Genre: 3d Platformer
Developer: Nintendo
Publisher: Nintendo

A couple of blips aside, Odyssey's art direction is stunning; the ramparts of Bowser's oriental castle, shrouded in multicolored fog, are preceded by a red-girdered factory amidst an emerald woodland, and a torrential downpour on a darkened and dangerous moonlit cityscape-- and that's just the beginning. It's a shame then that Mario is the most narcissistic video game character on the face of the Earth, as his face is thrust full-bore across the player's television at every opportunity: "here is Mario laughing", "here is Mario cutely dancing to music", "here is Mario peering out a window"-- the sycophantic nostalgia plays are a bit much by now.

The over-the-top, John Williams-wannabe soaring orchestra compositions, interspersed with the usual big band renditions of thirty five year-old Kondo remixes, and the trendy ethnic instrumented thematic motifs that all together characterize 21st century Mario, are officially getting stale. Not only that, but they are intended solely to feed into and accentuate the dippy mascot character fawning discussed in the prior section of this review. The pair of moody Nobuo Uematsu-like night city songs and a couple of other isolated goodies aren't enough to save the game's forgettable aural character.

Nominally, Odyssey is the spiritual successor to the all-time favorite Mario 64-- and indeed, the aforementioned 3d pioneer's moveset and physics are retained, as are the sprawling, look inside every fissure-oriented stages. But where each one of Mario 64's star collectibles took feats of precision platforming and problem solving, Odyssey opts for more of a Banjo Kazooie collectathon approach, with the game's moons meted to the player just for having shown up! The Kirby-like enemy skill acquisition is a neat idea, but utilization is almost always limited to one or two minor jumps or moves very near to the baddie via which the trait was apprehended. There are skill-oriented sections of play, but they are largely sequestered into their own mini-zones.

Whether it was Super Mario Bros. 3's tanooki suit, 64's cutting edge venture into polygons, Galaxy's mind-bending moon walking, or 3D World's razer focus on pure platforming, the Mario titles have always taken an idea, and squeezed every last ounce of creativity into a delicious milk shake for the player to enjoy. Which is why Odyssey's apprehensive, somewhat confused mechanical approach comes as an undesirable pock on an otherwise peerless series of video games. In its defense though, and for players who value exploration over all else, Super Mario Odyssey's sheer competence can be great fun. Its closest mechanical parallel-- and this is some flattery-- is probably 1999's "Ape Escape". It's just too bad then that Odyssey's sense of style isn't worthy to carry the jock strap of Sony's aforementioned classic.