Super Mario Odyssey - Did You Know Gaming? Feat. Barry Kramer

[Music] did you know not only was Super Mario Odyssey specifically made for the switch it was balanced to appeal to both core and casual gamers the games developers knew the switches portability would lead to some playing in short bursts while commuting to work or school because of this the team decided to include many collectable moons that were easy to grab in short bursts the team at Nintendo also wanted to make full use of the switches joy Kahn's during development they thought the joy cons were a good fit for a throwing gesture and decided to have players throw something in the game they settled on throwing Mario's hat since it's already an iconic part of Mario's character Nintendo we're also working on a capture mechanic that let players take control of objects and creatures in the environment however they didn't have an intuitive way for the player to possess the objects around them the team experimented with using Mario's cap to possess enemies and the two mechanics were combined into one which also helped define the character of Cappy interestingly the capture mechanic was only in developments for a few days before it was chosen to be a significant feature of the game Nintendo purposely planned for the first possessive creature to be a frog since jumping is the core mechanic of the Mario franchise the frogs jump would instantly show players how capturing objects can affect gameplay not only did the switch affect how the game was designed Odyssey impacted how the switch itself was developed Odyssey producer Yoshiaki kazumi suggested in an interview with Metro that HD Rumble was added to the switch so he could use it in Odyssey the timing on this may seem strange but Co Azumi teased Odyssey in edge magazine all the way back in 2014 while the switch was still being worked on the team challenged their assumptions about how to make the game accessible to younger players they were unsure if younger players would need a fixed camera to keep things simple like in the galaxy games this concern was put to rest after they realized young gamers were easily able to grasp the controllable camera in Minecraft removing the lives mechanic was also done to make the game more accessible although experienced players would rarely see a game over screen inexperienced players could end up seeing it a lot removing lives also removed any discouragement felt from getting a game over and new players wouldn't be deterred from exploring and investigating the game sandbox the sandbox nature of the game was a very important inclusion was one of the first ideas to be implemented they chose a walled garden sandbox environment so they could experiment with the endless stream of ideas they had for the game the choice of using a walled garden also influenced the direction of Odyssey and brought it closer to the gameplay style of mario 64 in sunshine that said the team challenged themselves to include elements that might not fit in a conventional Mario game they wanted to capture the unfamiliar and unsettling feeling of being in a new place for the first time this is why the game has many elements that seem out of place at first such as the t-rex and the realistically proportioned humans in new dog city in Tendo also places realistic people a new dog city to give players a sense of scale for the world helping them understand how Mario moves and jumps in relation to real people the presence of anatomically correct humans led to many fans asking whether Mario was actually human as he's so different to the new doctors in an interview with Vice the game's director Kenta moto Korra confirmed that Mario is human saying quote Mario is human in the world there are many different types of people you know speaking of new dog city Pauline was originally going to be the city's princess however the role of princess didn't seem to fit a city environment and she was made the mayor instead this also gelled better with Pauline's musical persona the lyrics the Odysseys main theme jump up superstar had to be completely rewritten when brought to the west this was because the Japanese lyrics didn't have much of an impact when they were translated literally into English the songs first English rewrite relied heavily on the listeners familiarity with Mario a Nintendo of America requested more rewrites that would resonate with a casual audience they also wanted the lyrics to be simple enough for non English speakers to sing along to this strategy paid off and jump up superstar broke into the top 25 music chart when it hit the North American iTunes Store it should be noted that this accomplishment is especially rare for video game music interestingly Kate Higgins performance for jump up superstar was recorded before she acted out any of Pauline's lines for the game the director didn't even talk to her about what Pauline should sound like until after the song was fully recorded these aren't Odysseys only audio secrets the sound effects harmonized with the background music by changing pitch and tempo to match the music this was done to a lesser extent in previous Mario games but is most noticeable in Odyssey due to its abundant sound effects [Music] when creating music for the luncheon kingdom the games musicians used actual cooking utensils as instruments some chops and clangs are the sounds of knives and ladles helping cement the levels theme although Odysseys levels all have a unique and consistent theme they didn't start out this way each level was made with a different gimmick in mind and an appropriate theme was added after facing the game's desert stage on Mexico came from director Kent emotes Icarus trips to the country Mexican culture left a strong impression on him and found its way into the level as well as a costume for Mario other levels take more inspiration from media than the real world the wooded Kingdom has several similarities to the 1972 science fiction films silent running the movie takes place in a giant greenhouse maintained by robots with these robots greatly resembling the steam gardeners in Odyssey the music from this area was also directed with a 60s theme in mind loosely reminiscent of the era the film came out in the Metro Kingdom is arguably the game's focal point interestingly Odyssey might not be the first time new dog city has appeared in the instruction manual for Donkey Kong land it states that the game's big ape city is the location where the original Donkey Kong arcade game was set it's been heavily implied by Nintendo that new dog city is also the same place where the original Donkey Kong game took place suggesting they are the same location other aspects of the game also referenced media and world cultures Jack seas are likely based on Co my new which are Japanese lion statues that protect shrines and temples from evil old fables about kawaii new statues mentioned them suddenly coming to life similar to Jack sees the name Jack see is a portmanteau of Jaguar and taxi however their Japanese name is ride on bus which is likely a mix of Ryan the Japanese for lion and ride though which means to ride another interesting fact is that the Jack sees main isn't a part of its body it's actually a necklace the brutal seemed to have a connection with Odysseys setting it's likely their relationship with the moon is based on the mythological moon rabbit a creature inspired by markings on the moon which vaguely resemble a rabbit with a pestle and mortar with the games t-rex design Nintendo stayed close to the Tyrannosaurus Rex from the 1993 movie adaptation of Jurassic Park modern science depicts t-rex is with feathers and more color but these interpretations aren't as well known with the general public this is likely why Nintendo went with a scientifically inaccurate depiction for the creature the sherman enemy might be named after the American m4 Sherman tank which was frequently used during world war ii the Sherm seems to be connected to Odysseys unusually high age rating for a Mario game Odyssey is the first core Mario title to receive a be age rating by cero in Japan and in everyone ten plus rating by the ESRB in America all previous score Mario titles were rated a for all ages in Japan and E for Everyone in the States the ESRB zone note states quote during one boss encounter players can capture a cartoony tank and fire cannon balls at a mechanical boss this seems to point the blame at the Sherm's the game has many hidden secrets and unused ideas the original texture for Odysseys world map actually featured Isle Delfino from Mario Sunshine although the island was removed in the final game it seems the developers forgot to remove it from the Odyssey Globes roughness and normal texture maps as a result Isle Delfino can still be seen slightly at certain angles the game was also planned to have references to other Nintendo franchises Odysseys code refers to a Link hat and a Link suit costume set which are labeled as quote a hat from a far-off land and quote this outfit from another land comes complete with back accessories sadly non-removable the data additionally references a Santa costume a zombie costume and an 8-bit Mario hat many of the concepts for hats were originally drawn on goombahs which also showed the Santa hat among others speaking of costumes odyssey's super mario 64 costume doesn't actually use the same model as mario 64 the model is altered and contains roughly 200 more polygons this is mostly due to it being cut in half and mirror since the original Nintendo 64 model was slightly asymmetrical in its use of polygons there are a lot more polygons around the scene where the model was cut and mirrored Odyssey also contains a modified version of the small mario sprite from the original Super Mario Brothers the sprite went unused as Mario is never small in the final game but the effort put into it could imply that a small Mario was planned to be included at some point the game's internal project name is red star continuing a theme of Mario titles being named after red objects Super Mario 3d Land was codenamed red pepper Super Mario 3d World was red carpet and Super Mario run was Red Bull in the Japanese game and early builds of the English version the binding band was named the wedding ring this was likely changed in the Western release to avoid any religious connotation there's also an interesting tidbit surrounding how the game tracks the player's progress although the Odyssey will count to 999 power moons there are actually much more than this in the game Odyssey has 880 moons listed as missions the rest of which need to be purchased with coins at shops the game will actually track 99 moons from each shop in the game's power moon list and only the first moon purchased at each shop counts as a mission this means there is an additional 98 moons at each shop there are 13 shops in the game which multiplies the 1274 non mission moons adding 1270 forts at 880 brings the total to 2150 four moons which can be tracked in the game did you also know that breadth of the wilds Korek seeds are actually poop or that the game's monks are all named after development staff for more facts check out the digital gaming video on breath of the wild and if you want to watch something I made check out this video about Mario Galaxy it's about the like level design and how I feel about it and stuff it's a good time and I also stream sometimes on twitch.tv slash various streaming so goo bye you

Channel: DidYouKnowGaming?

Views: 1,367,196

Rating: 4.9312949 out of 5

Keywords: mario, super mario, super mario odyssey, mario odyssey, odyssey, super, nintendo, nintendo switch, switch, switch games, nintendo switch games, barry, barry kramer, how about this game, dykgaming, didyouknowgaming, did you know gaming, gaming, jump up super star, jump up superstar, super mario 3d world, super mario 64, super mario sunshine, mario 3d world, mario 64, mario sunshine

Id: kHmL2pv7gQA

Length: 11min 15sec (675 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 14 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/Leeemon]

Nintendo's train of thought of making the mechanics before applying the skin at full show here.

It's not always as big of a hit as in Odyssey though. We often see games like Paper Mario that don't quite fit with what they tried to do with it, mechanically, so there are cases where the skin and the mechanics don't quite match.

That said, I'm still all for experimentation. No matter how some see Nintendo as stale because they have been using the same franchises since the dawn of time, those games reinvented themselves so many times over the years.

[u/DrKushnstein]

I applaud the thought that went behind adding the super easy moons. But, shit. Those really destroyed the game for me, I was looking forward to another Mario 64-esque game and instead got bite sized chunks of what could have been. It was too simple, I wanted more depth.