Super Mario Odyssey

yoshi is definitely sneezing

I'm definitely realizing that with the immersive worlds that this gen is capable of, environments you can lose yourself in, that I much prefer long-arc kind of plotting and world-building. My only complaint with Zelda was the brevity and scarcity of the "dungeons", and the overreliance on bite-sized questing (the shrines)-- the main quest itself was unimpeachable.

Mario on the other hand is a B or a B- for me. At the moment you started being able to buy Power Moons for 100 coins each I felt like the primary currency of the game was so debased that the game just felt like work. Even in the main quest, the inconsequentiality of each achievement started to just feel.. "the opposite of sweeping". I loved the environments and the bosses very much, all the bosses were amazing really, but for me, this fell far short of 64 and Galaxy

It made me excited to playthrough Skyrim again, though.. the thrill of climbing the huge central mountain for the first time still resonates with me

At moment you started being able to buy Power Moons for 100 coins each

but this is for one moon per area, specifically for finding the store. it's not as if you can just buy all the moons you need from that store.

It made me excited to playthrough Skyrim again

lol my least favorite memory of Skyrim was climbing mountains, repeatedly jumping against random incline polygons to gain altitude, the screen filling with a big blurry rock texture. leave it to BOTW to take this awkward experience and turn it into an awesome core game mechanic.

you can buy more than 1 from the stores, they count towards unlocking new worlds but not towards your checklist for getting all the moons in the game

idk why the option is even there though, there's way more easy-to-find moons than you need to complete the game. i can't imagine someone getting stuck.

oh wow thats crazy. yeah ill pass cos exploring is so much fun.

you need a lot of moons for the post-game unlocks. i'm not gonna buy more than 1 per world (to get it crossed off the list) but i can see some people just wanting to unlock the later costumes and such

I've never used the stores for anything. Seemed lame.

omg i just got to the moon. this game. this is my favorite 3d Mario game.

Buying outfits was 10% of the fun

"this Bowser fight is really fun..."

* 5 mins later *

"hooooolyy shiiiiiiiit"

"

i loved the whole ruined kingdom -> bowser's castle -> moon -> ending sequence a lot

yeah i am in end game and have been saying "ooooh myyyy gooood" aloud every 2 minutes

more surprises in store

moon physics is soooo much fun

the bowser fight is really annoyingly designed w/ its gotcha pattern-changes; the ending sequence was agreeable but a missed opportunity

on the main quest i give it a solid C, but the post-game playground hang-out value might bring that up a bit

the inset of cappy's creepy, tired eyes next to the dialogue when he talks to you in game reminds me of the satan frames edited into the exorcist

just reading about the rock paper scissors thing, so many cool things hidden in this game!
https://imgur.com/a/1ZT1b

I'm definitely realizing that with the immersive worlds that this gen is capable of, environments you can lose yourself in, that I much prefer long-arc kind of plotting and world-building. My only complaint with Zelda was the brevity and scarcity of the "dungeons", and the overreliance on bite-sized questing (the shrines)-- the main quest itself was unimpeachable.

Mario on the other hand is a B or a B- for me. At the moment you started being able to buy Power Moons for 100 coins each I felt like the primary currency of the game was so debased that the game just felt like work. Even in the main quest, the inconsequentiality of each achievement started to just feel.. "the opposite of sweeping". I loved the environments and the bosses very much, all the bosses were amazing really, but for me, this fell far short of 64 and Galaxy

― flamboyant goon tie included, Thursday, November 9, 2017 5:55 PM (five days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

- Agreed about Zelda
- I believe you can only purchase 1 moon per place
- What do you mean the inconsequentiality of the achievements? Can you elaborate a little?

My only complaint about SMO is that you see this very beautiful and realistic planet when you're flying between places (which is immersive), but only some of them feel like they're part of the planet. The desert and beach one feel like they're a place in the world, but others like New Donk City have an arbitrary barrier via the whole thing being atop a giant tower with a repeating metal tile texture extending down the side. This is a picky design-nerd grievance, but I want to believe the universe they created! Galaxy was able to do it with the framework of mini "planets". Blatant arbitrary barriers with generic backdrops ruin the immersion.

Seamless. That's the word I was looking for in regards to the beach and desert examples.

haaa the rock paper scissors thing is so cute!

yeah that's insane.

im in the end game and now, it just feels like Infinite Mario, and it's wonderful. i can go back to any of these worlds and explore and i always find something. i can end up spending half an hour trying to win a race., or playing around with the face matching puzzle, or looking for rare things to turn into, flying around, etc.

it's a nice approach to the Open World Game. usually im sick of doing the side stuff halfway through your Far Crys or AssCreeds. they really got the pacing right with SMO. when you get to the ending you just want more more more. i think the smaller size Evan mentions is a big help. i'm not overwhelmed by the map, there aren't a million icons everywhere that makes it feel like a To-Do List. instead i WANT to find those little tucked away things.

Is it like the Lego games that way?

The AV Club actually had a decent piece about what Adam’s talking about

https://www.avclub.com/open-world-games-are-broken-and-nintendo-spent-2017-tr-1820333889

my housemate has been playing horizon: zero dawn and i like to watch while asking 'can you climb that mountain? no? that one? how about that one? maybe you can climb that one?'

Haha owned

xp yeah i wouldn't say witcher 3 transcends the 'map game' genre trappings, it's just the best game that's been made within them and thus should be where the bar is set currently. zelda is very different from all those games and mario isn't even in the genre at all.

yeah idgi why the phrase 'open world game' comes up so much in regards to this game, it is not that

i mean there are a bunch of worlds and once you beat the main mission they open up and you have free reign to go back and do side missions and mini games. functionally it really isn't that different than Vice City or whathaveyou.

there's a big difference in both the design and the experience. the SMO worlds are much more like levels than sandboxes. that av club article was kind of bad overall but it nailed the experience of this game. "dioramas" was a great descriptive term for the design of the worlds.

yeah. im saying compared to the other Mario games ive played. like Super Mario Galaxy is pretty linear and doesn't have any backtracking

i watched a football video where the guy was talking abt "sub optimal game design" yesterday o god

like real football not video game football the one where ppl tackle each other to the ground

I've used "dioramas" to describe the Mario Galaxy and 3d World experience actually, where the levels are miniaturized and it feels like you're peering in on them rather than inhabiting them

if you think about it the true cousin of 3d mario gameplay wise is tony hawk pro skater

okay, just "beat" this; looking forward to the post game
also dark souls mario for the dragon level otm

over 600 moons now and dozens of hours later. i am still finding new things, new shortcuts and hidden areas, new sub-levels, new characters to possess even.

the post game is great, getting some strong Super Mario World vibes from stuff, the Yoshi levels in particular. i was LOLing so much at the level where you are bright green Yoshi running around eating fruit in the gritty post-apocalyptic tank-filled cityscape as pouty teenager 90s metal music plays on the soundtrack.

have to say it again cos i played it again that New Donk City festival sequence is amazing. like that's just a fun level to play on top of all the crazy meta stuff. i like how you have to turn on the power to get to the festival. the NPCs are celebrating Mario for starting it all, this complements the meta celebration of Mario as a kinetic "superstar". Mayor Pauline was a very cool character and puts a nice twist on the whole game-within-a-game.

i loved the art deco style around the whole thing, the film noir suits, the spotlights, the skyscraper. i have always been a fan of Mario as being influenced heavily by the old silent film stars Lloyd/Keaton/Chaplin/etc. and that pre-War (well post-WWI pre-WWII) era of animation as well. cool to see this style embraced somewhat by the game. the 8-bit segments are introduced as ancient hieroglyphs you discover while excavating rock walls, by the time you get to Metro Kingdom are turn on the power they are a jazzpunk hologram, the ultimate Super Mario Bros.-Donkey Kong level mod officially made by Nintendo. i think my favorite part is when you are jumping upside down and there are coins in the windows of the skyscraper and there are spotlights shining across them, it all looks so damn good.

wait - what? there's more than one Yoshi level???

ive come across a few now. you can find him at the Mushroom Kingdom castle but he's also in the post-game side moons as well. the one i describe above is "Yoshi Under Siege" and it's on the Dark Side.

can’t put my finger on what it is but i’m not enjoying this game at all. i loved the hell out of every other 3d mario (including sunshine, excluding 3d world because i’ve never played it) but this one is doing nothing for me.

i’m up to the snowy level with the bouncy race thing and am struggling to stay interested. meanwhile zelda is costing me sleep.

okay reading through the thread it turns out i'm not alone, thank god. sleepingbag's

like overall it's pretty good, but a) they put a bunch of unfun, typical platformer shit in here

is otm, it's very good at all the things it's doing, but it's not a zelda-scale genre reinvention. it's a hell of a lot more like galaxy than people having been saying it is, and the cap thing is the next in a very long line of 3d platformers that entail possessing a thing/wearing a suit and having new mechanics.

Even in the main quest, the inconsequentiality of each achievement started to just feel.. "the opposite of sweeping".

especially when stars/shines were always an explicit reward for an explicit achievement, but too often in odyssey it’s just “well you were walking this way anyway so have a moon”

millenials expect a moon for just walking a way anyway

Used to kick a koopa shell in the street

yeah they def just hand you moons during the main quest but that's probably to keep up pace. by the time you beat the boss of each world you have more or less all the moon needed to move on right away. the post-game moons are where the difficulty and exploration really take off.

btw i think the snow level was my least favorite (visually found it kind of dull) but the adjacent beachfront level was one of the best in the game. levels that i was not very impressed with during my first run i have grown to appreciate as i uncover the mysteries and partake in races and such to find the shortcuts.

yeah the beach level started off as Ugh A Water Level but it grew on me a ton in my second pass through it. and that bossa nova bgm! agree that the snow level is the weakest in this one.