>>FULL REVIEW
I am not going to overcomplicate this one. Super Mario Odyssey is one of the most fun games I have played in a long time.
I played it on my Nintendo Switch, and it gave me that feeling I used to get from the great Mario games growing up. Not because it is trying to copy the past, but because it remembers what made those games work in the first place. You run around, jump on things, find secrets, mess with weird mechanics, and somehow lose track of time because every corner looks like it might have something hidden behind it.
That is the best part of Odyssey. It makes playing feel fun before anything else. Mario controls ridiculously well. Running, jumping, diving, wall jumping, and throwing Cappy all feel smooth enough that just moving around becomes entertaining by itself. I caught myself ignoring objectives just to climb buildings, reach random platforms, or test if the game would reward me for being nosy. Most of the time, it did.
Cappy is also way better than I expected. Nintendo could have easily made the hat feel like a cheap gimmick, but it actually changes the way you play. Capturing enemies and objects gives each area its own little twist without turning the game into a tutorial marathon. One minute you are stacking Goombas, the next you are flying around as a Bullet Bill, then suddenly you are a dinosaur because apparently Mario can just do that now. Fine by me.
The kingdoms are colorful, creative, and full of personality. New Donk City is the obvious standout because Mario running around with normal-looking humans should be cursed, but somehow it works. The festival sequence with “Jump Up, Super Star!” is one of those moments where the game just fully wins you over. It feels nostalgic, but not lazy. More like Nintendo knew exactly when to remind you how long Mario has been around and why people still care.
The game is not perfect. The story is barely there, but honestly, who is playing Mario for deep emotional trauma? Bowser wants Peach, Mario chases him, and that is enough. Some Power Moons also feel like filler. A lot of them are fun to find, but a few are basically sitting out in the open like Nintendo forgot to hide them. If you are trying to collect everything, the cleanup can start feeling more like a chore than an adventure.
I also did not love the motion control stuff, especially in handheld mode. It is not game-breaking, but sometimes I just want to press a button instead of flicking the Switch around like I am trying to wake it up from a coma.
Even with those small complaints, Odyssey is easily one of the best games on the Switch. It looks great, runs well, sounds great, and has that Nintendo polish where everything feels intentional. More importantly, it is just happy. Not fake happy. Not baby game happy. Just pure, well-made, colorful fun.
A lot of games try to impress you with size, realism, or complicated systems. Super Mario Odyssey just hands you a hat, drops you into a weird little world, and reminds you that sometimes jumping around and finding shiny moons is more than enough.
It made me feel like a kid playing Mario again, and I mean that as one of the highest compliments I can give it.
WHO THIS IS FOR
For players who want a colorful, creative, feel-good platformer that is easy to enjoy and hard to put down
SKIP IT IF
You do not like collectathons, light stories, or classic Mario-style platforming
