A Bold Confession: Why Super Mario Odyssey Left Me Feeling Unconventional
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For a short period, either during the 1950s or 1960s, Charles Schulz experimented with depicting adults in the backgrounds of Peanuts comic strips. I wish I could locate the one strip I’ve seen like this to describe it in detail – if anyone has spotted my edition of Peanuts: A Golden Celebration, could you please reach out? Anyway, Charlie Brown and Linus find themselves on a golf course, I think, with these adults barely in full view because the children are so small, and the adults are milling about, standing in the background, creating a sort of human topiary of arms, legs, and torsos.
It is – to be honest – quite bizarre. Initially, the adult figures age the strip in a manner that Charlie Brown’s zig-zag shirt never does. Furthermore, they entirely distort the proportions. Are the children tiny, or are the adults gigantic? They also clutter things up. That trademark Peanuts clarity – the vast sky Schulz succeeded in conveying within the limited space of a newspaper comic panel every morning for fifty years – is suddenly gone. It’s very, very strange.
Regrettably, it isn’t my role to write about Peanuts all day, but I think of that peculiar drawing every time I play Super Mario Odyssey, the Mario game that… how should I phrase this? The Mario game that I find the least comforting and familiar. Super Mario Odyssey is – to be honest – remarkably unusual, in my opinion. The developers have talked about this somewhat – they mentioned wanting to create a game that feels like a journey to a new place, and I’ve read that many of the ideas in the game arise from the team’s own experiences. However, it has taken me a long time to pinpoint why the final product feels so distinctive and different from what has come before, even though it retains many of the same mechanics and concepts. I will attempt to clarify this now, and Peanuts might help.
To start: this game is incredible. With the Switch, Mario returns to the expansive sandbox style of Mario 64 and Sunshine. The levels are truly vast and intricate, and there is always a handful of objectives you could be pursuing at any moment. The variety of levels is nearly overwhelming, and they are all packed with secret areas, little jokes, whimsical animations, and other side notes.
Additionally, it is fantastic because the Mario team has decided to truly raise the stakes. This is likely the most technically challenging 3D Mario game Nintendo has produced to date. It stands out in terms of complexity, alongside New Super Mario Bros U, a somewhat underrated Mario entry that elevated the technical daring for a select group of appreciative players. (Of which I’m not, I should admit, but I still loved what they were doing.)
Anyway, in Odyssey you have the traditional Mario jumping mechanic, but you also gain Mario’s hat. You can throw it to possess various animals and creatures, which leads to some delightful moments when you’re suddenly controlling a Mario dinosaur, for example. There is potentially a whole retrospective waiting to be explored in this feature alone. However, you can also throw it and leave it hovering in the air for a moment, at which point you can jump on it, using it as a platform where none existed before, and then leap from there to reach particularly tricky spots.
Take a moment to ponder that. A platformer where you can create your own temporary platforms – if you are skilled and quick enough to use them – and chain them with other elements of the environment. (Argh, we’re back to New Super Mario Bros U again.) More than ever, you’re encouraged to simply consider the invisible possibilities surrounding you, the places you can reach, the maneuvers you can pull off.
This is almost too much. It’s great, but skill-wise, it leaves me way behind. That’s surprising – I appreciate a Mario game that really challenges itself, even if I end up struggling in the process. However, this is likely one of the minor reasons why Odyssey feels so unlike me. It’s the first major Mario game where I genuinely feel that a significant portion of what the game presents is simply beyond my reach. This isn’t a critique of Odyssey – if anything, it reflects on me. Overall, I’m glad the designers made this choice.
So where does everything become truly peculiar? It has taken me a while to uncover this feeling, but I believe it comes down to the art, or rather the variety of environments the game transports you to. Mario Odyssey is certainly not set in the Mushroom Kingdom. More significantly, it isn’t set in the recognizable realm that all Mario games seem to occupy, where things are soft and plush, even when made of only a handful of polygons, and where everything around Mario – trying to find a simple way to phrase this – seems to be made from Mario-like materials. For instance, the rocks forming the Princess’ castle might be rounded and smooth and soft. The trees might look vibrant and lush. Even something like the grotto in Sunshine boasts some of the most huggable, adorable stalactites and stalagmites I’ve ever encountered in a game.
Mario
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Odyssey is seldom ever embraced like that. Schulz’s early endeavors to engage adults within the context of Peanuts strips altered the very essence of the series in a way that was both trivial yet remarkably transformative. Odyssey introduces Mario into realms that are not crafted from his usual style. While it may sound harsh, it closely captures what I’m trying to convey. It’s not merely a matter of scale; it’s about the striking textures, tangible qualities, and artistic styles. Mario remains Mario, the short, mustachioed character we know, yet the environments he inhabits are usually not what we consider Mario environments. They represent something entirely different.
That said, some areas are indeed Mario worlds. The Cap Kingdom, where the adventure begins, features simplistic, child-like structures set against a backdrop of undulating fabric. The Sand Kingdom resembles a vibrant toy chest, adorned with bright Mexican influences. Bowser typically appears in a battleship reminiscent of Mario 3, and the landscapes are filled with countless Goombas and other Mario-style creatures waiting to be ground-pounded.
But beyond that? Consider the Cascade Kingdom. It all feels strangely too… realistic? Sure, there are floating rocks and magnificent waterfalls, yet the textures evoke something akin to Tomb Raider, contrasting with Mario in a rather disorienting way. The T. rex that Mario can observe is not the Yoshi-like cartoon dinosaur I recall; it comes across as something more lifelike. (This mirrors the same attempt Core Design once tried with… Tomb Raider.)
Listen: every aspect of gameplay here is classic Mario fun, yet it appears different, and because of that difference, it feels distinct to me. It prompts me to ponder: what exactly am I supposed to feel in this experience? What is my interpretation of it all?
Moving on. The Wooded Kingdom offers another avenue of delightful Mario fun, but the textures – the trees and pathways – resemble scenes I’d expect in a computer simulation of the logging industry. Once again, Mario stands out in stark contrast, just as he does for me in Metro Kingdom, exploring an urban downtown reminiscent of New York, filled with yellow cabs and – oh no! – busy people.
Once more, all of these areas are fun to explore and filled with clever challenges, yet it frequently feels as though our hero has stepped away from the innocent play and ventured into a more structured environment. It’s that Peanuts dilemma again – something childlike inserted into a space where it doesn’t quite fit.
Part of this is arguably due to technological advancements – Mario is now navigating hardware that supports a far greater range of textures than the Wii or GameCube could manage. He’s now free from the gentle softness of rim lighting and is surrounded by convincing materials that we encounter in our everyday lives – brick, stone, and metal.
Still, this represents a shift, and it’s a transition coming from a team that obviously knows exactly what they’re doing and have consistently demonstrated that proficiency. After Yoshi’s adventures in fabric and sewing, and
For some time, I was trapped at this junction. I found Mario Odyssey to be so immensely captivating, compellingly so on an aesthetic level, that a part of me often questioned whether the game existed partly to provoke contemplation – contemplation about how it ended up appearing so extraordinary in the first place. (If it even does. Whenever I inquire with a colleague about Mario Odyssey and its peculiar visual style, they generally tell me that, in fact, it still appears like a Mario game.)
In my fanciful moments, I’d concoct conspiracy theories. Perhaps New Donk City, that charming little stage that l