Gamer’s Thoughts: Super Mario Odyssey isn’t a perfect game.

Official website

I wanted to write a review of this game for quite a while. I have finished this game over a month ago and I haven’t written a first impression or a review about this game. I want to fix that today. But, instead of writing a review I wanted to do something special. While the game got praise from other bloggers left and right, I want to point out some of the flaws and issues I have with the game. Disclaimer, I don’t think this is a bad game but I want to explain my reasoning for why I wouldn’t give this game a 100/100. So, let’s get critical and look at this game again. As per usual, feel free to leave a comment in the comment section down below with your thoughts on the game and/or the game. 

Mini-review

So, what do I actually think about this game? While it’s a very unique and enjoyable game, I found the game quite repetitive.

The music and sound design were amazing but I sometimes had trouble with the controls and more advanced moves.

The visuals are amazing and I loved running around in all the different kingdoms but I found the story lacking and I expected a lot more from the hype and praise it got.

If I would have to give my score for this game it would be an 80/100. Since in my eyes, the game could have done so much more and it left me disappointed in some areas of the game.

This game has a lot to love. Like I said, the visuals, the music, the concept… they are all amazing. The attention to detail is amazing. Cappy is one of the most helpful companions I have seen in a while. Yet, I felt like I enjoyed this game less then the other 3D platformers I played like A Hat In Time. So yeah, personally I felt that there was something lacking. Something that kept me from fully enjoying the game and that thought exercise resulted in this article.

Breath of the Wild did it better

The story has one big issue and that’s the open world and the overkill of moons you can collect. Now, not too long before the release of this game, Nintendo released The Legend Of Zelda – Breath of the Wild. In this game, you were also able to run around freely and gather the things you need to finish the game.

Now, there is a big difference in how the story is handled in the Zelda games and in the Mario games. The big difference is in how the ending is handled. And if you don’t want either of these games spoiled, just start reading when the text is black again. If you don’t mind the spoilers, just highlight the next part in order for you to read it.

So, in each kingdom in Super Mario Odyssey, there is a story quest you can complete to easily get enough moons to advance to the next kingdom. But, this is an open-world game so you can skip this story quest by collecting other moons. Fair enough. You can do the same thing in the Zelda game. You don’t have to defeat the divine beasts in order for you to go to the final boss. 

Now, here is the difference between the two games. If you don’t defeat the Divine Beasts in Breath of the Wild, you will have a harder time before you go and do the battle with Ganon. Since you will need to defeat them before you can fight with Ganon. The more Divine Beasts you beat, the easier you make it for yourself during the final battle. Since they bring down Ganon’s health to half if you have beaten all 4 Divine Beasts. This is not only good story writing, but it’s also an amazing reward for the player. You helped free the souls from their prisons and they came back one last time to help the hero in his quest to defeat evil. 

In Super Mario Odyssey, this doesn’t matter at all. I haven’t finished the story quest in three kingdoms and it doesn’t have any difference in the ending scenes or on the final battle at all. So, why should I bother saving or helping people in a certain kingdom? When I entered a kingdom, I felt like I was dropped in a zone and if I found enough goodies I was allowed to go to the next zone. 

Another thing Breath of the Wild did better then Super Mario Odyssey are the Korok Seeds vs Moons. Now, you get both items as rewards for solving puzzles or doing small challenges in the world.  At some moments I felt like Super Mario Odyssey was the whole Korok Seed quest with a Mario skin. Now, I felt rewarded when I found a Korok Seed. Even when I had beaten the game. It gave me another chance to upgrade my bag so I was able to carry more equipment in the game and experiment more.

Now, besides needing them to continue in the main story, there are no additional rewards for collecting moons. Besides unlocking one more world/level, and maybe two small completion bonus things at the end of the game, I didn’t feel any incentive to collect these moons. I felt like I was on a fetch quest for them just because it’s a video game.

The final thing that Breath of the Wild did better is the towers and map mechanics. Yes, the towers. I loved climbing towers in Breath of the Wild and looking over the whole zone trying to find interesting areas to visit. I felt a lack of that in Super Mario Odyssey. Also, the mechanic where you could pin beams of light on the map as markers for you to visit later… man, that would have been great in Super Mario Odyssey as well.

And it would fit the visual theming of the game extremely well. The map of each kingdom is a travel brochure of the kingdom. And let’s be honest, how many times you wrote on the map of a travel brochure to mark certain areas you still want to visit.

And a final and possibly a minor thing is that Breath of the Wild felt more interconnected. The best way to explain here is, ask yourself this. You can walk over from region to region in Breath of the Wild easily. You need to fly over from kingdom to kingdom in Super Mario Odyssey. And while it’s on a planet, you are able to fall into a void if you reach the edge of a kingdom.

A Hat In Time did it better

Now, I’m certain that people will disagree with me on this but I felt that the controls of A Hat In Time felt better than Super Mario Odyssey.

It’s no secret that I’m not the best in platforming games. So, the running up walls move in A Hat In Time was a godsend to me.

But, the issue is that nowadays, I miss various jumps because I try to rely on that mechanic. It gets better when I kept playing Super Mario Odyssey but I missed that mechanic. Not only that, I got so much used to the dive move in A Hat In Time. I was able to pull off more advanced moves than I ever could in a platforming game. With the 2nd dive/jump, you were able to stop at any time you want. So, if you noticed that you overshoot the jump, you can save yourself easily.

So, at that moment I started comparing the moves I was able to pull off in A Hat In Time to Super Mario Odyssey. And I felt like I was more in control in A Hat In Time. For example, I can’t pull off the Cappy Jump at all in Super Mario Odyssey but I’m able to defeat the hardest jumping challenges in A Hat In Time. I don’t know what’s going on exactly, but I think it has to do with the two things I said above.

Or it might have to do with me being more used to the XBOX360 controller I play A Hat In Time with compared to the first game I had beaten on Nintendo Switch. Maybe when I’m more used to the Switch controller, I might be able to do these more difficult moves.

Other things

Now, remember, I still enjoyed myself with Super Mario Odyssey and it’s still a great game. But, I have seen other games do certain aspects better. Besides that, are there other things I don’t like about Super Mario Odyssey?

The motion controls were also a big issue for me. I played a lot of this game on the go. On the train from and to work. And I think that I’m unable to get a few moons easily without those motion control moves. But, that’s mentioned in almost every review I have seen. And as pointed out by some, why weren’t they able to remap those moves to certain buttons that went barely used in the game like ZL/ZR?

Besides that, I think I have said my main issues with the game. I could go on and extremely nitpick, but that would make this article boring to read. Like I felt each world should have its own Rabbit mini-boss and not repeat them over several worlds with barely any differences…

In the end and I have mentioned this multiple times, I think that this game is wonderful, one of the best games Nintendo has put out in 2017. While it isn’t their best game from 2017, it’s in the top 5. While I feel that this game deserves a lot of praise, it could have done things a lot better and I hope I was able to point that out in this article.

Thank you for reading this article and I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to be able to welcome you in the next article but until then, take care and have a great rest of your day.

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Gaming History: The Legend Of Zelda – Oracle Of Seasons ~ A Look Back

My review of the game

So, today we take a look at the history that the game The Legend Of Zelda – Oracle of Seasons has. The Oracle games are my favorite Zelda games. I’m only going to write about Seasons. If you are interested in the article about Ages, you should go to AdventureRules, since it’s there. For this article, I took out my Hyrule Encyclopedia and started reading all over the internet. So, I can tell you about this game that originally started as a trilogy but got split into two games. Let’s go to Holodrum again, together and let’s take a look at how this game got created. As usual, feel free to leave a comment with your opinion on the article and/or if I have missed anything interesting.

First third party Zelda games.

I remember the time I first booted up this game quite well. This game got released in late 2001 here in Europe. I was introduced to the Zelda series, two years later. When the Gameboy Advance SP dropped. At first, I picked up an “NES Classics: The Legend of Zelda I” from my local video game store. When I played that game, I fell in love with the Zelda series. A month after that, I went to the seaside with my family.

There, I went to a garage sale and saw “The Legend Of Zelda – Oracle of Ages”. I didn’t think twice and I picked the game up. I finished the game a month later. That’s when I saw the “TO BE CONTINUED IN SEASONS”-screen. It took me several garage sales, but I could hunt my own copy of Seasons down in 2004. Sadly, it was a fake cartridge. But in 2005, a friend of mine sold his boxed copy of the game for 10€ to me and I had the original cartridge boxed. Now, I own both the cartridge and the 3DS eShop version.

That’s how I acquired my very own copy of the game. I don’t own the fake cartridge anymore since I sold it on a garage sale after I got the real copy. During my playthrough of the game, I always felt that this game could be part of a trilogy. I mean, how two Goddesses are represented in the Oracle games. So, I went digging.

I was right, this game was, in fact, going to be part of the trilogy. In fact, back in 1999, this game was called “The Mystical Seed of Courage”. Capcom made a demo for the Space World Expo. Wait, what? Capcom? Is this a mistake? No, actually it isn’t. Capcom created this game. The Oracle games are actually the first third party Zelda games planned to be externally created. The Zelda CDi games might be developed and published a few years earlier, but those weren’t planned by Nintendo.

Development Hell

I could talk a bit more about the development history of this game, but I think that the Zelda Wiki has covered it quite well. You can read about it here. So, if you want to know more about the development of this game, read that article. It has sources too. But here is a summary of what’s said on that page:

Capcom proposed to Nintendo to re-create the original The Legend Of Zelda I NES game. Yoshiki Okamoto pitched his idea to Shigeru Miyamoto. Yet, the development team said “NO!” to Okamoto’s ideas and started to create a new title in the series.

The subsidiary Flagship was tasked to write the story. This didn’t prove successful since they prioritized story over gameplay. Thankfully, Miyamoto’s help came to the rescue. Miyamoto had the idea to create the “Triforce Series”. The Zelda formula as we know and love would be split into three.

So, in 1999 the more action-based game was presented to the public. The subtitle the game got was “Mystical Seed of Power” and on the 1999 Space World Expo, it even had a different subtitle “Chapter of Power” or “Tale of Power”. The demo started with Ganon kidnapping Princess Zelda and the Rod of Seasons.  The demo itself has a lot of elements that made it into the final version of the game. There are some major differences though.

The first difference is that in the final game, Onox is introduced as the big villain who kidnaps the Oracle of Seasons, Din. The second difference is that the game doesn’t take place in Hyrule but in Holodrum. And the 3^rd difference is that it’s not Hyrule Castle that sinks into the underworld, but it’s the castle of Holodrum.

So, why did we get two games instead of three? The reason for that is the game-linking system. You could interact with the other games via codes. But, this proved too difficult to develop, so only two games were to be developed. Everything from “The Mystical Seed of Power” got into the game we now know as “The Legend of Zelda – Oracle of Seasons”.

Yet, you can still see signs of the first Zelda game in this title. Remember, this game first started out as a remake of the original Zelda game back on the NES. Take the old men, several recurring bosses and the Gnarled Root Dungeon.

The Goddess that didn’t get her own game, the “Mystical Seed of Courage” which got canceled, appears in both Oracle titles. She is in the Hall of Secrets.

My personal memories

I said it before and I’ll say it again, the Oracle games are my favorite Zelda games. I have beaten them repeatedly. I enjoy them so much. I especially love the mechanic where you can transfer over some progress from one game to the other. I can’t choose my favorite game between both Oracle games.

To finish my article, I want to give 5 memories I have with this game. So, here we go.

1. There is one dungeon boss I always have trouble beating. That’s the boss Manhandla in the 6^th dungeon called Ancient Ruins. This boss is so difficult since you need to hit his head with the boomerang and getting to the boss door is such an ordeal. It’s highly recommended to get the LVL2 shield and sword to defeat this boss. I remember one time when I finally had beaten that boss, I shouted in excitement. But, I had forgotten that it was past my bed time. My parents weren’t too pleased when they caught me. My Gameboy was taken from me for a month.
2. When I was 12, I used to make maps and write guides for all my games. I also wrote each level code I had down on a list. All these guides and such were bundles in a folder that set on my shelf. I still remember writing a complete step-by-step guide how to get the LVL2 sword. But, I did the quest so much, I can now do it in the game. Apart from the maze bit at the end, I always forget the sequence.
3. To get access to a dungeon, you need to collect a certain number of gems. I found two of them before I knew what they were for. I was so proud of myself.
4. I seriously love how the Natzu area differs from the animal buddy you get. But, I feel that Dimitri’s one is a bit useless. Since not too long after that, you get the flippers which make the unique ability of Dimitri useless. Since you can swim in the water now. The only thing you can still use him for is to eat enemies while you are in the water.
5. I have beaten Veran, Oracle of Ages main villain, multiple times. But, I have only beaten Onox twice. I always have trouble in his boss battle. But, I have beaten Ganon on my cartridge of Seasons… but, disaster struck. The internal battery died and I lost my save file.

In any case, thank you for reading this article. I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to be able to welcome you in another article on my blog, but until then, take care and have a great rest of your day!

One final thing, if you enjoyed reading this look back on the development and my personal memories of this game and you would love to read more articles like this from other games in the Zelda series? Well, don’t think twice of reading the hub article! Since this article is part of a big collaboration I did with various other bloggers! You can check that out here.