Zero said:

Much like Breath of the Wild I think the change they made is a very good one that makes for a more living, organic experience... but also much like Breath of the Wild I feel like maybe the "main" / "side" scale got tipped a bit too much to the "side" erm... side for the sake of having LOTS AND LOTS OF STUFF to pack worlds with. So you have all of this stuff to do, but it doesn't always feel *quite* as rewarding at any given moment.

It's funny you say that because I was just thinking the other day "I wish BotW had more side stuff." Lol, I guess it's a matter of perspective! :)

EDIT: I do agree with that assessment of Odyssey so far, though. BotW "main" stuff felt super fulfilling, but with Odyssey I haven't felt that quite the same yet. The easy moons (SO easy...) detract from the sense of accomplishment a ton to me. It makes moons feel common. In some ways the world-specific coins are more compelling to me, ha ha. I almost wish the easy moons were Mini-moons or something, and the Multi-Moons were a Grand Moon and then there were like 10 regular moons on each level. Or something. I dunno. Maybe I'm overthinking it.

@J.K. Riki I don't think the amount of side stuff is *quite* as much of an issue to me as what it replaces. I keep saying the balance feels off, which is true, but I'd probably be fine with any balance if there was a Galaxy's worth of main stuff to do. But I get the sense that this isn't the case. I don't know how many worlds there are total but it feels like there is maybe an hour or so tops (if even that) of "main" stuff to do in each world and then a bunch of side stuff. Unless there are a TON of worlds (which I don't think there are?) then it's going to be a bit lite on "main" stuff next to something like Galaxy.

I'm slightly curious too like, when you beat the "main" stuff do you just have hours and hours and hours of relatively short "side" stuff to go do afterwards? Or does more substantial "side" stuff open up? I guess some of the "side" stuff has been a little bit meatier than others, but usually not by much.

I think Zelda managed this by making the "side" stuff the main core gameplay of the game in some ways, often in entirely new areas in the overworld that you would probably never run into if you only did the "main" stuff, and you (sort of) needed to do a lot of it to build up your character moving forward. But that doesn't quite feel like the case here as much.

Honestly though I have no idea. I guess I'll see!

I binged this game super hard over the weekend. I cleared my plans and had all my work taken care of, so it was just me and Mario. Since this is my last semester before grad school, I probably won't have many more chances to do that, so I took full advantage. I'm at about 500 moons, I think. Maybe closer to 600?

I've adored Mario Odyssey. Playing the game like I did over the weekend, I was brought back to my childhood. It reminded me of the time I spent playing Mario 64, Pikmin, Melee, and Mario Sunshine all day in elementary school. Odyssey honestly had the same level of joy and discovery for my as those all time favorites do. Moments like The New Donk celebration, first seeing the dragon, or discovering the pictures of poochy were jaw dropping experiences that I can't remember feeling since I was playing games as a child. I get comparable feeling of shock and awe from a good character reveal for Smash, or some of the storytelling of the Metal Gear series, but those are a different sort of spectacle. Odyssey's is closer to when you're little and it feels like anything could happen within the space of the game. Like, for all you know, there very well could be more to find over the hills of Bob-omb Battlefield. Or that if you could find a way, you could swim from Delfino Plaza to Ricco harbor. Those moments where you're fully absorbed within the space of the game and it has you hooked for every new discovery and mechanic it introduces. Moments where your expectations are defied and it feels like any new idea can appear within the space of the game. Even something as small as finding the pictures of Poochy, or the Moon for sitting next to the guy on a bench are able to instill this feeling because of how surprising and clever they are.

It takes the same philosophy of Banjo Kazooie- base the size of the level around the amount of fun or interesting things you have to do- and cranked the scale up to 11. Many levels are huge, but they are densely packed with interesting mechanics, secrets, and things to do, so that scale is legitimately supported by the gameplay, rather than being a decision that the gameplay must then struggle to justify.

And unlike the pure and untainted Breath of the Wild, the statement that "there's so much to see and do" is absolutely true. Outside of the main story in Breath of the Wild, the rewards for exploration are dull and meaningless- fragile weapons, boring Korok seeds, or dungeons of various quality made from re-used assets. This isn't a big problem if you enjoy the exploration, but for me it fell flat. And that's because the only thing to discover were increasingly repetitive natural landscapes. The exploration is purely aesthetic, as the gameplay doesn't change all that much regardless of what you find. You're still doing that slow climbing, shuffling through fragile weapons that mostly feel similar, and tracking down shrines that you know will reuse assets. The size of the world means little to me when what you're actually doing within that world is so restricted and undynamic. You can sometimes force yourself to create variety by playing the game like Dunkey, but there's nothing withiin the game to lead you to being that creatively inefficient. There are some exceptions, but this was the bulk of my experience with the game.

In contrast, Odyssey excels at mechanical exploration. Not only is the process of exploring the levels rewarding, but the the things you find change the gameplay. One minute you're flying through obstacles as a bullet bill, the next you're racing a koopa, then you're navigating an obstacle course without your hat, then you're off on a mazelike minigame, then you're collecting timed music notes, then you're hunting down moon based on how your controller vibrates. The sheer variety in the gameplay gives Odyssey a greater sense of discover and rewarding exploration than the entirety of Zelda's much larger world. I would rather play a game of Odysseys lesser scale, but greater depth of content. I feel so carefree wandering around these playground-type levels where it feels like there's always something new and interesting to try out. It's a blast.

Breath of the Wild was a technical triumph. The fact that it is possible to create such a big world with such varied topography is stunning. But Mario Odyssey feels like a triumph of design. The fact that the developers were able to cram so many fun little mechanics into such a large, yet densely packed space is impressive, and for me, more engaging.

I'm going to put down a couple ideas for future discussion if I feel compelled to talk about the game more
Comparisons to 64 and Sunshine
Comparisons to 3D World
Post game content
Mario as symbol of childlike enthusiasm/carefree-ness in New Donk City?????

@Hero_Of_Hyrule

Awesome post. Would love to read more!

@Secret_Tunnel

Thanks, that's appreciated. I hope my comparisons to Breath of the Wild were useful illustrations, rather than me dogging the game again. I find contrasting the two to be very interesting, since they both have the idea of taking there series into big open environments, but execute that idea in almost opposite ways. If you prefer what Breath of the Wild does, then more power to you. But I'll take Odyssey any day.

Seems like you really like the game! Maybe you should change your score to reflect that!

Zero said:

Could you "joke score" people like... stop doing this every time a new big game comes out? It's kind of annoying because the scores are used for other parts of the site and it looks weird that our highest rated recent game is Golf Story, not Mario.

The highest rated recent game (3 ratings minimum) is Golf Story (Switch) with an average of 8.967. The highest rated all-time game (20 ratings minimum) is The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Switch) with an average of 9.777.

So, I finished the main path in the wood area and decided to just stay in there and keep getting moons until it started feeling old. I was *kind of* running around trying to discover stuff on my own for a bit but it felt like a lot of work for little payoff... sometimes spend 10 or 20 minutes to find 1 or 2 minutes of gameplay or so. So I decided to use Toad to give myself a goal and then explore stuff on the way to the x on the map, which felt a bit more focused. Even so sometimes I get lazy and just warp as close as I can to the x, but I still try to explore instead of running right to it, especially if it is a bit of the map I haven't really explored in detail yet.

I actually kind of wish the game just kept giving you another goal when you finish the last one, or at least that there was an option to do this, which I know would make it feel less exploration-ey, but I'm doing enough exploration on my own on the way to goals as it is (I usually end up with like 20-30 moons before finishing the 3-4 main goals in each area, for instance) that having a new goal to focus on wouldn't really kill that for me. As it is I just end up warping back to Toad to get a new goal a lot, which is a bit tedious, though not a huge deal.

Anyway, though I still have a lot of the same concerns as before, and though I would run into some stretches of like 4 or 5 moons in a row that were not super satisfying, I started getting some really neat ones too, especially through doors or taking rockets. They're still a bit short for my tastes, but it wasn't bad.

So I guess I'm slightly less worried about the many, many post-main-content moons in each area, though I do wish there were some meatier sections too. But it was a pretty good session and I ended up with something like 50 moons before I started feeling like I needed to move onto a fresh area.

It's almost weird to me that every area is completely distinct though? I mean this is basically an open world game, but with totally distinct areas... do many other games do this? Does the game ever send you back into an area you have already been in as part of the main quest? Feels like there would be some potential there, just be like BAM huge section you didn't have access to before is open now? But it feels like not that type of game...

@Zero
It doesn't really do that, but there will be reasons to return to previous areas later on.

@r_hjort Well I have run into the silver cubes which I'm assuming I can't do much with yet, though I could be wrong there. A few other oddities that I think require something else to happen first to move forward on.

I just remember how amazing of a feeling it is in certain Metroid games (Prime comes to mind) when you think you have mostly seen every section in an area and the game sends you back and it is like nope, actually there is a TON more here! And I have run into a warp that directly connects two areas in Odyssey, so there would be potential for it, but all that warp did was warp me directly to a small floating platform I couldn't access before that had a moon sitting on it so I mean TECHNICALLY it gave me access to a new part of the map I couldn't reach before, but there wasn't much there.

@Zero
It doesn't seem that Odyssey does what I think Yooka-Laylee does, in that it doesn't expand the actual areas, but I really don't think you have to worry about the amount of content in the respective areas. That might not be what you want, but for me it made the game feel more substantial, depsite the many minor moons.

@Hero_Of_Hyrule
Thanks for the thoughts! I enjoy more detailed posts like this. And binging Mario Odyssey sounds like my kinda weekend.

Regarding BotW, I didn't feel that emptiness or stagnancy at all while playing through it; I never knew what I was going to encounter next, and there were plenty of surprises in the game to discover. Bosses, dragons, falling stars, different horses, enemies, Korok puzzles, scripted Shrine events, NPCs being attacked (or attacking you), new ingredients, minigames, giant statues, various ruins and more. Now, after about 120 hours or so of this, you start to get the feeling that you've seen most of what the game has to offer, but it takes a good while to get to that point, IMO. And for me, the joy of exploring was often motivation enough; I didn't always need a new goody to satiate my wanderlust. Controlling Link was fun and full of options, and you could interact with the environment in a ton of different ways.

Heck, you could argue that the Korok Seeds actually give you more of an in-game incentive to collect them than the Moons, since you can spend them on useful extra slots.

All that being said, I agree with you about Mario Odyssey--it's a "denser" experience in a way, with the game constantly rewarding you for looking around, being thorough with experimentation, and utilizing your platforming skills. Several of the stages are barely bigger than Mario 64 or Banjo-Kazooie's levels, but they provide plenty to do and see throughout. In fact, I'm surprised by how much this game is reminding me of the original B-K at times--with the exactly 100 tokens in each stage, plus the slightly easier-to-get main objects that don't kick you out, I find myself combing over the levels in a similar manner as I would in B-K, trying to get it all.

What do you guys think of the soundtrack so far? I mostly really like it, with Fossil Falls, Bonneton, Steam Gardens, Jump Up Superstar, New Donk City and Shiveria being my favorite songs at the moment. There are a few underwhelming or weirdly muted tracks, though, like Lake Kingdom and Bubblaine, both of which were surprisingly reserved. I'm not wild about how some kingdoms will have no main theme song until after you clear the first big objective.

Nintendo should have stuck with Yokota/Minegishi for the soundtrack. Compared to 3D World's upbeat athletic themes

energetic boss tunes

and this catchy as fuck song

I think Odyssey is coming up short.

I feel like they've held the music back in certain ways to keep the player from getting sick of it during long play sessions in one area, but this is hardly Breath of the Wild (which handled the audio brilliantly, IMHO), so I think they dropped the ball on this. There are still some really good songs, but I don't think they compare to the previous few games' soundtracks.

EDIT: I guess that whenever I play a level in Odyssey I think the music (when it actually plays, that is) is fitting and even enjoyable, but as soon as I leave the level I forget what the music sounded like. But maybe that's me getting old and forgetful.

@r_hjort
Wait, Yokota ISN'T doing Odyssey's music??

Cascade Kingdom (Fossil Falls) sounds just like his work! Those sweeping string counter-melodies. This song sounds like it popped right out of the Gusty Garden factory!



I also find New Donk City's main theme to be very reminiscent of Super Mario 3D World's jazz band arrangements too. However, you don't fully hear this version until you recruit all the band members:

@TriforceBun
No, Yokota isn't mentioned anywhere in the credits, I don't think. Seems Nintendo went with Naoto Kubo from Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker/Mario Maker, and Shiho Fujii who did various bits and pieces in the later 2D Marios. Can't for the life of me understand why Yokota doesn't get to compose these days. Kondo I understand, but Yokota?

EDIT: Yeah, Odyssey's songs sure have the arrangements down, but there's something about the melodies that don't feel the same. Not that those two tracks aren't good or anything.

@r_hjort
Wow, that's crazy to me--those songs felt very similar to the Galaxy and 3D World tracks. Well, good on Kubo then. It looks like he's a relative newcomer to Nintendo and he's already handling the bulk of Odyssey's soundtrack.

In that case, it is puzzling how Nintendo is handling Yokota. Having him arrange the tracks in Skyward Sword instead of compose them was a huge missed opportunity. Heck, I would've loved to hear him handle Breath of the Wild. He did a stellar job with A Link Between Worlds (and both Galaxies are in my top 5 game OSTs ever).

@TriforceBun
Yokota did compose a few tracks for Skyward Sword, but only a handful or so according to the internets.Turns out our Odyssey friend Shiho Fujii wrote some of my favourite songs in Skyward Sword that I thought came from Hajime Wakai. Crimson Loftwing, for instance, which I find to be absolutely beautiful. Pretty cool to know, so that I give her the respect she deserves.



But A Link Between Worlds isn't Yokota either, at least not the bulk of it from what I can see. That's Ryo Nagamatsu, who incidentally wrote a couple of tunes for Galaxy 2.

I always liked this for some reason. Probably the quirky instrumentation.

EDIT: Okay, WTF! Shiho Fujii apparently wrote this from Splatoon too! I thought this was Minegishi! Between this and Skyward Sword it turns out I've been a big fan of hers without even knowing it.

@r_hjort
Man, I'm all mixed up with Yokota apparently. Nagamatsu's works look generally really good, although I'm puzzled by a couple things--I thought Mario Kart Wii and NSMB Wii had extremely weak soundtracks compared to the rest of his stuff.

As for Fujii, her Splatoon tunes are good stuff, but I generally don't love Skyward Sword's soundtrack as much. And NSMBU was particularly blah.

Hm. What is it about the NSMB sub-series that makes good musicians do underwhelming songs...?

This is why we need Kondo back composing. Or teach the youngsters better. That man could pull off pretty much anything.

Haven't beaten the game yet, but I did get a major tease for something that got me excited as heck! Glad I found this out from the game itself rather than an unmarked spoiler, too.

@r_hjort
Kondo definitely has made some legendary tunes. The man knows how to craft a melody. But I like seeing the young blood in Nintendo! After all, the older guys won't be around forever.

@TriforceBun
Yeah, which is why he isn't composing as much anymore. Like how Miyamoto isn't directing and designing as much. Bittersweet.