Retronauts - Retronauts Episode 145: Super Mario Odyssey's classic roots

Episode Date: April 2, 2018

Jeremy and Bob convene with Chris Kohler and Henry Gilbert to take another look at the ways a recent hit release draws on the heritage of a long-running game franchise. It's Super Mario Odyssey, and it celebrates 35+ years of Mario (and Donkey Kong!).

This Weekend Retronauts, in Greek, it's called Super Mario Iliad. Hi, everyone, and welcome to another episode of Retronauts. I'm Jeremy Parrish. And this week we're doing another one of those episodes that you like, apparently. Yes, we're going to look at a current game instead of a classic game because we're liars and we're betraying the entire premise of this entire podcast. This week we're looking at Super Mario Odyssey and talking about its classic roots and evolutions and heritage and all those cool things. We're basically sitting together for an hour and finding an excuse to talk about a game that's new and we really like in the kind of. context of a classic games podcast.

And joining me here this week in this hideous travesty of a podcast, we have. Bob Mackie, I will never undock my switch. God, you're the... Only cowards undock their switches. Go next, please. Brutal killer, Henry Gilbert. Hi. And Chris Kohler, the Iliad was the prequel to the Odyssey.

Oh, okay. So that was Mario Sunshine. The Odyssey was also Greek. Mario Sunshine is... That's right. You got the joke, though. Do we, I think that, okay, we can rephrase this as, do we have to start calling Super Mario Galaxy 2, Super Mario Illiad now? No, I think Super Mario Sunshine is Super Mario.

Oh, yeah, I think so. Yeah, it does make us ill. So, yeah. I have a master's in literature, and I hate this. It was the Achilles heel of the series. Wow. I'm sorry, that was Wario. Never mind.

Okay. This is already off the rails. And that's my fault because I didn't make notes for this because I thought, why force a structure onto what will surely be an organic and natural free-flowing conversation about a video game? And that was probably a mistake, but we're going to find out. So anyway, a few months ago, we did an episode on Legend of Zelda, Breath of the Wild, where we sat and we looked at, you know, the things that Breath of the Wild takes from classic Zelda, how does Zelda, Breath of the Wild, evolve, you know, the original Zelda, and a link to the past,

an Occurated of Time and so on and so forth. And that went over really well. And people said, please do this with more games. And so here we are with Super Mario Odyssey. We won't just do this with the Nintendo games, I swear to God. But Super Mario Odyssey just came out, and it is monumentally good. And also, it is super relevant to episodes that we have created within the past year or so. Mario 64, Super Mario Sunshine.

Like, this is the next game in that little offshoot of Mario evolution. So you're saying we will have a Sonic Forces episode. So in 2018. Oh, absolutely. No, but Sonic Mania for sure. Oh, yeah. Let's not talk about Sonic Forces. I played that and reviewed it and that is enough of my life dedicated to that name.

I'm sorry. It's okay. It's okay. No, whatever they paid you. I got a little bit of money for it. So it helps. Now you've got an O.C. It helps.

What's that? You got an original character. Yeah. She's great. I don't even remember what she is. But yes, the money helped wallpaper over that stain on my soul. It's great. But no, Mario Odyssey, I can't really think of anything negative to say about it.

I mean, it maybe isn't perfect, but there's nothing about the game that when I play it, I'm like, man, I wish it didn't do this. It does a good job of kind of giving you open spaces and then structured spaces. And that's what I want to talk about because that aspect of it reminds me of Super Mario Sunshine done right. Because Super Mario Sunshine had these big sandbox spaces where you kind of poked around and explored. But the things you had to do to find secrets felt sometimes onerous, like just not fun and kind of a burden. And then the structured spaces where you had platforming challenges, you often were competing with the controls and the camera. Whereas in this game, you know, the structured platforming challenges are very, very difficult at times. But I never feel like I'm wrestling with the game's mechanics with the interface.

It just really feels like they sat back and said, all right, how can we do this sunshine thing better? And that wasn't the only impetus behind this game. But definitely, like, there's so much of Odyssey that I feel is Sunshine done the way they really wanted to be done. Maybe the way Sunshine would have turned out if they'd had another year to work on it. This is burning in my brain, but I'm seeing, and I've thought about this for a long time after playing Odyssey, The Venn diagram overlap between Mario and Zelda is like coming closer together. Now, I feel like Odyssey has a lot in common with Breath of the Wild, and I don't know if people are talking about this,

but I feel like both games are approaching this sort of open world thing where you can just organically dip into many challenges. The rewards are plentiful, and there's lots of them. And I think, like, Nintendo is just, like, really getting closer to this one core game philosophy. And, like, there's even, like, a little Kirby overlap in there with the various abilities. Like, it's all these Nintendo ideas coming together in one product or one experience. What I like about Super Mario Odyssey is that it doesn't, I'm used to, in a Mario game, they're very directed path you're going to go on, or even in like 64 Sunshine or in the Galaxy games, are like, well, this is a big area, but this is your task. And in this one, it was just finding the task yourself.

And I didn't feel the weight of completionism on me the entire time, which I really liked at a certain point that I was like, I knew I was getting tons of moons and I was always searching for more, but I never felt like, I think I have 10 left here. I'm going to go to the bad ones now or whatever. They never felt like I have to go to the ones I've been saving to that point. Yeah, that's something that really I really like about the game is that like the path to complete it. I don't know how exactly how many moons you have to find. It's not that many. It's like 170 or something. No.

And in fact, it, I don't even think that it, it tells you you have to find a certain number. No, it's just you have to get that many to... You have to complete, yeah, yeah, yeah.

You have to clear out all the levels and defeat the crazy rabbit do. And it's even crazier that, like, a Nintendo game, it just lets you buy the moons. Like, look, if you don't want to get him and you've got a thousand,

coins, then here, buy 10 moons. Right. But the thing is, like, why would you do that? Why would you run around and farm coins? Because the moons are all, they're everywhere and you acquire them by doing lots of different and interesting things. And what I was going to say was that, you know, you do have to get a set amount of moons in order to advance because you have to power up the Odyssey and repair your ship and move on to the next stage. But by the time you get to the end of the game, you know, by the time you defeat Bowser at the very end, sorry, spoil and, you know, go on to the, go on to the post, I know, I know.

To defeat Bowser, you must become Bowser. This will be a few months out, so it'll be okay. People will have played it by then. No, but by the time you get, you know, to the end and defeat Bowser, go to the post game, like, for me, I didn't feel like it was dragging, like, oh, I have to go get more moons and, you know, advance further. It was like, well, I should probably finish this game so I can, you know, move on and, you. and get on to the next project I have to work on, so I should go finish it. But there's so many other moons I want to explore. So I had to, like, pull myself away from the worlds and from the challenges and from the opportunity to explore in order to get through the core of the game, which, you know, if I weren't on sort of a game schedule with my work, I wouldn't have done that.

I would have just kept poking around until I was like, okay, yeah, I'm done here organically. And that's not something that I felt with Mario 64 or Mario Sunshine or a lot of other games. Like there's even some of the New Super Mario Brothers games, you know, you have to get a set number of the big coins in order to unlock things. There's always been this kind of like, you know, there's a little bit of drudgery, like the sense of, like I have this obligation to do this because I need to unlock the end of the game. This game does not have that because it's so buried and broad. in the objectives and the environments and the things that you're doing within those environments to complete those objectives, it's really just a huge success in terms of giving you incentive to poke around in the world. And I'm naturally someone who likes to explore games, but even so, sometimes exploration can become a chore, especially when it's obligated, you know, it's an obligation, it's obligatory. And this doesn't have that.

Yeah, I mean, if I can offer a mild word of criticism here, it's to say that certainly it is fun in and of itself simply to go around collecting moons, to explore the levels, to find stuff. At some point, though, I started to think, okay, I'm really putting in the extra effort here. Like, I'm not just getting the set amount of moons that I need and then moving on. I'm actually really spending time, hunting stuff down, finding more moons. Tons of fun in and of itself, which is the most important thing. But I start thinking to myself, okay, what am I going to use all these? I'm collecting so many extra moons. Is there going to be something I can cash these suckers in for at some point during the game

to reward me for the game to say, oh, hey, you know, you really, you know, you really did a good job. here's a reward for getting so many more moons. And the answer is no. The answer is that only after you complete the game does it say, okay, well, you've got a butt ton of moons. So now you can go to the dark side of the moon, which is, you know, a boss gauntlet and plus a couple other little things like super hard challenges. And then it's like, okay, now get 500 moons. I'm like, oh, 500. Okay, fine.

I guess I'll get 500 moons. You unlock new things at the shop. You unlock special bonuses from the rabbit. Yeah, you unlock. If you got in BBOs, those costumes you'd have anyway. Yeah. Right. You unlock the ability to buy more costumes.

Right. That's a trend. So I was because, but the moons power the Odyssey to go different places. So I was expecting some non-linearity as far as like, oh, you got all these bonus moons. Now you get to go to e.g. I. I.L. Delphino or something like that. But then even the 500 moon. thing, which I got to, and I was so excited. It's like, it's the darker side of the moon.

And it's like, uh, hmm, I'm like, you know what? I'm sure that there are a lot of people out there who are really excited for this as a reward. But like, to me, I was not excited for that as a reward. It was like, here's a super hard level to play. Yeah, when I got to that, yeah, okay, thanks. When I got to that stage, it's what, it's what the Mario team has been doing. I think since at least Galaxy 2 where

I think they took it to heart that people complained you make your games too easy and so they just were like well alright if you really want to like kick in the balls Mario stage we can make that and we'll make it really hard to get to it and defeating his own reward but

yeah the massacism for it it was in 3D world where I hit the I was like I don't want to feel this pain anymore I don't want to I beat it in 3D land but when I got to 3D world I was like I could play a different game now. I don't need to beat this stage.

Like, call me what's in the comments if you want. I like that content exists for people who want it. Yeah. I could see the need for a better reward for those who don't. With what Chris was saying, I see that as a trend in Japanese game specifically where they have sort of the ending for normies. Like, most people will get to this part of the game. We're not going to put it past all this content. But it's like once you beat the game, there's literally like another half of the game left.

Like they do that in Monster Hunter. They do that in Metal Gear. They do that in like Yakuza games. Like they have the regular ending. And I should say that is something that I thought they did well here in the sense of the quote unquote beating Bowser end of the game is not the end of Mario Odyssey as far as things to see and do. But that in fact you beat Bowser and then the story just keeps going. And Princess Toadstool is like I'm going to, Princess Peach is like I'm going to go on a vacation. I'm sick of you, assholes.

And trips around the world. And then they change what's going on in all of the levels because everything is at peace in all the levels. It's because actually the really cool thing about Mario Odyssey is that there are fundamental sort of change points where you start out in the level. And then like, remember the snow level was like you couldn't see two feet in front of your face for the storms? And you fix that problem. And then there's another major life event that will happen in every stage that, that fundamentally changes it again. And then after the end of the game, you know, Peach heads out and then that changes all the levels again, which is really, really something.

I mean, they did an insane amount with that. And just the fact that it sends you to the mushroom kingdom, which is a whole complete other kingdom. Although, again, like, I get into the mushroom kingdom and it's like, oh, crap, let's go explore stuff. Oh shit, there's paintings. What happens when I jump in a painting? A harder version of a boss fight. Yeah, I was hoping for more when I jumped in that painting. Every reward in this game is a harder version of a boss fight.

That's what I'm a hard level. There's a part of me that really wanted the paintings to have the original Mario 64 levels. But now with the camera controls. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what I didn't like about the Galaxy games, specifically too, where it's like all of the comet stages where it's the same thing, but don't get hit once. or now go faster.

I just feel like that's kind of not imaginative. It's like, again, I know that there is a group of people, maybe a large group, maybe even the majority of Mario fans who think that that is the absolute best reward. But for me, it doesn't square with the rest of the game, which is that what I want is more of what I got, which is leisurely exploration of a unique area. But maybe it gets to the point where it's like, are you going to? to build an I.L. Delphino that nobody's going to go to. Right. No one has any, like, nostalgia for, so they don't want to.

Well, that's why the, the, the mushroom kingdom kind of becomes a composite of, like, World and 64 and kind of brothers original, like, just in, like, that with other stuff sprinkled in there. Like, this is all your Mario memories in one place. It is, it is. It even has, like, the weird looking, like, mushrooms from, you know. I fucking love that, seeing the yellow with reds. spot mushrooms which like they hadn't seen that's something from a nostalgia standpoint as a

Mario fanboy just all this stuff like Nintendo had not officially recognized red overall blue shirt Mario in decades for the longest time that was the standard Mario you would see in cartoons and merchandise I don't know when the blue overalls took over sorry I do and and there's a Donkey Kong outfit too right separate from that I think I think they call that it's the same one as Donkey Kong. Oh, it is. Yeah, okay. But, yeah, well, the big

changeover happened in-game in, in, in, in, in USA, he has the blue overalls combo, but in the art it was still red overalls, and in everything they licensed it was red overalls. Three was the major change in both art and the only thing, and

I mean, so really, yeah, looking back on it, it's really neat how they it was, it was not just sort of this like spiritual tribute to 30, 40, whatever years of Mario, but, like, actually making reference to old Mario in a variety of ways within the world, especially in, like, New Donkey City, with the Donkey Kong promotional 2D artwork being used to billboard sides of buildings and stuff like that.

And I bet, I think, Bob, what you'll probably say at this point is that you're sick of 2D Mario being 8-bit 2D Mario. I could kind of handle it in this game just because of I like the little touches where every costume you wear is reflected in the sprite so I would go into those 2D stages to see what these sprite artwork would look like Yeah, that's what Mario Maker was a test run for Yeah, yeah, yeah, these sprite stages

But it would have been very interesting I think to see Super Mario World style 2D I agree, I agree I think they salvaged it with the New Dog City level where it's 2D and you're playing as the concerts going on in the background that's like the best use of that as a spectacle that's like my favorite moment

in a game this year really with my like well one one I'm a big fan of musicals and jazzy ballad so I just like that bit and then a jazzy ballad all about the Mario history pretty much it was great and especially hearing the sound effects

from Donkey Kong kind of spliced into it too was great and then also just seeing the little bits people put And, like, people noticed how the, I forget the source on this, but that the Pauline dance, her little stomp back-and-forth thing was her pixel artworks. Yeah, her animation and Donkey Kong. And I think it's a pacing thing, too. It's great because New Dong City is right in the middle of the game. So they kind of give you, like, a mid-game finale.

It is. Yeah, yeah. That's one of the things that surprised me about this game is I feel like it has multiple climaxes. Like, you get to the end, and then it's not actually the end. this is like the Donkey Kong end but now there's the Bowser in but then actually Bowser screws you over and you got to go chase after Bowser on the moon

and then that's the end and then actually it's not because Princess Peach is like I hate you bozos I'm going on vacation so then there's a whole bunch of other stuff to do so it just keeps kind of going and it's over oh no it's not there's a pleasant surprise here and it's not in the way of like say the original Tales of Destiny

where you're like oh I'm done with this game oh actually no that was the midpoint of the story oh okay well I guess I got to keep going. It's more like, oh, neat, there's more to do. And, you know, you mentioned the way the stages evolve. And that instanced kind of approach to world design to me is one of the most overt things that comes from Mario 64. Because the stages of Mario 64, like every time you enter, you're always going after the first star.

And once you get that first star, a lot of times the world that you're exploring, the stage changes. Like Jolly Roger Bay, you go and you raise the ship. And then in every subsequent star in Jolly Roger Bay in Mario 64, the ship has been, you know, brought to the surface and it's floating there. So it changes how the stage works and how you interact with it. And this feels like taking that idea and moving it out of those like specific instances and making it more of a permanent change, kind of like you saw in Mario World, where you would open up paths and you would hit the switch palaces and you, you know, do all these things that would permanently change the overworld of Mario, Super Mario World. So it's taking that idea and really just saying, let's run with it. Let's make this a core part of the experience.

And to me, it gets to... Yeah, because ultimately Mario 64 and Sunshine were too... They were still too married to the level-based idea of Mario, where it's like, okay, well, here's Bob on Battlefield Star 1, and here's Star 2, and we'll alter it. And really, it's like you can play around in the world of Mario 64, but whenever you play around, it's like, you're supposed to be doing. This is what you're supposed to be doing. And you go, getting rid of a level end when you accumulate or when you acquire a moon or a Power Star or whatever they're called Power Moon in this game, like that's a big

change because it means you just keep going. And there are the key points. That's when you look at the clock and it's like 4 a.m. And it's like, oh, oops. I've just been playing this forever. But there are the key points where like something significant happens within the stage, like a path opens or, you know, something falls or changes or opens up. And even then, like, you're not kicked out of the stage.

You just keep going. It's just kind of like, hey, something big just happens. So it kind of acknowledges that. But to me, that really gets to the name of the game, Super Mario Odyssey. Like, for the first time, it really feels like you are on a quest traveling throughout the world. And so I didn't mind the linearity of it. Like, you're always pushing toward that next horizon. There's always, you know, Bowser has moved along.

You know, there's some new thing you have to chase after. There's some new conflict ahead of you. And so it's very natural and organic for these changes to happen because it's like it takes the storybook element of Super Mario Galaxy and instead of making it like a thing that sort of exists on the side where you like bring the game to a stop in order to read the story, now the game is the story and you're experiencing the story and making it happen and making the pages unfold by accumulating things. That's what I thought the Mario series was building towards, you know, with 64 sunshine and galaxy, you know, because. Galaxy definitely had, it wasn't, it wasn't like, I mean, Galaxy 2 was literally a linear, you know, level map, right? You know, Galaxy 1 at least sort of still had that feeling of the big hub world, the story, you know, the Rosalina story book kind of thing that was going on. Like a lot of stuff was going on there. And then instead of evolving that, they dropped it like the hottest potato.

I remember, I remember being at E3 and, I mean, you know, kind of coming off of like New Super Mario Brothers You, which, you know, I was like, okay, well, you know, I'm sure people like. this, but, like, I'm waiting for my... Who would like that game? There's people out there. No one in this room. But it's just like, but okay, but now that this, now that that four player Mario is out of the way, now they can give me my Super Mario Sunshine, you know, sequel that I've been looking for.

And I went into the behind closed doors meeting at E3, and, you know, the Nintendo representative was like, okay, here's what you've been waiting for, the new Mario for Wii, and he turns it on. And it's four players running around. And he's like, here, hold this we moat sideways, and we're all going to play it together. And I'm like, can I be sadder playing a new Mario game behind closed doors at E3? Wow. Because, like, I'm sure this game – and Super Mario 3D world was a 10 out of 10.

It was an excellent game. Yeah. But it was not this. It was not the single player adventure that could have been. And now we see where that is. I feel like what happened with, you know, following Mario Galaxy was kind of an overreaction to the, you know, way story was handled in Mario Galaxy because that like, you know,

sit on the side and read the story book page by page and have it told out to you, like that is not a very Nintendo kind of experience. Like they usually handle narrative a little more gracefully than that. And I feel like you know,

Shigeria Miyamoto has a reputation for not wanting story to get in the way of gameplay. I feel like this is a case where he or someone working with him, someone with his similar mindset said, this didn't work. Don't do this again. So let's just get back to the basics.

And so they spent a decade making games, Mario games, with no real story to them and said, you know, if you want a story, you've got your Mario RPG. We've gotten a bit away from it. I've been trying to jump in for like 10 minutes here. I want to talk a little bit more about the Zelda connection because you were talking about how in every

Mario Odyssey world, you do something after you get there. It's usually beating a boss. And then there's a big change to the environment. It's often cosmetic. but sometimes it opens up new areas. That reminds me a lot of Majora's mask, where there are four different areas in the game, they're all themed.

And once you finish off the boss, there is a drastic environmental change in which a lot of new things can happen in which a lot of new areas are open. And that's another thing that I see in common with Zelda that Mario's coming closer to Zelda. And just like in Breath of the Wild, I feel like Mario Odyssey is a newly confident Nintendo

where in our Mario 64 episode, I bring this quote up a lot, but Miyamoto's like, oh, we regret going to 3D because we lost so many people, and we saw them pulling back ever since then. This is the first time in a long time with Mario and Zelda, where they're like, you know how to play a 3D game. You are all gamers, and we will help you a little bit, but we're going to let you run free in a way.

Yeah, they're not like desperately trying to, oh, I mean, even though people would say that Mario Odyssey is a little over-tutorialized in the sense that the second that you, like if there's a vine, the second that you jump on it, like a tooltip pops up. It's like, up to climb this fine. But it's not something you have to sit through. I've just been playing Xenoblate 2, which is a fun game, but the game treats you as if you've never played a video game before, let alone an RPG. And it just like... But on the other hand, it also like says, okay, here's this very complicated game mechanic.

Now I'm never going to mention it again and you have to figure it out in your own. And there's no like appendix or anything either. There is. Oh, no. If you go to a town, there are information peddlers. and for like a thousand gold you can buy... Remind me how the battle system works again? Jesus, don't ask me.

No, no, that's what I would say to the person. No, but they'll give you information, but they give you literally one sentence at a time and that sentence to unlock it. You pay anywhere between like 300 and 1,500 gold, which is a significant amount, especially at the beginning of the game. And you get one sentence of explanation. That's...

I'm like, to me, that is the most baffling thing about the game. But yeah, it's kind of like, you've never played a 3D game before, but also here's all these systems figure out. That's very ineligent. I think Mario Odyssey as much as I don't need the tool tips, they are elegant in that they don't interrupt gameplay. And I like when you get a new ability, there's a little

video in the corner of the screen, which is the most ingenious thing. Like, it's just showing you. There's no words involved. Yeah. In Odyssey, you will meet about eight different people who say, like, and I could show you the action guide. And I, every time we go like, I'm good, I'm good. Or you'd go in the loading section in between

with Cappy, and he'd be like, Like, hey, this is how you do it. Right, right, right. Just hit pause. Yeah, well, I mean, Nintendo, like everybody, eliminated the instruction manual and then they eliminated digital instruction manuals. Then hand in hand with that, they've been asking themselves, like, okay, how do we really make a game that does not require a digital instruction manual?

Yeah. How do we elegantly integrate that into the game? There are a number of things you can do. There are basically three action buttons of Mario Odyssey. There's jump, there's duck, and then there's Cappy button. There are so many things you can do. I will not do that, sure, for me. But there are so many things you can do with those buttons they don't tell you.

Like, my favorite thing to do, which I had to learn on my own is to do, like, the Goron slash Sonic roll, where you roll into a ball and you just keep pumping the Y button and Mario will just roll around like Sonic the Hedgehog. They never, no one ever told me that. I'm sure it's somewhere in the game. You could do that. You can just roll like a gore on. And if you time the rhythm right, he'll just get a little boost every time. So it feels wrong for Mario to spin. I don't like that.

Especially the way he goes, bz-e. But, yeah, that's like one of those weird, like, Super Metroid touches where it's like I didn't. no, I could do this, but the controls are always there allowing you to do this. And, of course, I mean, I didn't really realize until I think I was much, you know, quite late in the game, the fact that it's like, I knew you could throw Cappy and hold him out there and then jump over to him and bounce off of him. Yeah. But I didn't realize until much later that if you do the dive move, it magnetically moves Mario directly to where Cappy is and bounces him off of it. I learned that really late in the game. I'm like, where was this when I needed it?

Even the feet in the air. So, I mean, you can use that to get up really high and cross really, really long gaps. And then they put stuff, like, there was, there's this one thing that everybody tries to get up on top of. It was the first thing I tried to get up on top of because it could see a big pile of coins up there. And you can jump up to the top of this temple that's underneath the desert area where the boss fight is. And you can, you know, but you have to use, you know, capy jumps, you know, really. extensive kind of things get all the way to the top of this thing and there's a big ass pile of coins on the top there and it's like they've they've dropped those little rewards in they're not moons because you're not you don't have to go there yeah yeah but's

for super players yep So, Bobby, you said the way it handles this is very super Metroid-ish. Yeah, like to me, I'm, I'm like thinking, and the way it gives you. you demonstration videos and then gives you abilities that you may not know about at the beginning, but they're always inherent to you. That's straight out of Donkey Kong 94. Oh yeah, that's too. Where like

between stages, it shows you how to use the abilities that you need to get to the next stage, wordlessly. And then, you know, Mario has things like the handstand and the triple jump from the very beginning but, you know, the game starts you out in a recreation of the original Donkey Kong

stages. So the first time you play, you just think, oh, I need to like jump over barrels. over barrels and climb the ladders, but you can, no, you can just, like, do freaking handstand jumps all the way up to Donkey Kong and finish the stage in, like, three seconds. Yeah. But you don't know that at first. It's only as you play and you see these little videos that demonstrate things between stages that you start to realize, wow, Mario has a lot of abilities that I didn't even think about.

And then you go back and you replay the beginning of the game, and you're like, I'm approaching this an entirely different way. I mean, this is just me being pedantic, but I think that the creatures jumping up the wall in Super Metroid are just like those little vignettes in Donkey Kong 94. where it's like, here we're showing you a new ability that you always had, but you don't know it. Both of these games were designed in, like, spring of 1994. That's when they both came out. 94 are the best.

Yep. Best year ever. Well, speaking of coins, that's something too I loved about this game. I think it made, just charging you 10 coins of death, I think that was Nintendo admitting, like, lives are meaningless in Mario. Like, we're not even going to joke around with one-ups anymore. Just like, it's 10. Did you miss one-up mushrooms? Not really.

I mean, I love their style, but they've been around for forever. It's just like, nah, don't miss it. I feel like the things you would have got one-ups for, you now get moons for. Yeah, so it's a better reward. I'd rather get things. I think that's the other sort of mild, mild criticism of Mario Odyssey that I had is that, like, because moons are everywhere, when you do something big, it's like, here's three moons. It's like, oh, okay. Like, you know, there's no, there's no, like, oh, man, I did this huge thing, and I finally got that.

that really great reward. They give you fanfare, at least. That moon necklace should be like 10 moons or something. Yeah, yeah, it seems like not enough moons when you consider it's like, oh, here's three. You know, it's like happy with the economy. Yeah, but I found there was one right over there. There was one just sitting under that rock, you know? I got a moon for 10 coins in the store.

Like, yeah. I kicked that rock around five times. And I got out, who cares? Right, right. But I do feel that the removal of one-ups is one of the best things about this game. Yes. That has been a complaint of mine for years about Mario is that. one-ups have become this weird stumbling block for the game.

And this, I, you know, I've written about this, I think. If not, then I've meant to. But it's something that I realized as I was watching my wife play, the original New Super Mario Brothers, because she doesn't have a lot of game experience and definitely not with more skill-based games like this. But, you know, for me, playing New Super Mario Brothers, that game was actually really easy for me,

and I just accumulated lives. And, you know, within no time at all, I had 100 lives stocked up. Oh, sure. But in the game, that specific game, you save your progress by completing a fortress, by completing a castle, or by unlocking something with big coins on the world map. And those are the only times you save your progress. So sometimes you have to play through like three, four, even five stages that culminate in a fortress stage,

which is more challenging than the standard stages. So if you're someone who doesn't have a lot of Mario experience, like you play and maybe you die on the second stage and you play again and you get a little further and a little further, but you keep throwing yourself at this and eventually you hit a stumbling block and, like, if you're not experienced, it's really tough to beat some of the bosses or the fortresses or the traps or, you know, lava hazards or spikes or whatever

where it's an instant kill. And so it becomes, like I said, this weird sort of, digital divide where people who are experienced with Mario are like why am I getting all these lives? I'm just getting it as a compulsion who cares. But people who Nintendo really needs to bring in, especially with the New Super Mario Brothers games.

Like, they're designed for people who are more casual players. These things are huge impediments. So getting rid of that and just making... Also, everybody else got rid of lives on the PlayStation 2 era. Lives are a vestige of arcade gaming. So taking that out. Yes, you lose

the iconic one-up mushrooms and the one up jingle, but, you know, in return, you're able to, the game is able to create a huge variety of challenges, like some things, as you said, you know, there's just a moon sitting there, but some things are like these crazy platform challenges that demand a lot of skill. That run up to the last rabbit boss on the moon before you face Bowser, like that's a huge extended platforming challenge with no checkpoints. Like that's, you know, that's your test of skill, but that's at the end of the game. If you've gotten that far, then you're going to have, you know, started to develop some skills.

That was when I really appreciated the coin economy was, from a design standpoint, was getting to some of the tougher, like, platforming challenge, just side areas where I would die. And I was like, back to the beginning. And that's what I realized, like, there are 10 coins I will easily get at the start of this. So I'm not even really losing anything from constantly dying and trying again in this. stage. I'll always get 10 more coins. When you bash yourself against that

super hard level, which I did, I was like I'm going to give this the old college try and I played it and played it and played it for hours. And then I was like, well, I haven't beaten this thing yet, but I have literally like 3,000 more coins than I did when I started. So I at least

feel like I was instead of just wasting time, I was actually gaining something, which is nice. Compare that to Mario Sunshine and I will take this opportunity to poop on that game once again because that's all we do here. But if you, like, some of the hardest stages in that were the packless stages, where they take your pack away. You have the, the, you know, black void levels where you're just jumping across platforms.

But you have to, number one, enter the stage. Number two, find that area, like warp into it. And then once you're in there, if you run out of lives, you're kicked out to the screen, then you go into the hub, then you have to go to the world again. Then you have to find that challenge again. So I feel like circumventing all of that saves people time. The worst punishment is making people repeat long. stretches of play that is offering nothing to them.

And I think this game really gets around that in a great way. And I love all those little challenge worlds, too, that there's always a second moon in there. And that's like the extra puzzle of, okay, there's, I followed the obvious pass to the one moon, where they hide that other one and just always looking like in the, like say in the zipper cloud area of looking like, okay, where's another hidden zipper in this thing? Is it behind this wall? Do I walk behind this wall?

I love, I love shit like that. Or it's like you're jumping over moving platforms over a bottomless pit and the moon is inside one of the platforms. You can only see it if you swing the camera around. I mean, it's, yeah, sometimes it's really, it is ingenious for sure. Yeah, just the extra ways they made those side areas, they got to be, that's where they got to make basically Mario 3D world stages within it, or in some cases. Like, other times they would give you a power you couldn't really have anywhere else

could have broken the stage too much. Like the Paragumba, when you can take over a paraguma in that one area in the wooded kingdom, you have to take a rocket ship there because it has to be kind of cordoned off because if you can just fly around everywhere as a paragumba, it would hurt the stage. But just being in that one area, it was like, that's when it hit me in that stage. She's like, oh, wait, the second moon could be under this. I can fly under this. I just love the novel little moments like that, which audits.

is just full of the brim with. I just love that. It really is brilliant in the way that they will hide things in that way. And also, oh, yeah, the fact that when you reenter a place, Cappy will say, oh, hey, I think there's something still here. I think maybe we can go find some purple coins in here if you look hard enough. Yeah. That I thought was a very necessary touch.

And those purple coins. Let's talk about those. I love the economy of that, too. Just like you could, if you were a clothes or it's like me and you wanted every costume, like other times I would have just said, I guess I better get every purple coin to get a star or something in the stage. But in this one, I was like, I need five more coins if I want the hat to match with the suit for my inner tube bathing suit.

I got to have both these things, especially because in that one case would be bathing suit plus the snoring. and it opened the door to then go into the bridal room and so then I could get another moon in there. A lot of stages have that. I think all stages have. They all have a certain purple coin outfit

and then there's something that you want to use. There's even a guy on the moon who's like, I need a doctor. I can't breathe. Yeah, that's a really great way to kind of incentivize. things and still make them somewhat optional, you know, give you this alternate currency.

The colored coins have always existed in, well, not always, but they've existed in Mario's since Super Mario Brothers Deluxe, or actually since Yoshi's Island, yeah. Like you have the red coins. It's not a Mario game. It is a Mario game. We've declared it. We're the authority. Okay, so cool.

Yeah, so that's been part of the series for a long time. But I feel like this is one of the few times that they've really sat down and rethought how they work. They're not just an objective for you, but they have their own value. And then the value in turn feeds into both like just simple cosmetic things, but also mechanical, you know, objectives. You could fill the Odyssey with crap. Yeah. Like if you want to just cover it with garbage, that's fine. You can do that. But you could just, you know, get some of the coins and get the outfits necessary to open up the doors to the moons. It's really up to you. And, you know, The ability to customize a character is very appealing, and I never thought Mario would be a character that they would use that option for.

They've resisted that for so long. I guess Mario Maker sort of did that, but... Yeah, maybe that is what opened the door. They saw how much fun people had. That was like turning Mario into another character. I'll say this, and I mean, it's so difficult to know these things, but, I mean, we've invoked his name, you know, once so far. This really is the first post-Miyamoto Mario, and I think that in a lot, I would wager that in a lot of places here, you are seeing a creative team that has been freed from Miyamoto saying, no, Mario must never interact with real human beings. Right.

No, Mario must always wear this sort of clothing. They bolted down the tea table. Well, Koizumi took over a lot more. He's been, at least public-facing-wise, like a big, big part. Right. But Miyamoto has always, even though Miyamoto was like, oh, I'm retiring, whatever, he's, he's always been kind of like, you know, still, like, involved. And in this one, this, I think, is one where he really has not been working on this game. I think he's working on Universal Studios, Super Mario World and other stuff.

He's gone. Yeah. Yeah. No, the. And now he's the creative fellow. which means that he's, like, directly advising the president of the company about stuff. I think he's not able to make this game, these games anymore. When I've been watching EAD, like, closely in the high-level dudes, like, Kenta Motikura, he's the director of this game, and he'd been co-director on 3D world, but he was definitely in like the, there was a, I remember an interview thing we got to do with them, and he was definitely in the lower position there behind the, um, uh, uh, uh, uh, the director.

The director of Galaxy and Galaxy 2, he was definitely subordinate in there, but I think he kind of really got to take over in this one and get even, like, let his freak flag fly for the crazier ideas, I think, in here. And also maybe the backwards-looking, though I would say on the backwards-looking thing, too, I think it's a big bummer that land and land, too, do not exist in their memories. You won't see bunny ear costume, you won't see a space costume, you won't see any of that stuff. Well, those are buddies, and there is space. And the whole, like, you know, the myth of the rabbits making mochi on the moon, there's so much Japanese lore, folklore in this game. That is really surprising. Like, Bowser's castle isn't like a traditional brick-and-mortar castle. It's like a Japanese-style traditional imperial palace.

That's weird. But it's cool. It's different. It's always been baked in, but I feel like it's more explicit in Odyssey for sure. There's always been Japanese mythology baked into the Mario series that we just were ignorant of. But Galaxy definitely like turning Bowser stage into like this burning samurai castle, burning feudal Japan or whatever is amazing. Giving Mario like multiple Japanese costumes in this game too. Well, I remember reading in the, a lot asks for 3D world that they had an internal discussion of like,

can we do a lucky cat joke in here? Will this make any sense in America? And then they just said, eh, we'll go with it. It's neat. And I think maybe they've gotten, they've perhaps post the release of the Zeno Blade and those Operation Rainfall games in America that maybe they realize just what big webs the fans are.

And they'll accept this Japanese. What America knows what Jujim is and what he means for us in our world. Yeah, I think that this does go kind of along with the first. fact that with the switch, I think Nintendo is finally they're no longer, they're no longer like pursuing

the expanded audience anymore. I mean, they're they, I don't think they feel Yeah, like, well the blue ocean is super red now, right? So I mean, I think that they're doubling down on, I mean, with the switch in general like with the Wii, they were going

after expanded audience, with the Wii, you, I don't know what they were doing, but like, The Switch, they're finally, I think, just producing, like, top-tier Nintendo games for Nintendo fans. They're doing, like, the grand Zelda's and Marios that I think people, the people who are the core Nintendo fans who stuck with them console after console, these are the games they've been asking for. And they're trying to actually deliver on that. And I feel like by reaching out to them, they're also reaching out to a lot of people they might have alienated with the more linear, more. guided Mario and Zelda games where they remember playing Mario 64 and Aquarium of Time and then jumping into the Wii and Wii U generations. They're like, these games aren't for me anymore.

But now the people are back and they want those experiences again. Yeah. And that's why I mean, that's why I predicted Metroid Prime 4 for E3. And that's why I was correct. Because it makes all this with given what we knew prior to E3 about the Switch and the sorts of games Nintendo was doing, it made all the sense in the world that they would return to Metroid Prime. like now and do it now because it's all about like getting those people excited again and like getting them back and be like Nintendo is back, here you go. I feel like that's what the Wii U was supposed to be, but they have the messaging wrong.

But where were the games for that then? Like what was the, yeah. But that was how they presented it. It was like, yeah, we were, the Wii was a system for everyone, but this is for you, the gamers. Yeah, except for the Wii you, the Wii was like, okay, well, here's. sports again, I guess. Here's a Wii fit again, I guess. I guess we're going to, here's a Wii U pedometer you can take with you, I guess.

They thought Nintendo land was the next Rees sports. Yeah. Oh, and Nintendo land. But then on the flip side of that, it was, okay, gamers, here's Call of Duty, here's Mass Effect, here's whatever else they did, here's Ninja Guide in 3. Assassin's Creed 3. Here's Assassin's Creed 3.

Here's all this stuff. It's like, I don't want either of these. Like, both of these, it's like the two major pushes you are making are, we sports, et cetera, and Call of Duty, et cetera, and it's like neither of those are your strengths. Like, you, your strengths are

are, you know, Zelda Breath of the Wild and Mario Odyssey and Splatoon and all that kind of stuff. And they finally figured it out now, I think. I would say the, like, the casual wesport stuff is a strength. It's just not one that they can necessarily... Sorry, it's not, it's not marketable. It's not something that they can actually...

Yeah, those people have moved up. Yep. Yep. You know, I'm going to be able to be. At Domino's, we're fans of all pizza. That's why we're rewarding you for eating any pizza from anywhere, even if it's not ours. From my local pizza place? That counts. From the frozen section?

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It's April again, and you know what that means. Tucked in there, right between bad April Fool's jokes and soul-destroying payments to the IRS, you have a chance to come see Retronauts live in Milwaukee, Milwaukee, Milwaukee, and we'll be speaking live at 1 p.m. Saturday, the 14th, with a presentation called. MGC takes place at the Wisconsin Center in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, April 13th through 15th, and we'll be speaking live at 1 p.m. Saturday the 14th with a presentation called Atari got a raw deal. Joining us to make a case that Atari was done dirty by the games industry will be Atari historian Kevin Bunch and Marty Goldberg, co-author of Atari Businesses Fun. We'll also be having a social meetup Saturday night with our friends from Watch Out for Fireballs. And finally, if we can make it happen, we're going to attempt to set what may be a world record by hosting a 16-player baseball 2,000 match on Game Boy.

I'll bring the games and four-player adapters. You bring a system from the Game Boy family and a link cable. All of this will be going down April 13th through 15th of the Wisconsin Center in Milwaukee. Keep an eye on Retronauts.com and the Retronauts' Twitter and Facebook feeds for more details. See you there. Hello, guys, it's MMA Fighter, Chale Sun, and check out my podcast. You're welcome with Chale Sun and every Wednesday and Friday right here at Podcast One. We cover the latest in mixed martial arts and every...

everything else going on in the world of sport. Listen free to your welcome with Chale Sondon exclusively available on Apple Podcast at podcast.com and on the podcast one app. If you love the show, share it with a friend and leave us a rating and revealing. Here we go, off the rails, you know, it's time to raise ourselves. It's freedom life you never knew. And bags are a pass Say the word I'll be there in a flash You could say my hat is on to you

Oh, we can zoom all the way to the moon From this grade wide, wacky world Jump with me, grab coins with me Oh, yeah It's time to jump up in the air Jump up, don't be scared And as we roll into our amazing second half of this podcast, we're going to kick things off with the listener mail section

We get letters and written letters in the mail We're going to read them to you now Boy, do we have a lot of listener mails Listener letters So we're going to do like 45 minutes of listener mail, right? Yeah, pretty much. All right, let's go. From Ken Hoyt, Mario Odyssey Thoughts.

I have now played Mario Odyssey through to the end and I fall somewhere in the middle of the mega hype and the ensuing it's not that great. I think it's a really good game and the best Mario game since Galaxy and definitely a step back in the right direction after what I thought was the pretty tepid 3D world. Though I seem to be one of the few people who think this.

Who doesn't love 3D world? Oh, except Chris. I really enjoyed hunting for wayward moons while going through the worlds the first time, but as soon as I finished the storyline, the desire to go back and find more completely fell away. I'm not sure I could pinpoint why at this time, except to say that maybe the world's wild fun to play when the conclusion

is ahead of you feel kind of well-made but wrote when you're playing around afterwards. I think, and it kills me to say this, that maybe I've just played enough Mario games for one lifetime. I've saved the princess from Bowser enough times. I've hit Mario bosses three times on the head and then dodge the increasingly difficult patterns in between enough times. I've banged my heads enough up against blocks. You get the picture.

Ken, I just, I want to reach out here. you through the airwaves and tell you that it's okay to feel this way. It's okay to offer mild rebukes of even brilliant video games. It's also okay to say, like, yeah, I've had enough of this. That's right. At the risk of sounding joyless, this is probably at the bottom of my top time for this year, Mario Odyssey, and I really enjoyed it. I just didn't have a pull to go back to it as often.

And I feel like my major issue with the game is I feel like the level design could be more inspired. Like, I don't need two lava worlds and I don't need two water worlds. Like, there's too much repetition. I wish there was a little bit. Like, things like New Dunk City are amazing. Things like, God, even like the lost jungle area is really cool. But I feel like there could have been more inspired levels, I think.

Well, I always, I did feel the need to go back every time, at least to get the dark side moons in each stage. And that then would give me to re-explore the stage after they'd read. arranged everything, and I got to discover even more stuff there. Then on top of that, the kind of where's Waldo Hunt for Peach in each stage. Like, I found reasons to and enjoyed very much so revisiting every stage, even the one against the lifelike dragon of just like, why am I back here? There's nothing here, right?

And there's like, oh, there's four things. Okay. Yeah, I'll keep going back. I feel like saying it to the bottom of my top ten list is not an insult. It's still an amazing game, but I just feel like with the cool things I've seen in the game, I wish everything could be at the same level of, like, inspiration. Which, by the way, that Dragon Fight, I love that. That was like out of a bit.

That was like a bayonetta fight scene in the game. Yeah. But then he is still hitting on. Especially when all of Mario's clothes exploded off of. Yeah. I mean, I couldn't believe he had that much hair. He's pretty good. You can't?

Yeah. I don't know. I can't. Sorry, that was meant to be like Banetta's. No, yeah. No, I get it. Yeah, it sounded weird, though. Yeah.

Actually, in reality, Mario has a nice, smooth chest. He's very depilated. Finally got to see his nipples. He went to the depilatory kingdom. So I'm glad you mentioned the realistic dragon because the weird art style variety in this game is kind of baffling to me. There's no cohesive artistic vision that I could tell. I guess the vision is all over the place.

The vision is everything. But it's done so inconsistently. You just kind of randomly find these things that don't fit elsewhere. where, like, New Donk City has very realistic, realistically proportioned humans, but then Pauline's not really that realistic looking. She's still very cartoonish. I'm going to go out on a limb here again and say that we are witnessing a team of people who have never gotten to try a lot of these things before who are kind of going a little crazy now with freedom. I think that Mario, I mean, we may look back on Mario Odyssey in even two, three years from now. I might look back and say, oh, yeah, Mario Odyssey was like the Assassin's Creed 1 of the Mario series because, like, man, Mario Odyssey, I thought it was real good, but Mario Odyssey 2 or whatever, Super Mario Iliad is it, you know, like, that game is incredible, you know, because they probably might look back on Mario Odyssey as being very experimental and then they're like, okay, okay, now we know what we're going to do.

Now we figured it out and we're going to make something that is that is not so good. It's nice to have some optimism in the year 2017. I feel like with all the creativity, they still stuck to like snow level, water level, fire level. There were still those obligatory things. Maybe in the sequel. Well, the fire level this time was like a stew pot. Yeah, it was delicious soup. I feel like the, there were like two functional lava levels.

That was one of them. But then, you know, I don't know. Again, Bowser's Castle was strange and you had sort of the rocky level with the dinosaur. and yeah, I don't know. I felt like it was a pleasant change of pace from the usual Mario standards. There was no ghost house. I really wanted to see this version of this interpretation of the ghost house.

I was waiting for that. I'm sure there will be another opportunity for that in the future. But to me, I felt like the variety of worlds, you know, like a real city. That's my favorite one. Yeah, there was a lot of stuff that I didn't expect to see in a Mario game. And I appreciate the fact that I didn't follow this game closely. I did not play it once before it came out, which is the first time that's happened with a Mario game, and as long as I can remember. But that allowed me to go into it really fresh.

And I knew there was a New Dunk City. I saw some previews, but I really didn't know what to expect from this game. I enjoyed the surprise that it had. I had the same experience. The one video I saw is when Henry and I were covering the launch of the Switch or the – what was it the announcement of the Switch? It was the January announcement of the Switch. Yes, for some website. And that was the only –

What's that? in New Duck City. Yes, exactly. But that was the one video I ever saw of it. So going to this game, it was all basically new to me outside of New Duck City. So from Kyle F, while I thoroughly enjoyed Mario Odyssey, I felt like the forced motion controls ruined the game because I could never get used to them due to me being legally blind. I actually feel like that ruined a small part of the game. Yeah, I mean, I have excellent eyesight and I'm not happy with the implementation of the motion control.

I'm going to say this. I played it entirely on my... Yeah, I played an entire thing and did not do motion controls at all. You played it in handheld. All handheld the entire time, no motion controls. But it ties specific moves to motion controls. I just did not do those moves without motion controls. So?

There's some things that you have to use those moves for. The only move that was motion dependent that there was no other way to do it was when you swing them both to the side and the hats will swirl around you. That was the only time. I always played it. I always played it docked. And doing that was the only time I actually had to move the controllers in a certain way. Every other time where they tell you to shake the controller, you can just hit the Y button. So I'm going to say, first of all, you apparently you can, you know, you can do this.

You can take the left stick and start spinning the left stick in a circle. And Mario will do a pirouette. And then if you throw Kappi, he will do the thing. Except for that's not an accurate. It's not a full replacement for that because you can't do it instantaneously. You have to get him spinning first. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, they really, I really feel like they should have made motion controls optional. I agree.

Yeah, I mean, this is a system that is designed to be played in a variety of ways. So, forcing you to play a specific way that's, I don't know, like, I only ever play handheld. When I played it, when I finally docked it at a friend's house and got to a stage that involved becoming the electric Mario, and he's like, you'll move faster if you shake the sticks. I was like, oh, huh, man, it would have been nice. Like, there were moments like I was like, this would have been nice to have. I didn't miss it. My question is, what can you not do while undocked? Because all of those things, like you were talking about, Henry, like, do this to go faster.

There is always a button equivalent of that on the controller. No, no, you can do it. But no, no, no, there is never a button. Like, nothing we're play. There's no button placement for shake things to move fast. Yeah, yeah. When you climb the vine, if you tap Y instead of shaking the controller, he'll climb the vine faster. Yeah, but that's not, but for other things, it's just, I just curious, like, what is motion dependent?

Like, what action is motion? So if you're a frog. I'm not calling any of you liars. I just want to know. So if you are a frog, you can do a standing very high jump by shaking the controllers. You cannot, there is no button. Okay. So there's some functionality that is motion dependent.

I just never ran into it. Every transformation has something that is motion dependent. Yeah. Now that you mentioned that I remember there was, there were some times when I was playing head-el mode and shaking the entire damn thing so I could make the frog jump higher. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah.

Not cool. I didn't miss it at any time, but there were a couple. At the beginning in the game, when they show you that throw the hat all around in the circle, I was like, I don't want to do that. I was able to find a couple times where I saw a circle of things. I could just throw my hat like twice fast enough, like, okay, I had him. Like, I did it. And I think, too, I just got used to like, okay, I'm going to point Mario to look at the thing where I want to throw the hat.

and it was an extra thing I didn't have to do that probably added extra complications to the game it didn't need, but I didn't. All right, so from David Del Ripple, in general, my favorite things about Mario Odyssey were the way in which it defied 3D Mario conventions, like the lack of a hub world or complicated overworld map, and the general lack of time limits on its enemy captures.

Let's talk about the latter. In Mario games, power-ups either, or have either had a time limit like Donkey Kong's hammer or the various caps in Mario 64, or else they've been fragile disappearing. They've been fragile, disappearing after one or two hits, like Firepower and Super Mario Brothers. But Odyssey changes it all up by making most enemy captures endure

until Mario releases them or until death. No longer does a single hit return Mario to normal. And that was a necessary evolution because the enemy captures are no longer optional power-ups, like the various animal suits were in Super Mario Brothers 3. Mario needs these enemy skills to complete levels. And it's also worth noting that capturing an enemy rarely makes Mario any more durable.

It's not an additional protective layer like Yoshi and Super Mario World. So all of these factors change the fundamental relationship that Mario has with power-ups. They're no longer treats or toys. They're more like tools. Yeah, this is why Mario Odyssey is like maybe 20% Kirby in the way that these enemy powers are used. Yeah, and it just, it's ingenious because it lets them vary up the sort of texture of what you're doing at any time. It's like, oh, well, you know, now you're in the body of this bird that sticks his beak into the wall. to, you know, stick himself in there.

I love that. Yeah. It's like, it changes the, quite frankly, it changes the genre of game that you're playing into now you're not playing a jumping running Mario game anymore. You're playing a weird, like, stick flicking arcade game as I'm trying to navigate up. It's like sort of mobile game or something. With a lot of, you know, times the 30 different things that you can possess, it really changes things. Well, now it's a first, I'm a bad first person shooter, but it's a first person shooter.

It's bizarre. Getting the tank in. New Dong City in the rain. It was like a very Halo 3 ODST moment for me. I was like, I can't believe that I'm getting this vibe from a Mario game. I'm exploding taxi cabs in the rain.

And as soon as it started, it's over, and then you're on to doing something else. So I think that really contributes to that feeling of always doing something different. With a lot of the enemy power-ups, I feel like you could easily build an entire game around them. Like the onion guy, that could be a platformer turning into the onion and the way the onion moves around. You could build a platformer

out of that. I would imagine in the future you might see some ideas come out of Mario to be their own games. Oh, yeah, that is, yeah, that's true. The onion guy, you mean the guy who extends his legs. Yeah, I mean, it doesn't flip after you, extend the legs up. Yeah, you're right. I mean, that really could be its own game. I would like to see a game based around Super Onion Brothers or whatever, for DLC.

I also like when you finish the game and you get to the Mushroom Kingdom, you meet the person with a booklet that shows you like, well, did you transform it? Everything doesn't look like he did. And you learn about the one-off transformations that are blank there. The one cactus you can possess in the same point. The one time you turned into a giant piece of meat. Yes. Yeah.

I love that. It's so weird. Yeah. But it's fun. Yeah. Because it's unexpected. And then, of course, it all comes full circle at the end when you realize, oh, I have to possess Bowser. And you do it, by the way.

You don't, you don't see it in a cut scene. You actually are standing there going, what do I do? And then you realize that. Yeah. It's like having to shoot the boss in Metal Gear Solid 3. Since 3D land, they've made every Bowser fight, like kind of almost a theme park ride of multi-stages, like constant running. And they did that again this time, except this time your Bowser, instead of Bowser chasing you through a ton of cool stuff, now your Bowser running through shit. Yeah, that was really fun.

I had that Bowser moment several times during the game where I'd be stuck for maybe like 30 seconds and be like, wait a minute, that guy's not wearing a hat. And then I would put it all together in my head. It's just like, it's so great. Also, I have to shout out the wonderful moment. of going into the 2D 3D pipe as Bowser with Peach on his pack and popping out as Mario 1 Bowser Sprite with Mario One Garbage Peach Sprite sitting on his pack. They have to retain that awful spray.

They love that Sprite. They do. Yeah, it's the worst. But it's fun to play as that version of Bowser finally, just smashing through bricks. Yeah, and it's not like we haven't played as Bowser before. It was in the 1,000-year door. But it really felt like they took that element,

like that little bit of the past, and we're like, what if we made that part of a Mario game and not just a part of it, but the climax, the big send-off, like the set piece at the end. I love that. With its own vocal theme song. Yeah. That was the, I play that on a plane and it couldn't hear it.

Oh, man. No, it had its own, it has own song with vocals about smashing blocks and stuff. It was like an anime opening almost. Oh, yeah, that was really neat. Shonen Bowser. And they timed it perfectly, sorry, but they timed it perfectly so that once you got to the end of that phase when you were smashing everything together. They sort of blended the song in, so the song didn't just fade out.

The song actually had an ending. Yeah, really, I mean, hey, Mario Odyssey's music, it's great. Yeah. It's real good. I want to direct anybody out there hasn't read it yet to Rob Tunstall's of Nintendo. He did an entire write-up on the localization process of Jump Up Superstar to get it just right to be all about Mario history, but also just be a pop song everyone could listen to. And just his

balance of it is great. He even touches on some people thinking oh, this song is, some people thought this song is about Mario's ex-girlfriend telling him how to help out his current girlfriend. I don't want to mess with anybody's head cannon, so I won't comment on that.

From Kevin Boyer. The best nuts and bolts change to Odyssey, and in my opinion, this is a very long overdue change is the removal of extra lives as a reward for exploration. Live have been nearly useless as a reward for a long time in Mario games. Shifting rewards to moons, which simply leads to more stages, the best reward a Mario game can give, cannot be understated as a huge benefit to the series.

Shifting punishment for dying to losing coins gives a small bite to deaths, just enough to engage the player to get better at the game. Yep, I think we've already covered that pretty heavily. You're smart. And can you collect the coins you... And do you have a question? It's a comment. Can you collect the coins you drop when you die?

There's like a circle of coins where you die. The last place you died, the coins will stay. Yeah, really? Yeah. It's like dark souls. I mostly fall into pits, so. So it's the dark souls of Mario? Yes, it is.

Actually, it's most noticeable when you fight a boss and die because that circle of coins will be where you die. That's really cool. It's only from the last time. It's not every time. But I usually only die from falling in pits anyway. That won't help you. No. From A. Brunson.

I had fun playing Super Mario Odyssey and consider it the best of the sandbox style 3D Mario games. But after collecting all but. two moons, the incredibly tedious jump rope and RC racer moons, I left the game feeling disappointed. Capturing different enemies makes for fun diversions, but their movesets are too limited to measure up to controlling Mario himself. I spent most of the game waiting for the challenging platform levels that I remember fondly from previous Mario adventures, particularly Super Mario Galaxy 2 and Super Mario 3D World. Instead, I spent them walking around as a goomba, ground-pounding random spots, and carrying seeds to pots. Even its ultra-hard, darker side levels, pales in comparison

to Grandmaster Galaxy and Champions Road. My hope is that Nintendo has D.L.C. planned, similar to new Super Luigi, Luigi, Yu, throwing tough platforming challenges at the player and instead of the simple puzzles and menial tasks that make up a large percentage of the game. So that's a really interesting note here that this game would be perfect for DLC because it's literally just like raise the moon cap and, you know, stick on a couple more levels. Kaffi would just say, like, I found another place. Yeah.

Hey, Mario, thanks for your 20 bucks. So, but they haven't said anything about DLC in an era where that's kind of paramount. It's like, I wonder if they're literally not going to do any DLC for this game. That's been my assumption, actually. Nintendo describes every season pass for everything ahead of time. Like, they did it for Zelda. They did it for, they did it for Mario Kart. Well, actually, not ahead of time for Mario Kart, but they,

were pretty clear when the season pass came along in that. But if they haven't talked about it yet, and I don't think they're going to do it. But I mean, what that means to me is the team is going to just roll right into making the next one. Or they do a packaged, like,

0.5 thing that is the Luigi U. and, I mean, this person is apparently a very good player if they didn't feel challenged by any of the stuff in the game. I'm sorry that they, it wasn't tough enough for you.

Well, the jump rope. Yeah, well, that jump rope, that's a, that is actually when I, I stopped the game. Like, I, I, I didn't feel hyper-completionist with this one. I, once I had gotten over 500 boons and felt like I had enough fun, I actually was finally getting to the point of, oh, this volleyball thing's not fun. Why am I doing is something that's not fun? I should play something. Yeah, those, the volleyball and the jump rope, and I don't know, he's talking about the

RC cars. I don't know if there's a third thing for RC cars, because I thought that the The first one wasn't fun for me. Oh, I thought that was okay. Like, I mean, I can understand if people don't like it. I thought it was fine. Like, I did it. But the jump rope and the beach volleyball thing when they were like, what if you got hit it a hundred times?

So it was like, what if you fucked right off? Like, that's not happening. All right. From Theo. So, like everyone else, I was pumped for the game. I dare say the reviews helped. Now, having reached the 10th Kingdom at time of writing, I can honestly say there is something missing for me in this game. I've tried to figure out why. I suppose three things.

Firstly, this feels like a best of Mario compilation rather than its own unique thing. There's top-down floating jumpy bits from 3D world, other platformy galaxy moments, sunshine gunk clearing, the nod to an ES era, etc., etc., which leads to number two, each previous 3D Mario game had its own gimmick, which would then be used to its maximum in the game's creative game worlds. Here, the worlds are mostly flat and dull, aside from New Dock City, and the only real genuine creativity for me comes in the transformations and capturing itself, which is not the same thing and for me is just not enjoyable. Which in turn leads to my final criticism, this essentially is the Korok seed hunt of Mario games.

Normally, we will have this as a bonus post game, but in Odyssey, the game automatically assumes you will be motivated to search every nook and cranny for every power moon, even though you don't actually need the vast majority of them. So combining that with the worlds, I feel, as described in my previous points, makes me unmotivated to look for everything out there. So barring any new game plus Miracle, I'll only ever see this game as one of the most disappointing 3D Mario games ever, where I completed it for business not pleasure. So it's the short part of the

mullet. Another Zelda comparison. I feel like in the Breath of the Wild, though, in Mario Odyssey, explicitly the moons are there to, I guess, find them all. I guess the ideal way to place to find them all if you can. But in Zalda, I feel like if you find a croixie, good for you, but we put so many on this damn huge map that if you find them all, you are sick or something because we're going to punish you for finding them for getting them. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And Mario Odyssey is definitely very similar in that, like, they don't, they do not goad you into finding every moon. Like, they actually, I mean, one of the things that I kind of, you know, said as a complaint earlier may be a deliberate design decision and that they don't dangle things in front of his, oh, get some more moons, and you can have this. It's like they actually want you to explore for the pleasure of exploration. They don't want you to go, you know, pick everything out. But then again, they also give you a checklist with blanks in it, so I don't know. Well, if you make it that far, then they're like, if you made it this far, you get a checklist. You seem like the checklist type, I think is what Nintendo is thinking there.

Yeah, it's tough. I do, I definitely understand, again, you know, from the perspective of I love this game to pieces. I understand that there is, it doesn't quite coalesce the, the moon. economy, you know, like the fact that like, you know, a moon is a moon is a moon and the one you found under a rock is the same as the one you get for like,

you know, doing this big elaborate, you know, really difficult, like, oh my God, I finally beat this one stage and I get the same moon that I got from like looking underneath, you know, somebody's butt. It's not quite there as far as like the

coherence of the of the whole thing. And I wonder if that is not something that they could tweak later in a sequel. Something I find interesting, if they don't mind me jumping in, is that basically everything he listed as a negative is something I find as a positive. I love all the calls back to classic Mario games and the way it has this holistic approach to all the ideas from the Mario games that I've played and loved. I also like the fact that, you know, moons are just scattered around. Like, I do feel compelled to explore and to poke around and to say, what happens if I try this? So I guess it, you know, it comes down to a matter of taste, a matter of perspectives.

Also, I mean, Mario Odyssey is, it just inexplicably, it's really weird to think about the fact that they just have not made a game like this in a super long time. Fifteen years, yeah, exactly. If we're going back to Mario Sunshine, yeah, it's been 15 years. You know, kids were born in the same year as Super Mario Sunshine are married. No. Only in Alabama. Exactly. So I think that there is this explosion of, oh, my God, and Mario is back, that kind of dampens some of the criticism that one could offer.

And you kind of seem like a killjoy for mentioning some of these things. But it's like if they had been since Mario Sunshine constantly making and iterating and evolving this formula of the quote unquote pseudo open world Mario, I wouldn't call it an open world game, right? But you know what I mean? That sort of open, leisurely Mario game, it would probably be a lot more refined by now. And so a lot of it is just like, oh, thank God they made another one. Yeah, the hook is a sandbox. Like, they brought back the sandbox.

That is the hook. Yeah. Yeah. But if they had done that, then we wouldn't have gotten all these other kinds of Mario games like 3D World and New Super Mario Brothers. Okay. Like, you know, there's only so many resources. I'm glad that we have all these different takes on what Mario can be. I'm okay with having waited this long from sunshine to this.

On the Cork side of things, in both those cases, I liked it that they went on the overabundance side as opposed to withholding. And that hurts the general economy if you're the type of person who does everything. But I think that was them thinking of the casuals or the players who don't search for everything. That instead, if it's everywhere, then you'll just bump into it, even if you don't. know how games are made or if you're not used to like, oh, I bet in that corner is where they would hide something, you'll just run into it because there's just so many moons everywhere you're going to get it and you'll hit the, you'll hit the quota for the level to get to the next level. So I kind of like that they went with giving you too many options as opposed

to too few as a design thing. Also, on the sandbox thing, that reminds me to of when the game got announced, a lot of people, I think, looked at it, thinking Nintendo was going to make their own actual sandbox game that they were going to finally make their Sazzo Creek game. So when they saw New Dong City, they're like, oh, New Dog City is the hub world and all the other worlds are connected to it. Nobody imagined New Dong City was just another one of those worlds you go to. Oh, yeah, you know, you're absolutely right. Like when, yeah, yeah, when I first saw that Mario Odyssey video and they showed off Mario

running around in the city, it was like, oh, yeah. Oh, okay. So, yeah, this is, you know, this is like where Mario is where it takes place. It's like, oh, no, that's just one of half a dozen, like massive areas. I thought at first was like, okay, this is like London in an Assassin's Creek game, and then you'll go other places, but London's your main spot. Smash through the blocks that fall away. No time for fear.

Just let it all fall away. Nobody believes in the end you Just look at the way they stare So what if we live in a war garden As long as I've got you, then I don't care Keep up a war and take the sponge Shipping through two dimensions Up on the moon will twist swung

Just leave the way Up in my head in the way Besides Mario Sunshine, every new Mario game is a wonderful twist on a familiar genre And Mario Odyssey is no different. With the release of Super Mario Galaxy, I was sure that most of the gimmicks the Mario games could have explored were tapped out.

Far be it from me to ever doubt Nintendo again, as Mario Odyssey proves me delightfully wrong. Mario Odyssey is a game bursting with creativity that filled me with child like glee. The sheer amount of mechanics introduced by the first level, dinosaur possession, the chame-chomp, boss fight, etc., is astonishing. I turned into a child again with practically every new

mainline Super Mario release. And how about that ending? The ending is completely obvious that you would possess Bowser, but the sheer delight the possession entails is truly wonderful. What a world we live in when we get absolute classics like Zelda Breath of the Wild and Super Mario Odyssey in the same year, two incredibly unique games that take a spin on the open world genre. I also love in the right before that the Bowser boss fight

of putting on his mecha hat and then punching him a bunch. That's just that's cool. It feels great. Yeah, that person mentioned the Changshawn boss fight. We have to talk about the Brutals. They're the new Coupeling stand-ins. And as much as I like the Coupilings, I don't hate the Brutals. I think they fit within the Nintendo world.

They look like they belong. And I like that they have a very Nintendo touch in that they're all dressed like they're on like a steamboat casino in the 1920s or something. I don't know who made that choice. I love that they are wedding planners. Yeah, that too. When that kind of gets revealed that they're a group of wedding of evil wedding plans. It's also a much thirstier Nintendo for our young, thirsty millennial crowd in that I looked on Twitter and I just typed in Brutel. It took me six pictures to get to porn.

So people are hungry for that girl Brutal, whatever her name is. They all have names. I don't know them. But I think they all fit within the world. Even like the gross, like huge like Mama Brutal is kind of like fun to fight. Yeah, she's, yeah, her boss fights of which there are 10 and 11 in the game. It's the one Mario thing I can think of with boob physics. That's what I'll say about the mama.

I really like those boss fights, though, just because of the way, you know, that she has the chain chomp on the leash and to use that to hit her in the face. And it's funny and it's clever and it's interesting. And also, there's a lot of personality because the chain chomp kind of runs away from her and you can kind of see her like almost losing control. Yeah. It's a little, you know, badly trained dog. Like, it's, those are good. And the brutal boss fights are good. It's just that they just keep happening.

I like the one that is a miniature Mario Sunshine stage. throws out the poison goop that you have to wipe out with Cappy to make your line for him. That's fun. I like that. And, you know, it is totally the Nintendo thing of just like, look, you fought them once, but now they do double the things they did before

and you still hit him three times. But the brunals are fine. I saw some people hating on the designs of both brutal and Cappy. Just like, nah. I mean, Capi's more of a rare character. He's a little googly-eyed, yes. I don't need Cappy to have dialogue.

when I fall off a cliff. I don't need to know that he's yelling when I fall off a cliff. It's so bizarre. I don't know why they did that. I know I fell off a clip. I don't need the hat to tell me. But yeah, that's weird.

Oh, you know, actually, when the Brutels first appear, I had a moment of thinking like, oh, this reminds me the opening of Bioshock Infinite when the barbershop quartet appears and sings the Beach Boys. Yes. It's just the same. From Alex Baker.

There's definitely something to be said about the charm of Super Mario Odyssey and how it touches even non-gamers. My wife typically doesn't play video games, but Odyssey seems to have worked its magic and brought out her desire to play. Not only were we passing the JoyConn's during play sessions, more than once I came into the living room to find her playing it. I can't think of any other game that has had that kind of effect. And that, to me, speaks of the magic of Odyssey. And as a lifelong gamer, our time together with Odyssey quickly became one of my most cherished gaming moments. Anthony Carlino. As a lifetime Mario fanboy, I was definitely eager to take Mario Odyssey for a spin.

Without question, the game is a delight, and I currently have collected north of 750 moons. So clearly, it's got me hooked. That being said, as I find myself obsessively tracking down these wayward moons and literally checking off boxes on lists to reach completion, I started to wonder if something was lost in Nintendo's admirable attempt to revitalize the cherished Mario 64 exploration formula. After spinning the better part of 2017 hunting down shrines and solving puzzles in Birth of the Wild, I was excited for Mario as a platforming pallet cleanser of sorts. But here I was, randomly butt stomping the ground in a manner that didn't feel that different from looking for coroc seeds or hunting down map locations based on screenshots, which might as well have been ripped from the Shika Slate.

Odyssey definitely plays homage to its platforming forebearers, but the design clearly puts exploration at the forefront of the gameplay. Maybe it's just the timing of coming out after Zelda, or that I recently replayed. Galaxy 2, but the balance between exploration and platforming seems to be tipping further away from the core aspects of the series that defined it from the very beginning. I think Bob said pretty much the same thing. Yeah, no, but again,

I think people should more share my mindset of like, fuck completionism, just play it until you're done. Don't keep searching for everything until you hate every stage because you had to find every marshal in it. I think that this game in just putting so many

moons out there and then having a heart, I mean, literally, you can get 999 moons, but you stop getting rewards for them after 500. I think you get some more costumes, things like that. But, like, you know, it basically, like, says, okay, you are basically done. Like, you can stop whenever you want. After you do that darker side of the moon thing, it's like, you did it. The game's toughest challenge.

Congratulations. You can go back to your real life now. You don't have to get 99, whatever moon. Yeah, you have to know when to walk away. I very rarely 100% of a game. Exactly. I very rarely 100% of a game. But when I did, I never felt good about it or myself.

I'm just like, oh, my life is flipping through my fingers and I hate this game now. So I feel like you just have to know like when you had enough, I think, of a game. And ultimately, 100% in this game will not get you a trophy in the mail. No. You will not be a better person. Your peers will not look upon you with pride. You just, it's just whatever goal you want to suffer yourself. There's no platinum trophy.

Exactly. Although Todette is there. to give you achievements. That's true. It does have achievements. Throw Cappy 9,000 times. Didn't that when I get home. From Tim, I am fairly conflicted about this title.

I do think the game is fun and deserving of all the Game of the Year talk that has been getting. It is quite possibly my least favorite Mario title since Sunshine for two reasons. As much as I like the possession system in the game, I really wish that they could have implemented some of the series traditional power-ups in the game. I had the same issue with 64. The fact that you cannot acquire items that give the user any sort of projectile at attacks, makes the game feel a little off and ultimately un-Mario-like. I know that the possession system more or less allows the user to play with power-ups.

It also feels a little flat when playing the game and takes away some of the personality the franchise is known for. It also seems a little unfair to ridicule the thematic elements of a game in which you play as an Italian plumber who goes on adventures in the Mushroom Kingdom, but some of the environments just feel as if Nintendo had finally tapped out, through all of their ideas at a wall and did not care if they stuck or not. Some of the environments like New Dong City seem very first draft for a Mario game. Although this is ultimately a good game,

I think in time the game will go down as the Sonic Adventure of Mario Games. Oh, man. I'm leaving the studio. It's still a fun game, and I think it has one of the better Bowser fights I've experienced. I just didn't feel motivated to go explore the Mushroom Kingdom after the Bowser fight. Okay.

The Sonic Adventure of Mario Games is like Super Mario Special. This is not approaching that level. I'm sorry, Sonic Adventure fans. Yeah, I think the people who miss the suits, it's like I am a Super Mario fan boy who also missed suit. for about a decade, but, like, we just had five straight ears of them going suit crazy. Like, when they brought back the Tanuki suit, they brought back the raccoon suits, like... Cat suit. Don't forget the cat suit.

And then the cat suit in 3D World, which also had the Tanuki... Squirrel suit. You've had so many fucking suits. Like, maybe take one game without getting a fireball power up. I think ultimately a lot of the transformations do give you that power up functionality. You're not just... But again, I think they were explicitly trying to... you break away from all of the things that, oh, well, it has to be in a,

you can't have a Mario game without a fireball or one-up mushroom. It's like, well, what if we didn't? And then, you know, saw how that all kind of played out. What if instead you became a Hammer Brother and got to see their cool hair under their helmet? And, yeah, it's tough because I feel like, I think that if Nintendo did, it's like Mario Odyssey 2, now with a fireflower. I feel like that would be kind of disappointing. Like, oh, the only thing you think to add to this is, you know,

just sort of reviving an old, you know, Mario power-up. From Jason Payne. One aspect I find Odyssey excels at is how wonderfully pace the game is. At every beat you feel like you're doing something new, like capturing a new enemy, using your hat in new ways, or jumping rope. These different verbs get utilized in increasingly creative and playful ways until it goes on to something new, never overstaying their welcome. For example, chain chops, chain chomps turn into billiard trick-shot challenges.

Charge and chucks make a brief appearance to charge through some in-game obstacles and you can traverse alongside Bowser's wall Angry Birds style. Speaking of which, didn't Miyamoto praise that game back when it was super hot saying he wished he had thought of it? That's not to mention the post game which showcases these playthings in their pit ultimate form.

Remember hurting sheep? We'll have fun mini-golfing in a floating dimensional obstacle course. Mario Odyssey is a beautifully crafted game and exercise in developer imagination and a true celebration of the series. I totally, yeah, that charge you. Chuck was quite a fun little surprise at the end there. When he

showed up, I was like, oh this guy, I never thought you gave a crap about these guys. Yeah, and it's like, oh, I've always wanted to possess one of the charge in Chuck so I could do the charging. Now it's my turn to smash in everybody. Yep, yep. Yeah, that was fun. Okay.

One last letter and we'll call it an episode from Lucas Brooks. Odyssey not only evoked the past for me, it repeated it. I remember my first taste of Super Mario Brothers on the NES at my next-door neighbor's house. I had to have it. I still recall vividly the sense of urgency and frenzied longing.

It was a while before my family got an NES and it became a cherished part of my childhood. But man, that wait. It's 30 years later. I'm happily playing through the excellent games the 3DS offers while my family uses my Xbox One to stream television. The Switch is released and Zelda looks great, but I can wait until Saturday, November

28th. I dropped by the game section while shopping at Target, just a look at the newly released Mario edition of the Switch. They have a demo unit, and I play a few minutes of the Sand Kingdom from Odyssey. A sensation of sheer happiness washes over me. But I leave the store without picking up a switch. I need to be financially responsible, I tell myself. But that urgency is longing and back.

Urgency and longing is back, full strength. A bad case of the Mario fever. I think Dr. Mario can help with that. I had a switch in Odyssey by the end of that night. It's been hours and hours and hours of pure joy and delight. That's good. That's good. Yeah, there's some variety to opinions here.

Yeah, a lot of, I love this buts in there. Like, I love this, but. I think there were a lot of expectations for this game, especially because of the, like we said, the 15-year way between sunshine and this. And it's kind of impossible to meet everyone's expectations. I am not. And the high reviews. Yeah. It had, even for a Mario game, like record high reviews.

And as we know, Metacritic is the most important thing in the world. Yes, it should determine everyone's future and pay and everything. Yeah. Okay, sorry, I lie. This is one last letter that calls out something that I kept meaning to mention and totally forgot from Aaron Kearns. I'd like to point at a look at a specific case of Mario Odyssey calling back to a previous aspect of a previous game. As a guy who still has nightmares about it over two decades later, I put a decent amount of thought into the way the game calls back to Unagi,

the giant eel lurking about the depths of Jolly Roger Bay. Yes, Unagi gets referenced a lot in later Mario games. Mario Galaxy has a haunted shipwreck level with its own set of eels hanging around. A few Mario Kart levels like to include eel. this window dressing. Who could forget the all-consuming maw and the last water level of new Super Mario Brothers. But in general, the creepy and malicious nature of Unagi has been toned down over time, appearing almost cute at times. Mario Odyssey honors Unagi's dark legacy by making the eels that show up throughout giant, menacing beasts that even some of my friends

found looked like almost Lovecraftian horrors. And there are so many. If anyone needs to apologize to Mrs. Jackson, it's surely the ones hanging out in the deep water nesting area under the lighthouse in the seaside kingdom. What is that a reference to? What? It means that they're nasty. Yeah. Oh. Oh, nasty. I see. Nasty boys? They're nasty boys. I got it. Still, these eels

are unsettling, but easy to avoid as they merely move in and out of their eel holes. That sounds gross. The stalking and prowling of Unagi makes a comeback in Odyssey too. The T-Rex in the Dark Woods of the Wooded Kingdom also patrols a small circular path and will make a beeline to you as soon as you get anywhere near it. The increased maneuverability from not

being underwater is replaced with decreased visibility, and the lack of navigation aids from the map. Ultimately, I'm pleased with Mario Odyssey's treatment of nightmarish horrors and look forward to reading a new generation series of comments on the game's terror on YouTube. Yeah, this is the man-eating piano for a new generation, I think. I saw the actual creature at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, like right before Mario Odyssey came out and I took a picture of it and I posted it. I'm like, oh, look, the aquarium has a diorama of the worst Mario 64 level.

It was a bad level. It was pretty cool becoming a cheap-cheep in those states. too. Oh, yeah. Yeah. That was cute. They're shaking the controller to bash through bricks and not having a button to do it. Oh, I didn't do that.

Yeah. I just, that's one of the things. You're missing some moons. Boy, that would have been easier. All right. So final thoughts. Why? What did you do?

I would hop out of the cheap cheap and then do a butt stop on the bricks and then go back in the cheap cheap. Yep, there you go. All right. Final thoughts on Mario Odyssey. Does it successfully, in your opinion, uphold the legacy? uphold the legacy of Mario for the past 35 years.

Yes. I would say yes. I'd say that it has references to basically every at least EAD Mario game ever including tons of commercial. Like people pull out things

from a like, oh, this guy looks like Rick from Rick and Morty. Like, no, it's from this Japanese commercial. Fuck you. And just seeing all those different costumes, all the classic

enemies just in the just so many treats but also proving they can still be original and have brand new worlds you've never seen before and all those transformations and just all these the transformations even made all these classic enemies new again and the last thing I'll say about how

I think it is gets Mario's legacy right is that Mario's a goofball cartoon character he sees Popeye for the people that couldn't get Popeye and so he's more of a cartoon character Devere in this, especially, like, he is

squashy and stretchy in a world of, especially in New Dong City, he's so weird look around everybody else, but just in every stage, like, we talked about boob physics. Mario has boob physics on his nose, and his nose just moves everywhere. It's perfect.

I love the movements of Mario's giant nose the entire game. Chris? Yeah, I mean, I think that it illustrates that the sort of open, explorative, open world kind of, you know, Mario that you can take at your own pace has been woefully under-explored in the last 15 years. And I hope that this is not simply a, you know, one more dot on the graph and that we have to wait, you know, another 15 years to get another Mario game like this.

I hope that this is a return to form and that they continue to produce these because I think that looking at the criticism that you can level of Mario Odyssey that they, as super, super fun as it is, and as I think as much of a homecoming as it feels like for a lot of people, they can do better. And I think that they, I think that they should try. I agree with Chris. I think this is the first step towards an amazing reinvention of Mario. They just are getting their confidence back as they did with Breath of the Wild. And I feel like, I hope I didn't sound too down on the game. I think I've been mostly positive. But this has been an amazing year for video games.

Like the best part of this year has the only good part of this year outside of us being happy podcasters has been video games. Like there's been so many amazing games. And I feel like Mario is just like in the sea of other amazing games. So if Mario had come out like last year along with the Switch or something like that, it would have been a game of the year. But there's just too much happening this year. It's so hard for me to decide where it sits. But I am very happy with the direction it's going. And I'm extremely excited for whatever happens next.

And for myself, yeah, I would love to see, you know, better games than this. That would be amazing. But I really appreciate the fact that this Mario game really seems to just try to be all-encompassing with its, you know, reminiscences and awareness of Mario's past. The fact that it goes all the way back to the original Donkey Kong for the first time in any Super Mario game that I can think of and draws in, you know, that sort of, like, origin story for Mario and kind of defines... Like, acknowledges that it happened. Yeah.

Yeah, like, they've always kind of existed in these separate universes, but now it's all, you know, part of the same place. And I don't know, like, I really appreciate that. And it really feels like there's a little bit of every Mario game to some degree in Mario Odyssey, except, of course, the land games, so well. It was so cool finding in the post-game stuff, finding her in Dunnog City, the parasol hat and purse again. That's right. I haven't done that yet.

Oh, man. I'm, I spoiled it's okay. Donkey Kong 94. I've been in the media so long that there's no such thing as a spoiler for me. I like the discussion about spoilers around this game, too, of like, can you spoil a Mari game or not? Like, I didn't, you definitely can. I felt, I love how memeable this game is and shareable it is on, but I also felt like,

every time somebody shared something I hadn't seen yet I got the like I want to like to have found that yeah like I had no idea that big climax in New Donk City was coming with the throwback to Donkey Kong

and I'm glad I discovered that fresh because like the day after I found that I saw a bunch of people tweeting about it like tweeting screenshots I was kind of like you know I love that part but I also as much as I wanted to share it with friends

Like, I want my friends to be able to experience that for themselves. I'm sad that I saw the Mario 64 skin because that is what I always wear now. I love how weird it looks surrounded by HD graphics. I just love the Myr 64 skin. I don't want to shame sharers, but I had the rule of if I've seen it in a trailer before, I'll share it in the first two weeks. Otherwise, I'm going to wait. But, you know, okay, I get the enthusiasm. It's fine.

No harm was done. It's still a great game. Anyway, so that's been Mario Odyssey, the not retro-retronauts. And normally, Retronauts is about old games, not just kind of old tangents about new games. So you can listen to us, talk about actual proper video game history every week at Retronauts.com on iTunes on the podcast, 1, network, and app. And you can follow us on Twitter or go to Retronauts.com. I don't know if I mentioned that website, but you should go there because it's really good. Yes. And of course, Retronauts is supported not only by the ads that you might have heard in this episode, but also by Patreon. That's how we pay our rent, mortgage, whatever. Whatever it is, our existences. So please consider supporting this show through Patreon.com slash Retronauts. If you give us $3 a month, you'll get tons of stuff to listen to and it's great and you'll enjoy it.

As for myself, you can find me, Jeremy Parrish, on the internet at Retronauts.com, but also on Twitter as GameSpite and kicking around the internet at other places like my YouTube channel where I do the chronologies of NES and Super NiesS and Game Boy, etc. That's about it. So, Bob, take it away. Hey, it's Bob Mackey. You can find me on Twitter as Bob Servo. My other podcast is Talking Simpsons every Wednesday at the Lasertime podcast network. Go to TalkingSimpsons.com or look for Talking Simpsons in your podcatcher. It is a chronological exploration of the Simpsons we've been doing for like two and a half years now.

By the time you listen to this, we should be in season seven, an amazing season. And we have a Patreon, too. That's patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons. And I will let Henry run down everything that is on the Patreon because he does it so well. Boy, Bob, it really set me up here. Okay, so for just five dollars a month you get access to the entire first season of Talking Simpsons exclusively. All of our season wrapups are seasons two, three, four, and five, and soon to be six. Not to mention the deleted scenes for season five.

we talk over those, plus every episode of Talking Critic where we go over every episode of The Critic in similar fashion that we did to The Simpsons and other exclusive interviews there since our interviews with Ian Jones Cordy, the creator of OkKO, Bill Oakley, one of the former executive producers of The Simpsons, and Paul Provenzano, who was an executive producer on multiple classic Simpsons video games, including Virtual Springfield and Bart versus the Space Mutants. Jeremy keeps looking at his watch. I was just making sure we're not running over. R. So, do you also get micro machines? You got to go fast. We have too much. I'll run out of breath on that. I think, honestly, I've missed few things.

But yes, go Patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons for all your podcasting needs there. And I'm on Twitter as H-E-N-E-R-E-Y-G. All right, Chris, wrap it up with a pitch to shame even that one. I'm Chris Kohler. I'm on Twitter as Koboon Heat, K-O-B-U-N-A-H-H. You can find my writing when I am writing about stuff at Kotaku.com, where I am features editor. Of interest to you guys might be a big feature that I did this year called Saving Japan's Games, in which I go to the Game Preservation Society in Tokyo and talk about their mission to preserve the early history of Japanese video games before it all dies. And additionally, you should probably read my book.

It's called Final Fantasy Five. It's for the publisher, Boss Fight Books. What is that what about? It's all about the game, Final Fantasy Five. Oh, that's the one. Yes. Legend of the Crystals, right? And Legend of the Crystles, that's the one.

And also, you know, it's about Final Fantasy Five and the video game import scene of the 1990s, of which I was a member. And so, yes, Boss Fight Books, it's available on Amazon, check out my Twitter. And I think that's all this stuff I'm plugging. Okay, cool. so that's it. That's this episode. Stop listening now. But come back in a week because we'll have another episode. And if you come back on Friday, we might have a mini episode. Maybe that's next Friday. I don't know. It's going to be a toss-up. It'll be a surprise. Check us out. Come back. Here we go. Off the rails. Don't you know it's time to raise ourselves? It's freedom like you never know. Or a pass In a word

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details. The Mueller report. I'm Ed Donahue with an AP News Minute. President Trump was asked at the White House if special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation report should be released next week when he will be out of town. I guess from what I understand that will be totally up to the Attorney General. Maine Susan Collins says she would vote for a congressional resolution disapproving of President Trump's emergency declaration to build a border wall, becoming the first Republican senator to publicly back it. In New York, the wounded supervisor of a police detective killed by friendly fire was among the mourners attending his funeral. Detective Brian Simonson was killed as officers started shooting at a robbery suspect last week. Commissioner James O'Neill was

among the speakers today at Simonson's funeral. It's a tremendous way to bear, knowing that your choices will directly affect the lives of others. The cops like Brian don't shy away from it. It's the very foundation of who they are and what they do. The robbery suspect in a man, police say acted as his lookout have been charged with murder. I'm Ed Donahue.