Super Mario Odyssey

Confirmed 95,185

Part of a series on Super Mario. [View Related Entries]

About

Super Mario Odyssey is a video game in the Super Mario series by Nintendo released for the Nintendo Switch console.

History

When Nintendo announced the Nintendo Switch on October 20th, 2016, its trailer offered a glimpse at Super Mario Odyssey.^[1] Nintendo formally unveiled Super Mario Odyssey with a trailer (shown below) at the Nintendo Switch event held on January 12th, 2017.

The trailer first finds Mario in a city similar to New York City, dubbed "New Donk City" in the game. It appears the game will return to the open world-style of game found in titles like Super Mario Sunshine and Super Mario 64. Series creator Shigeru Miyamoto also said that Odyssey would return to the tougher, less casual-friendly style of those titles.^[2]

E3 2017

On June 13th, 2017, Nintendo showed off Odyssey at E3, announcing that it would be released October 27th, 2017.^[4] The also unveiled a new trailer (shown below, left), as well as some gameplay footage (ex: shown below, right). One of the new features of the game is called "Cap-ture," in which Mario's throws his anthropomorphic hat, Cappy, onto objects, people, and enemies, allowing him to possess their bodies and abilities.^[5]

Cap-ture Reaction

Online, many Twitter users joked about the "cap-ture" feature. A tweet by @lppny joking about the moment Mario inhabits a dinosaur gained over 18,800 retweets and 37,000 likes (shown below).

you, an idiot: no one "wins" E3, we all lose due to the lack of original ideasme, an intellectual: mario just possessed a fucking dinosaur pic.twitter.com/PaY2skTeUn
— Luis Paez-Pumar (@lppny) June 13, 2017

Many other users joked about the implied existential ethics dilemma of Mario inhabiting various objects, including the generic humans of New Donk City. These jokes were covered by The Daily Dot^[6] and Twitter Moments.^[7]

Reception

Reaction to the first Super Mario Odyssey trailer was mostly positive, though some reactions were mixed due to the design of New Donk City. Kotaku^[3] noted that while the game looks fun, the city setting that includes realistic human beings made Mario appear out of place. Users compared the idea of Mario in a realistic human world to the notoriously awful-looking Sonic '06, as well as Grand Theft Auto and the Simpsons episode where Homer enters reality.

Release

Super Mario Odyssey was released on October 27th, 2017, to extremely positive reviews. On the day of release, the game has a score of 97 on Metacritic.^[8] Critics praised the sense of wonder the game evoked, as well as its surprises and tight platforming. Reviews had begun appearing the day prior, coinciding with Metacritic briefly crashing, which led thenextweb^[9] to joke that the good reviews were the cause. The game has a dedicated Wiki^[10] and 18,000 likes on Facebook.^[11] Twitter Moments^[12] also compiled tweets in which fans raved about the game.