So I was at a store here, and...

[A Black Falcon]

Oh yeah, for sure. That's the most disappointing thing about Mario Odyssey by a wide margin! I thought that Nintendo was trying to be a little better on that kind of thing, as you saw with Mario 3D World, Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze, and such all adding female characters, but almost immediately afterwards Nintendo started backsliding -- see Mario Maker for instance, which is one of the best things ever but has "rescue Peach" as its only shred of plot, which it repeats infinitely -- and now it's even worse, since this one doesn't even have the 'but classic reference' excuse. Bah.