How is Super Mario Odyssey a 10?

aigis once again sporting his wrong wisdom ay

I haven't played Odyssey yet (no Switch) but I felt exactly the same about Mario 3D World. Everyone raved about it, like 95 or something on Metacritic, yet was just a pretty standard and rather disappointing (after the Galaxy twins) game for me. Good game, nothing amazing.

It happens, sometimes the critics adore stuff I don't, and vice versa.

@locopatho: If it means anything, Super Mario Odyssey has much better gameplay mechanics than Super Mario 3D World.

Personally, I prefer Super Mario Galaxy 2 overall.

@jumpaction: I like 2D Mario more than 3D mario personally. Tho the Galaxy games were excellent. My favorite mario game is still Yoshi's Island by a hair over Mario World and Mario 3.

@jumpaction: I gather that from the general reaction. 3D World's fans (back in at the time of it's release) were very defensive: "Yes it IS that good you idiot! GAH!"

Whereas Odyssey's fans seem more relaxed: "Games awesome, can't wait to play more of it." Seems closer to Galaxy 1/2 chilled happiness rather than needing to convince me (aka themselves) of anything.

That happens a fair bit in gaming I find, the more defensive and nasty fanboys are about a game, the more likely it was to be a bit (or a lot!) of a disappointment. Same with the shrieking meltdowns over the Wii Zeldas, Metroid Other M, etc. Nuclear mode comes out to defend dodgy games, while actual masterpieces like Galaxy, Metroid Prime, Breath Of The Wild don't need crazy defenses. They stand, obviously, as their own self evident awesomeness.

Sorry I rambled along there for a bit :P

@whatismylife: I love Yoshi's Island. It's a lovely game. Yoshi's Island, Super Mario World, Super Mario 3, Super Mario Galaxy 1 and 2 and Odyssey are probably my favorite Mario games.

@locopatho: I get you. Saying that, I enjoyed Super Mario 3D World. The mechanics aren't as good as other games in the series but I still thought it was a really fun game - especially with a friend. It's tough but always better when we view games for what they are, not the hyperbolic stuff people say about them (both positive and negative). Game discussion has a habit of being expressed in extremes. :P

Super Mario Odyssey is very lenient on difficulty and some of the moons are so simple to find that they are redundant but the gameplay mechanics are the deepest in the series and the level design accommodates player expression. It's a bit like a platforming jungle gym.

Me too, and agreed with everything else.

I'll certainly get Odyssey if I ever get a Switch. Prob in 5 years when next Zelda drops and there's no WiiU version :D

@jumpaction: Solid choices. Game is just fantastic overall. The big thing that put Yoshi's Island above the others for me is the level design quality and how much variety there was. Every level had something new in to distinguish it.

@locopatho: The Switch right now has a handsome library if you're willing to experiment and try out a few different games. However, if you're mainly interested in the big titles from Nintendo and 3rd party publishers, it's worth waiting. Metroid Prime 4 will (hopefully) be very good but I can't see it releasing until at least 2019. :P

@whatismylife: I loved the scoring system and how that encouraged replay-ability. Then, when you received a 100% grade in every level of a world, you got a bonus level which often contained a very challenging extra level. That and like you said, the level design and player expression in the game were great! It's a shame there hasn't been a Yoshi game as good as that since. Yoshi's Woolly World wasn't too bad, though. Certainly better than most Yoshi games... which isn't really saying much.

I actually really like Odyssey though, solid 8 imo. My 4th favorite goty

The only real issue is the repetition and the bosses could have been more varied

800+ stars = not short and takes quite a while. My guess is OP literally did the bare minimum to progress through the main story only, which is like 100 stars, plus it's all the easy stars there only for casuals. That's like watching the intro and saying the game was too short.

No, I had well over 200 moons when I finished the main campaign. I love to explore levels and find new areas. That is why I am dissapointed. It is a lot of the same shit to get the moons. Stack a certain number of goombas and stand here for a moon, make the goombas tall enough to reach the lady goomba, dress in this outfit to access this room, buy a moon at the cap store, race me to this location, re-trace the path as it disappears, stomp here for a moon, throw cappy on this glowing thing for a moon, beat the same bosses over and over for multi-moons, etc...

You can only do the same repetitive and formulaic shit over and over so many times before it stops being much fun. The end game stuff does not improve much. It just throws a shitload more moons with little significance or unique design to obtain. Like I said before, it is a lot of fluff or padding. Not much better than a Ubisoft collect-a-thon. The game doesn't really challenge me with the platforming difficulty or mentally, trying to figure out the environments and how to get to an area. There is no way this game is a 10 when you see through the bullshit.