Currently Playing: Super Mario Odyssey Is A Long Undertaking
I am loving Super Mario Odyssey. It's my first ever (I know, I know, you've got bored of me saying that phrase, but it's true, I have never properly played a Zelda, or MarioKart, or Mario branded anything, game before on my own console in my life!) Mario game, and it is an absolute masterpiece. If this isn't your game of the year, then I don't know what you've been playing. I struggle to think of a game that I have played in recent years that embodies, embraces and elevates the Joy of Play so masterfully.
There are two, nay three, major gripes I have to address. One is the controls. Which are, in a word, baffling. The game supports a number of different input modes, but not all configurations will allow you to access the full range of controls, some of which are vital to actually completing puzzles. This is quite a pain in the bum, and it takes plenty of hours of play to both figure out all the available actions and moves, and to remember which one is possible with the controller set up you have. Unless you have eighteen fingers, you're going to struggle to do some of the moves with the Joycons attached that with the Joycons detached are like second nature. But, in all fairness, this all seems like a bit of a necessary evil. Nintendo want to show off the versatility of the Switch console, and to encourage you to play with the Wii/WiiU swoopy-de-dwoppy motion controls, but not completely banish you from your own game just because you happen to be on a bus, where waving small pieces of plastic around is frowned upon. Even Nintendo themselves seem aware their solution is suboptimal, as the game endlessly reminds you of the control schemes for all the special moves and possession abilities, both as on-screen hints and as clunky cut-scene dialogue. I'm not entirely sure what the developers and designers could have done to avoid the solution they ended up with; it's not game-breakingly terrible, but in a game where so much is utterly outstanding, the decidedly less than perfect controls stick out all the more glaringly.
My Second Great Whine is my usual whinge with almost all Nintendo games. And that is that it's weird...though this isn't actually a complaint so much as an observation. A lot of Super Mario Odyssey's appeal comes from it's deep-set zaniness, but the unrelenting madness of it all does occasionally give me pause for thought. "Why is Mario an Italian plumber with the ability to shift between dimensions? and "Why can the sentient hat travel between universes?" are an obvious place to start the questioning, but there are other queries worth answering too. Many of them relate to the sentience, or otherwise, of animals and plants: "What actually is a Goomba? Why do they all hate him so? Why are so many things in this universe made out of turtles and mushrooms?" "What is, or is not, alive in this game? Is Bullet Bill alive or manufactured, endlessly committing suicide and being reincarnated in some form of horrible Groundhog Day? Does it feel pain as it explodes into pieces each time?" "Why can I not posses any of the people in New Donk City, other than the guy with the remote control car? Is he not in fact human?" I'm not entirely sure I really want to meet any of the people who designed this game. I think their minds might scare me.
My third complain is, again, not so much a complaint, as an admission of failure. Super Mario Odyssey is intimidatingly long. I expected it to end in New Donk City! But it just goes on, and on, and on, through world after beautifully crafted world of fun, cheerful adventuring and exploring and puzzles and it just makes me feel so very inadequate. I am not going to finish this game. I know it. It's too big, it requires too much of a time investment to be completed by any normal adult with a job who also occasionally likes to eat and shower. And that makes me Super Mario Sadness, because I knew at that point that it wasn't a game for me, not really. This is a game for children and teenagers, young people, who have the time to invest whole weekends in getting lost inside these enrapturingly creative and colourful worlds. I'm an adult. I'm old and grumpy and bits of me go crack if I stand up too fast, and all my complaints about Super Mario Odyssey reflect that distressing truth. I'd find the controls easier to remember if I was young and sprightly of mind, the weirdness and apparent callousness of the Mario world would wash over me, and I'd be excited by this huge content challenge rather than pathetically intimidated by it.
So, my three complaints are not, in the cold light of day, really complaints. I have nothing to complain about, other than my own encroaching decrepitude. I have no complaints. Super Mario Odyseey is the perfect game. 10/10. Now leave me, I must grieve for my lost youth.
