Belated thoughts on Super Mario Odyssey (Switch)

Being a pretty thrifty guy, I thought I was going to hold off playing Super Mario Odyssey until it (and the Nintendo Switch) came down dramatically in price.

As it happened, my wife and I made the excellent decision to take the plunge and get a Switch a few weeks ago for about £300.

She got herself Pokemon Let's Go Eevee as part of the deal and by some unbelievable stroke of good fortune, I had a kind friend who had no further desire to play Odyssey.

He generously gifted it to me and after popping the tiny cartridge into our freshly charged Switch, I was away on another adventure with the iconic plumbing hero.

So is it a good game? Was it worth all of the hype? In a word - Yes. It certainly was to me, at least.

It delivers the dependable platforming fun the core series has always been known for while packing in all kinds of new attractions.

A variety of costumes are on offer

First of all the kingdoms you'll be visiting are, for the most part, quite big and open. Rather than selecting a goal and then entering the level to pursue it, you'll be dropped into an environment and pretty much left to your own devices.

There is a good number of diverse kingdoms too, each offering a huge number of power moons (Odyssey's equivalent to stars) to find by searching and completing all kinds of challenges.

If you're looking to fully complete Odyssey you'll have plenty to do, as there are a whopping 999 power moons dotted around the whole game - not to mention a limited number of unique purple currency coins to find in each kingdom.

With these - and with your standard gold coins scattered everywhere - you'll be able to buy a lot of  new costumes for Mario as well as collectibles, so there's no shortage of things to keep you busy.

There are plenty of cheeky nods to Mario titles of the past

The story isn't anything to write home about, but then it doesn't need to be. In a nutshell, Peach has been kidnapped by Bowser (big surprise!) along with a living piece of headgear called Tiara.

Mario teams up with Cappy, Tiara's brother who is a living hat, to rescue the pair.

In addition to Mario's classic platforming action, Cappy brings a new range of options to go about your goals as he gives Mario the ability to possess all kinds of enemies and random objects, often with fun results.

Controls feel solid and responsive, exactly what you'd expect from a Mario title. There are options to play with the joy cons for motion controls, but I preferred them clipped together as a more conventional controller or to the switch itself as a handheld.

Cappy opens up all kinds of possibilities!

Graphically, everything looks stunning. The environments you'll be exploring are pretty, detailed and inhabited by generally interesting enemies and NPCs.

The music and sounds were spot on, adding to the series' catalogue of cracking tunes while nicely revisiting some older ones. 

New Donk City's "Jump Up, Super Star!" is a particularly catchy one which you'll probably find yourself humming for a while after playing.

I could go on at length about Odyssey's good points and I'm sure if you looked hard enough you could find things to nitpick.

Truthfully, I didn't really find anything to complain about - I guess I was just too busy having fun.

Super Mario Odyssey was a complete blast to play from start to end and while I've finished the main story, it's looking like there's plenty more to do as I work to get all 999 of those moons!

Overall: Well worth a buy, I'd say - a real gem. But how did you find it? Let me know below!

P.S - I'm just getting into some of the post-game challenges, so I might revisit this with final thoughts if I make any more significant progress with that extra content. 😏