, does it better than those 2.
Oh shit.... I didn't use a cheep cheep for the well. I actually just swam there. You can make it, I thought they expected it to be tough haha.
I was confused by that part. I couldn't believe that nintendo would make something difficult and tense. Turns out they didn't.
I collected every moon possible on my first visit to every kingdom, beat the game to the fullest at that point, unlocked the post game moons and did it all again. 999 moons I had a blast. I think I didn't mind how mundane some moons could be, I just enjoyed the games controls and kingdoms so much I just wanted to have a reason to move through them and thats what made the game so much fun for me. The games biggest strength is its controls, it just feels so damn good, unlike any other platformer I've played.
I fundamentally disagree with nearly everything you said, this is my favorite game of all time and I think it knows exactly what it wants to be. The goal of this game is making the act of going anywhere feel amazing and rewarding, and I feel that the incredible movement system and terrific world design make it succeed at that goal. That said, I like this video a lot and you do a good job of talking about your perspective, you’re great at articulating your points in a fair way even though i’ll never totally understand your opinion. Greta video
Another brilliant vid, thank you!
Gotta say, I love the void levels for a couple of reason though:
1. The atmosphere of them. They're so weird! I love the feeling that in this tangible world Mario inhabits, there are these bizzare alternate dimensions just sitting out there. I know it's strange but I sometimes get an almost cosmic horror vibe from the impossibility of these places just hanging out in infinite space.
2. They allow for the application of game ideas and the extension of concepts that would otherwise perhaps be constrained by the need to have a sense of place in the larger world. From the perspective of designers it must be a lovely way to express the 'what ifs' of level design without breaking the solid feel of the main worlds.
I feel like void levels have a place in these Mario games and I'd personally miss them terribly if they weren't there.
I would be curious to see a retrospective on A Hat in Time from you. I feel like that game is missing some of the problems you have with Odyssey, but it also has some of the same problems as this and other 3d Mario games.
I dono if you read comments 3 years later, but I got to experience this retrospective and I can say I partially agree. Mario Odyssey is nearly the best game I ever played. Nearly. To put it in a neat bow, the problems I have is the fact its a bit.. exhausting to play. Cloud and Ruin Kingdom's missed potential also kind of hurts a tiny bit, but I can not ignore the fact Mario Odyssey is still a fun lovely game to play. It reminds me of how games NOW can be modded. Because of this, I was able to replay games for a 4th-5th time with new insight and of course a fresh set of memory-defying systems. It didn't play the same thus it had a renewed level of interest. Lets give an example...
I got to replay Super Mario Sunshine, with Sunshine being MODDED with levels edited with warps and the removal of the boot out system. Because of how immersive Sunshine was, the mod creator simply added level warps that lead to the background levels you always where able see. Finally, every level was combined as your Sunshine retrospective suggested. Bianco Hills has both Petey and the First Shine in one. While some levels could not always be 100% combined, it was still possible to complete shines out of order. For example, both Petey wasnt going to be combined, if you wanted to do the rematch, you did have to choose the specific shine, but any blue-coins or shines that didn't HAVE to be mission specific, was able to collected in any mission now.
I had a thought of you going back, replaying sunshine with that mod to find out if your criticisms actually held any weight to yourself. The mod was called Super Mario Sunburn.
It made me think what Odyssey could of done to the games SYSTEMS like sunburn did. Sunburn merely tweaked systems, rather than add outright new ones (aside from a few custom levels), but I cant see Odyssey really being modified to a degree that can improve upon it systems. If Mario Odyssey is running like an engine, you are asking for it to be a perfectly smooth 100%, but in actuality it occasionally drops down in RPM from 100% to 86% from time to time before ramping back up to being a clean smooth ride. Simply put, I don't think odyssey can be objectively improved with just a slight tweak of any system like what sunburn did. You cant just DISABLE boot-out or add in new warps to facilitate being able to collect more at once and strengthen exploration. Taking away, or maybe adding content might destroy the almost-perfect one-size-fits-all game system Odyssey has going. Sure there are some complaints. but its hard to not recognize as one being a little overly picky.
That's why I suggest giving Mario Sunburn a try, its a first time opportunity to find out if your opinions actually hold value in making the game better, or maybe it might give you more insight to why a game may-or-may not be designed in a certain way. It would remind me a little bit about your "Learning to love" series where you attempt to go back and try to find enjoyments in games that had more of a rough time finding love due to for what ever reason. But Mario Sunburn implements many of your criticisms, the no boot-out for one. Does it ACTUALLY work in bettering the experience? Does the QoL changes improve or somehow hamper the game as a whole.
I've 100%'ed the game almost 4 times now and I still find it just as fun as the first time, Great video though
You're crazy
I just started the game a few months ago, put it away for a while, and then resumed in earnest. I remember at times being kind of bored, but when the game hits, it really hits. In regard to your comment about how a Mario game should know what it wants to be and stick to it (you said it better than my paraphrase), I think we should just accept at this point that major Mario titles are going to dabble in a large variety of various gameplay mechanics and styles, with different objectives for different sub-missions. I don't enjoy the tracing games and things like that, but I imagine that someone (probably a kid) does.
I was surprised, both pleasantly and unpleasantly, how much content was reserved or the end game. It's kind of neat at how the game itself is pretty easy for new gamers, but the more you want to accomplish the harder it gets.
In short, I think the game is better for having a lot of good things at the cost of a few things I don't like, because it means it's more likely that there's some aspect of the game that will appeal to somebody. It's an inelegant shotgun approach, but it has good stuff to offer and that's probably plenty good enough for me.
The platforming and the collecting should've been seamlessly sown together. Instead, Odyssey feels the need to completely split these apart, really dampening the flow of the game. Hopefully they can fix this in the next game. Great video.
Have to strongly agree on a few points in particular here.
The moons being so widely available does really diminish them, especially when there are so many repeats. Many of them ought to have been replaced with a more optional, side collectible.
Blocking off so many moons to the postgame sucks, too. I'd expect most people would do backtracking, obviously, but fully exploring a world they've already fully explored before? (After all, most people would have fully explored at least ONE world along the way.) This would be more forgivable in 64 or Sunshine because at least their objective select system would show you what was just added. In Odyssey... this should have been new worlds or greatly fleshing out those emptier worlds (like tripling the size of the starter world by opening up a gate somewhere or something).
Also, having the Odyssey be a giant customizable hub would have been a very easy way to "pad out" runtime in a far more engaging way. This is what that other collectible should have been to replace many of the moons - ship parts. Add/open up new wings to the ship with enough parts. Let the little hatship be a detachible away vessel that lets Mario land on worlds to preserve that functionality.
And, of course, the parts/purple coin unlocks allow you to set up the ship in world-themed customization. You could make a beachlike ship, or a wintry one, for example.
Dang. I remember when I first played this game when it came out. It felt good, but it just felt... Odd? I couldn't place it for a very long time. But you've finally put it into words
are you saying it felt odd...you see?
@@winterice2318 bruh
It's an absolutely excellent game. It's between Super Mario World on SNES, and Odyssey for which is my favourite Mario game of all time
Wait, there's another place in the gardens world? What?! I never knew this before! Now I want to boot up the game to find this place.
I've been coming back to Odyssey ever since it's release trying to 100% it, getting bored after 10-20 moons each time. This video reminded me about how incredible the main game is, and I'm just going to restart. The issue with "too much content" can only be an issue if you force yourself through it.
The challenge rooms are meant for the people that like the platforming. That is what is supposed to be fun about those. The average person isn't going to care if a challenge room doesn't have a correlating theme with the level it is in. But i can get and respect the point your trying to make. It's just that most people playing are playing for the fun platforming rather than exploraton (at least that's why i play Odyssey). I feel like Nintendo leaves their exploration expertise for their other titles like Breath of the Wild.
And the challenge rooms are completely optional unless you're going for 100% completion, such a weird thing to complain about.
"This platformer isn't that great because it has platforming in it."
Ok.
@@kingboobs20 For Real
Id have to say this is one retrospective ive just fundamentally disagreed with but like always I love hearing your thoughts. I thought the moon count was strictly satisfying and I loved the familiar content between levels which helped me know where and how to explore. Like in BOTW I think the method is all to encourage exploration and that exploration is part of the platforming experience. The hard stuff like the hidden coins are the real reward imo whereas the moons are more accessible for more people to satisfyingly complete. Though to get 999 moons you need to have that knack for exploration. The game is allowing everyone entry to these mechanics at any point in game at any level.