25th May 2018, 10:51 PM
So since I got it a few days ago I've been playing this game, and I'm now several kingdoms in. I just went through the water kingdom, and now am at the forest one, of the two you can do in either order; I chose water first. It's a very good game that is a lot of fun to play. Exploring levels, doing all the various things in each of them, and finding the many moons you get as a result is great fun. There's a lot of variety in mission types too, which is very nice. Oh, and the graphics are fantastic. Very much like the Wii U Mario games, this game has a great visual style which it sticks to, and it works. It's a very polished game and I like it a lot.
For negatives though, I guess I want to mention a few things. First, when you have to jump on enemies it can be kind of a pain sometimes because there's no way to target them. You've just got to jump and hope you land on them, which can be difficult in 3d. Galaxy fixed that problem by being mostly melee-combat focused, but this game requires both melee combat with your hat and jumps, without any new ideas to make the jumping-on-small-things-in-3d issue any easier. I've been hit by those stupid tiny yellow Goombas quite a few times now, and getting health back is a bit harder in this game than it has been in most 3d Mario games before it. Now, this difficulty is countered with the low death penalty, so when I do die I don't get set back far at all. It's just a little annoying sometimes. You have a homing attack for your hat, but that doesn't always kill enemies depending on which kind they are. Or maybe I'm missing something, there are a bunch more moves than the ones I'm using...
Beyond that though, I have two things. While it is, as I say above, a bit challenging at times so far, for the most part it is true that the difficulty level mostly isn't too high. I have died sometimes, but between the minimal punishment for dying and the mostly-forgiving design, making progress is quick. As you get more used to the moves avoiding damage probably becomes more natural, too. So yes, this game isn't hard. It's no Mario Sunshine. That's okay though, not every game needs to be hard... for that we always have Mario Maker.
On that note though, the other "issue" I have is that this game isn't as innovative as 3D Land/World and Mario Maker are. Odyssey is something I, like a lot of people, had wanted -- finally, a third open-level exploration-based 3d Mario game -- but because it is that, with a few changes such as not going for a specific objective each time you're in a level but instead collecting stuff as you go, it doesn't feel as new and original as last-gen's new Mario games do. I'm not saying 3D World is better than this game, I haven't played enough to say, but while I like this game a lot I'm not having quite the same 'this game is amazing!' reaction I had when I finally played that one. Maybe expectations have a factor here too, though, considering that Odyssey is getting much higher praise than 3D World gets. Anyway, they're both fantastic. I don't know which is better. It's no Mario Maker either of course, Odyssey is a very different kind of game but this is a very different kind of game from that so that is fine. I hope the Switch eventually does get a Mario Maker game though, that thing is one of Nintendo's best ideas in a long time and I really love it... sometimes the levels you play are awful and sometimes they are good (but of then they are way too hard), but regardless Mario Maker's always interesting.
As for Odyssey, though, it's a fun adventure through some weird kingdoms. If that's "all" it is that's just fine, it's something we haven't seen in a long time and it's clearly done really, really well.
I will say yet again, though, that Nintendo's obsession with "rescue the princess" and "you can only play as Mario (in games that aren't 3D World)" isn't okay. It never WAS okay, but after the progress they seemed to be showing with that game it's very disappointing that they have entirely backslid back to bad old Mario-only, rescue-Peach junk. Sure, they try to mix things up with this whole "wedding" theme, but it's just a new coat of paint on the same terrible old story. Fortunately the gameplay makes up for it.
Oh yeah, and to finish on a positive note, Nintendo 3d platformer water levels are usually pretty fun, and the one I was just in is no exception! I liked that level a lot, swimming around was great and the missions and sidequests to find moons were good stuff too.
For negatives though, I guess I want to mention a few things. First, when you have to jump on enemies it can be kind of a pain sometimes because there's no way to target them. You've just got to jump and hope you land on them, which can be difficult in 3d. Galaxy fixed that problem by being mostly melee-combat focused, but this game requires both melee combat with your hat and jumps, without any new ideas to make the jumping-on-small-things-in-3d issue any easier. I've been hit by those stupid tiny yellow Goombas quite a few times now, and getting health back is a bit harder in this game than it has been in most 3d Mario games before it. Now, this difficulty is countered with the low death penalty, so when I do die I don't get set back far at all. It's just a little annoying sometimes. You have a homing attack for your hat, but that doesn't always kill enemies depending on which kind they are. Or maybe I'm missing something, there are a bunch more moves than the ones I'm using...
Beyond that though, I have two things. While it is, as I say above, a bit challenging at times so far, for the most part it is true that the difficulty level mostly isn't too high. I have died sometimes, but between the minimal punishment for dying and the mostly-forgiving design, making progress is quick. As you get more used to the moves avoiding damage probably becomes more natural, too. So yes, this game isn't hard. It's no Mario Sunshine. That's okay though, not every game needs to be hard... for that we always have Mario Maker.
On that note though, the other "issue" I have is that this game isn't as innovative as 3D Land/World and Mario Maker are. Odyssey is something I, like a lot of people, had wanted -- finally, a third open-level exploration-based 3d Mario game -- but because it is that, with a few changes such as not going for a specific objective each time you're in a level but instead collecting stuff as you go, it doesn't feel as new and original as last-gen's new Mario games do. I'm not saying 3D World is better than this game, I haven't played enough to say, but while I like this game a lot I'm not having quite the same 'this game is amazing!' reaction I had when I finally played that one. Maybe expectations have a factor here too, though, considering that Odyssey is getting much higher praise than 3D World gets. Anyway, they're both fantastic. I don't know which is better. It's no Mario Maker either of course, Odyssey is a very different kind of game but this is a very different kind of game from that so that is fine. I hope the Switch eventually does get a Mario Maker game though, that thing is one of Nintendo's best ideas in a long time and I really love it... sometimes the levels you play are awful and sometimes they are good (but of then they are way too hard), but regardless Mario Maker's always interesting.
As for Odyssey, though, it's a fun adventure through some weird kingdoms. If that's "all" it is that's just fine, it's something we haven't seen in a long time and it's clearly done really, really well.
I will say yet again, though, that Nintendo's obsession with "rescue the princess" and "you can only play as Mario (in games that aren't 3D World)" isn't okay. It never WAS okay, but after the progress they seemed to be showing with that game it's very disappointing that they have entirely backslid back to bad old Mario-only, rescue-Peach junk. Sure, they try to mix things up with this whole "wedding" theme, but it's just a new coat of paint on the same terrible old story. Fortunately the gameplay makes up for it.
Oh yeah, and to finish on a positive note, Nintendo 3d platformer water levels are usually pretty fun, and the one I was just in is no exception! I liked that level a lot, swimming around was great and the missions and sidequests to find moons were good stuff too.