Super Mario Odyssey - It's No Masterpiece

[Music] when I was five years old I played my first video game it was Mario Bros on the NES a game that's older than I am by two months knowing nothing about videogames I took it to be a cartoon that I could magically control that was enough to be enthralling and yet certain games kept pulling me back more than others Super Mario Brothers 3 Zelda 2 The Adventure of Link a little while later it would be startropics even children will be able to identify that some games are better than others they probably won't be able to tell you why they keep playing and replaying certain games but they'll still have favorites as I got older Nintendo games kept fulfilling that role for me Mario was usually among them for the Super Nintendo I played Super Mario World to death and Yoshi's Island is still one of my favorite games today I was lucky enough to get an n64 at release and spent more time than I can remember with mario 64 then much more with banjo kazooie later on but Mario won out for best platformer on that system eventually just because of how much more fun it was to move Mario around the Gamecube had a stumble with Mario Sunshine but I still got some good times out of it I view it more negatively now than I did when I first played it as a teenager but the next games more than made up for it Galaxy 1 and 2 are two of my favourite games I think galaxy 2 is better but I also appreciate how much galaxy 1 was used as a foundation for that game Super Mario 3d World didn't reach the same heights but it was still a much more enjoyable experience in mario sunshine so was 3d Land for that matter but I don't think it's fair to officially include it with the other games since it's on a handheld none of these games are flawless in fact most of them all share at least one problem that has been present since the jump from 2d to 3d in the series however the point I'm making is that while I not a fanboy for Mario or Nintendo I am a fan I've grown up with these games and systems from five years old to now I have had 27 years playing Mario games which is why it's such a letdown that Super Mario Odyssey has been so disappointing I have my theories for why that is but we'll get to them later for now even though the length of this video should already be enough this is your spoiler warning we're going through the whole game with this one so jump carefully if you're planning on playing it yourself [Music] the Super Mario series can easily be split into two groups 2d and 3d however there's a more interesting way of dividing them that can also allow them to be grouped with other games basically this means that I found a way to talk about Dark Souls again Dark Souls has a lot of options and decisions to make while you play but the majority of these are done outside of combat when you're already in a fight you should have already decided what weapon to use whether you're going with a shield or rolling whether you're using magic how you level up your stats and the list goes on and on the fighting itself on the players end is a mix of positioning knowing when it's safe to attack when to block or dodge and whether to use a light or strong attack with your weapon or what spells to use this is simplifying the combat in Dark Souls so we don't spend more than a few minutes speaking about it the fastest way to make this point is to jump over to neo and show the difference between the focus these games have neo is a lot like Dark Souls it has all of those build weapon and leveling decisions in fact it has more of them it even has magic and range weapons that can change fights significantly the key difference is that neo also achieves a lot of complexity after fighting has started there are multiple stances combo moves special attacks that require the correct button inputs a Gears of War style stamina regeneration minigame that is also incorporated in another way during combat the game also expects you to use block and dodges together it even has different types of dodges you can parry the direction of your attacks also matters and I could probably keep going for another couple of sentences again I'm simplifying some of this stuff but I think you get the point does this mean that neo is an outright better game than Dark Souls no because Dark Souls puts much more attention on things outside of the players move set and decisions in combat there's a lot more enemy variety things to learn and recognize on that side of the battle instead of on your end going through levels is also more involved there's more variety here as well and effort went into matching the enemies in each level with the atmosphere and tone that they were meant to convey this isn't to say that Neel never does this and I'm also not saying that Dark Souls combat isn't satisfying the games are very similar with this shift of focus from the player's actions in neo to something more simple so it could be more about the enemies and levels in Dark Souls is important to understand but what the hell does this have to do with Mario well that's because Mario is Dark Souls now [Music] no I'm kidding it's because the Mario games can be divided in this exact same way look at Mario Brothers on the NES you can run left-right and jump you can get a mushroom to grow larger and survive a hit there's a fire flower you can get for even more power and that's it really now let's look at Odyssey run in all directions jump double jump triple jump long jump duck roll throw hat jump on hat ground pound backflip somersault wall slide wall jump dive does this mean that Odyssey is an outright better game than the original Mario or does it mean that it's an unfair comparison because we're looking at a very old 2-d game next to a newly released 3d one more than 30 years later Super Mario World has a similar low level of options Yoshi's Island which came out on the same console a few years later is more like Odyssey Yoshi has way more moves on top of the simple run and jump and air hover the ability to turn enemies into eggs and then throw them with an aiming mechanic a ground pound and we can once again keep going for 3d marios we have to compare the newer ones to the older ones Mario's move set has more options in Mario 64 and sunshine when compared to galaxy in 3d world but those later games have much more involved level design you're being shot through obstacle courses of challenges that are building on things that are introduced earlier in the levels 64 and sunshine do have platforming challenges but most of the game is about the freedom you have exploring open worlds with a wider moveset Super Mario Odyssey was intended to be a successor to this type of 3d Mario Nintendo was very clear about that and it follows this trend of having open nonlinear levels with more moves on Mario to play with having played through Odyssey twice now I don't think Nintendo was entirely successful with their intentions Odyssey has more in common with galaxy and 3d world than I was expecting but for now let's continue speaking about how Mario controls my first run-through Odyssey was a great example of someone playing a game wrong or at least not in the best 'we having spent so much time with mario 64 as a kid i proceeded to play odyssey like it was more of that because that's why I was expecting after Nintendo announced that it was the successor in that line of games I tried to do a lot of backflips long jumps and wall jumps I also didn't play all that creatively with Mario's new hat moves to break the sequence on jumping challenges because I recently played 3d world for the first time that game more than any other 3d mario has you grounded so you go through levels close to what the designers intended there are some tricks you can use especially with the cat powerup but if you've played 3d world I think you know what I'm saying you're railroaded a lot when you go through all the levels in that game my second run of Odyssey was more about skipping over as much of it as I could in order to find the fun so as many hat jumps and dives as possible trying to stay in the air as long as I could and to get about as fast as I could this combined with going back and playing through all of the 3d marios again for this video made me realize that Odyssey has the best movement system out of all of these games originally I was going with galaxy at the top and now I know I was giving it more credit because of how gravity is used in that game although that's a big positive that's separate from Mario's controls in my opinion and is on the environment level side of that game 64 in Sunshine's still control well all these years later but there are important refinements in Odyssey that fix long-standing issues perhaps entirely solved by the game's camera which I've also come to think of as the best camera in any Mario game maybe in any 3d third-person game period I can only think of one time that had ever made it difficult to see what was happening and even then it wasn't close to some of the awkward shifting [ __ ] that can occur in 64 in sunshine I can't tell how much of this is the result of a ton of time adding scripted transitions to the camera all over the levels especially parts of Metrocity when you enter tight alleyways or if it's the result of allowing the camera to freely move through physical objects and a mix of transparency and dithering on Mario maybe it's just that Nintendo finally released themselves from the lakitu with a camera limitation either way with camera problems still playing some games today this might be the game's biggest achievement galaxy in 3d world also didn't have many camera problems but they cheat by having unusual or forced perspectives galaxy is built around small planetoids or shaped objects that have artificial and possible gravity the camera has much more freedom because of this and even if you do get away from it there aren't many pits to fall into for some harsh punishment when you can't see properly when there are the linearity of the game can allow for the same force perspective help that 3d world uses you can still change some of the angles there but not like you can in 64 sunshine and Odyssey going back to controls the only issues I have with Odyssey are the nerf blong jump wall jump and somersault the long jump feels like a lot lower of a boost to momentum than it was in 64 and galaxy and you'll get more out of rolling around like sonic instead or chaining jumps together likewise I don't understand why you can't long jump into a wall kick anymore like you could in 64 especially since it required precise timing to pull off I've been wondering if it was some sort of limitation with breaking the intended path through levels but the capi moves allow for far more than what a long jump into a wall kick could do so that can't be the answer unless it's some leftover design consideration that wasn't reverted after the cap made it so you could break through levels the wall jump has also been on the decline with each game becoming gradually useless compare how it looks in 64 and sunshine to the later games and now this pathetic version in Odyssey the reduced distance would be tolerable if it wasn't also a lot slower to execute as would the long jump I don't understand this change and they made parts of the game very frustrating I really never wanted to use the wall jump because of this the problem I have with the somersault is more of a nitpick than anything it was quicker to pull off in the other games than could be more reliably done from a resting position Odyssey must require more momentum or have other inputs that can trigger from what the somersault requires ultimately this may actually be a positive since Mario controls so smoothly and Odyssey that this change may be a result of tweaks to basic on the ground movement it still threw me off a bit though and I miss being able to do the somersault so easily the Cappy moves when combined with the ground pound and dive are where the game shines the most though 3d Mario games have always had good movement but that doesn't necessarily mean they have a lot of depth or complexity within those systems what I mean by that is that while it is fun to move Mario that doesn't always translate to a lot of options and decisions while doing so to return to our comparisons and examples from earlier 3d world and galaxy have the weakest movement in my opinion but have the best gameplay because of the ways the game builds its challenges and levels around it let's look at Mario Sunshine for a better example a favorite from many players are the levels where you lose your water jetpack and have to get through an obstacle course with just Mario despite Mario having by far the weakest moveset and lowest amount of options during these sequences the challenge and variety introduced by the progression on the platforming make it enjoyable for many people I view galaxy 1 & 2 as this concept stretched over most of an entire game in 64 these would be the bowser assault courses before the boss fights which were some of my favorite sections in 64 when I played it as a kid what I've noticed as a trend while replaying these games is an effort unintended part to make Mario interesting in some way while in the air 64 has a basic dive Sunshine has the hover mode on the jetpack Galaxy has a motion control spin that allows you to stop falling for a moment in a 3d world also have power-ups that add more options after you've jumped Odyssey has the best version of this idea Cappy feels far more natural to use in flood and is more smoothly incorporated into other moves especially when being fit into the theme of Mario being a character that jumps a lot there's a combo string of moves that you will learn while playing Odyssey that goes like this jump hat throw dive bounce off the Hat throw the hat again repeat dive and then land this can be used to gain more distance either vertically or horizontally it also has a very that can be used to climb walls that starts with a ground pound into a high jump then a hat throw dive and bounce then wall kicking and doing it again for more height there's also a bonus if you jump while catching your hat on the ground this is a higher jump and in the air it allows you to stop falling for an instant little things like this tend to go a long way for me enjoying a game and I really appreciate them something I feel strongly about here is how much better the Hat throw is then the flood hover and the galaxy twirl sunshine wrecks so much of its platforming challenges by having an autocorrect water jetpack cannon thing with a generous amount of time before running out you rarely have to aim any jump when you have flood which is almost always galaxies did this far better with a twirl that allows a quick correction if you're only a little bit off a platform or miss a jump this is sort of like the rewind mechanic in the sands of time something quick and easy to use if you misjudge a jump a little something that's easy to do in a 3d space compared to 2d Odysseys hat throw fulfills this function just as well as the galaxy twirl but doesn't require any motion control [ __ ] this is a huge improvement for me even if there are still some motion controls in Odyssey and other parts of it some hat throws can only be triggered with motion controls but they're thankfully not required much I do wish that Nintendo would give the guy who keeps pushing them his own containment series or something because seriously [ __ ] everything about them especially if you try to play this game in handheld mode it just doesn't work unless you undock the Joye cons which is just really awkward I don't understand how that's acceptable aside from that though you're probably thinking that this all sounds great Mario games are known for their movement if Odyssey has the best system and the best camera surely it must be amazing so why did I say I was so disappointed at the beginning because of the other half of the comparisons that we keep going back to Odyssey does have fantastic movement but it doesn't do anything with it it would be like having Chris Pratt as your online boyfriend it would be great and you could rightfully brag but you're not really getting the most out of that relationship aren't you you're not really getting what you want there's also the problem that while the Hat throw combo is fun to pull off it's a one-trick pony there's nothing else you can do with it that sequence of events jump throw dive bounce throw is what you'll be doing again and again whether you do the full combo or only need part of it every jump that isn't a normal jump in Odyssey will be right there for a game that only uses three buttons on the gamepad only two of them face buttons that's a missed opportunity for some more options even Super Mario World has a second type of jump with its own dedicated button for me this is Odysseys fatal problem that made most of my time with it a huge chore even when I was going out of my way to try to break out of sequence and be creative with getting around trying really hard to find the fun there's very little that's interesting to do an immense amount of filler and recycled content and a lack of worthwhile things to see aside from this improvement on movement the game falls short and is worse than every other 3d Mario out there except for maybe sunshine the game it has the most in common with so I foresee that there will be some strong reactions to what I just said and I'd like to go through some of them to support my points the first is that some of you might think that asking for both is too much the previous Mario games we went through have all been split right the games that have the simpler movesets go for challenges and levels instead the games with wider movesets have simpler levels there's a balance that each is striking well Yoshi's Island has both this is the best Mario game for me and it's probably for this exact reason Yoshi's Island has so many options while moving jumping hovering eating and throwing it even has options within those options and matches this with constant and continual exploration of new levels themes obstacles enemies and even power-ups the way that cat possession and Odyssey changes your entire move set Yoshi's Island did that first even down to the weird shift into tank like vehicles it wasn't all that successful with the idea but then neither was Odyssey in my opinion this is why the galaxy games are my favorite in the 3d marios because while the moveset is on the simpler side it's not insulting lilo but it's important to acknowledge that this criticism I'm laying on Odyssey isn't unique just to that game all of the 3d marios could have benefitted from either expanded movement options or more interesting levels or both I also realized that I haven't gone into great detail yet on how exactly Odyssey is lacking in this department most of the video will be spent addressing that primarily on the power moon objective side of things but right now there's another way that the game fails to be interesting that's also linked to a counter-argument that I think many people will have that the game isn't meant to have involved platforming challenges because it's more about exploration and discovery like 64 and sunshine well first of all 64 in sunshine did have a decent amount of platforming it's also important to understand that 64 was the first jump the series took from 2d to 3d audiences weren't used to that yet and judging from the story state of the camera in that game having complicated platforming wouldn't have been a good thing think of how much of the precision jumping in 64 is on large platforms with the challenge being linked to how they're moving or being covered in lava instead of sticking tight landings on smaller platforms like in the 2d games sunshine also builds platforming challenges in its open levels and is rarely about exploration either because you're kicked out of the level after achieving each goal a new set of obstacles could be loaded in when you go in for the next star levels could and were altered to become wide open platforming tasks instead of staying mostly the same like they do in Odyssey but even if we ignore all that or assume that I'm wrong Odyssey has boring world designs and unsatisfying exploration it actually blows my mind that the names of each Kingdom and Odyssey where how plain they are on their sleeves there are 17 kingdoms in Odyssey and look at them the sand kingdom snow lake seaside cloud wooded the most interesting names are Metro moon ruined luncheon and Bowser's the last one because Bowser's Kingdom could pretty much be anything with a name like that but most of these have themes that we've seen many times before and in the few cases that we haven't are really mundane the three that interested me the most were the cap Kingdom ruined Kingdom and luncheon Kingdom the first two were barely developed to the point that ruin Kingdom feels like cut content and luncheon being my favorite world but it's the best of a bad lot there are many things that I don't fully understand here or that I don't fully agree with or comprehend first up is that mario64 was the first attempt at a 3d Mario and yet it has far more creative world design than Odyssey I'll go further with this and say if they couldn't think of anything new and just decided to rehash desert for seaside snow and water themes why didn't they remake the most interesting ideas from 64 instead have another wet-dry world with the really compelling idea of a water level being linked to the paintings entrance and changing what parts of it you can access have another clock level with an expanded scope on new hardware rainbow riot is something else that could have been really cool on a larger scale and speaking of larger scales why not do the big small world idea a second time that was really cool in 64 and I know this all might not sound great because it's reusing ideas but the game did that already and went with the most boring bland worlds instead of the interesting ones secondly for a game that's supposedly all about exploration a lot of these levels don't have you doing any of that I mentioned that Rouen Kingdom feels like cut content if you haven't played it this world only has a handful of power moons to collect this is mainly a boss arena that for some bizarre reason becomes a world you can visit and revisit even though what you're seeing on the screen right now is the entire world same for the cloud Kingdom you fight Bowser here and you're allowed to come back for a pittance of moons compared to the other levels Samee this is blatantly patting out the world list so the game looks larger than it really is but maybe I'm just being too cynical of the remaining kingdoms the three moon worlds all of which look visually similar have very little exploration the first one has the most but it's quite bear compared to the other worlds which immediately makes sense because it's on the moon but still it's the moon maybe you could have done something more creative with it dark side and darker side are hubs for challenge rooms and boss fights they have nothing else and nothing to explore even saying their names is boring Bowser's Kingdom is a series of chunks connected by an electrical wire that Mario can ride meaning that this is exactly like a level 4 Mario Galaxy with a bunch of extra moon slash stars to hunt down in every nook and cranny it doesn't even fit with this wide-open exploration theme at all the remaining 11 worlds all function like the castle for mario 64 there are hubs that you explore and look for doors and pipes and entrances to separate challenge areas just like the paintings and entrances to the slide room and red coin swimming chamber n64 but even here there's a wild amount of variance in quality quantity and opportunity for exploration cap Kingdom cascade Kingdom smoking them Lost Kingdom and lake Kingdom are all tiny their names are bigger than they are while they're all a decent size when you include interior sections like the challenge rooms they're not much bigger than some of the worlds in 64 when you're wandering around outside of them despite this they still have dozens of moons crammed all over the place it's stunning to me that a game that's meant to be about exploration has worlds that are this small the final six feel like the only proper kingdoms in the game mushroom sand wooded Metro seaside and luncheon there is some exploration to do in these worlds but aside from the Mushroom Kingdom you are first sent through a linear set of objectives just like a galaxy level in order to unlock the full freedom to collect everything in the level this is something I haven't seen many people acknowledge probably because most people simply follow that linear path before they properly hunt through each level a lot of criticism has been laid against the previous 3d marios for kicking you out of worlds after you collect the star and it's probably well deserved criticism I think while Odyssey does not do this the levels still do go through stages and reset and expect you to watch video sequences showing your next objective you can't progress to some areas without doing earlier moons first and in most cases entire worlds will go through two or three checkpoint moments before most of the moons and challenges spawn it at all these checkpoint moments send you back to the beginning and make you go through some loading just like you were spat out of the painting luncheon Kingdom shows this best with you having to journey your way all the way to the bowl of stew on top of the volcano get blown off by the boss and then go all the way back there again through an alternative method wooded Kingdom and sand Kingdom do this exact thing - with kicking you back to the start after doing this two times only then will all of the first stage moons and challenges fully unlock then after beating the game just the same as every world you have to come back to break open a moon cube to get the final set of moons and challenge rooms to spawn in this way you are actually punished for any exploration you do before beating the game the first time to be clear this isn't a case of some moons or doors being phased out so you can see them but not interact with them yet this is stuff simply not existing until you've reached a trigger point in the game so if you explore an entire level when you first arrive you'll have to explore the whole thing all over again to see what new things appeared after you finish the story moment the world itself doesn't change is that this scarecrow mannequin challenge thing wasn't on this platform before or that this moon floating here wasn't around yet it's the same level just do it again and then again after smashing the moon cube but even accepting that you're still always hunting for the same things moons and purple coins and entrances to challenge rooms at which point the game becomes nothing about exploration and turns into 3d world with challenge levels instead the trend I kept noticing while playing to the point that it began to really great on my nerves was how much the exploration involved looking over edges of platforms to see hidden ledges or coins hanging just out of sight I don't know who enjoys doing this sort of thing over and over and over again but it's certainly not me even in these six larger worlds exploration always felt constrained by the edges of the map and that there was hardly anything to find that felt worth the effort especially after playing quite possibly the best exploration based gameplay ever earlier in the year with breadth of the wild it's a shame that Odyssey hints at some cool stuff early on when you use the possession of a tier X in cascade Kingdom to reveal a hidden path on a cliff face you're causing some significant change in the level that feels unscripted and immediate this never really happens again the changes are tied to linear story progression instead and none of them were as cool as this one was having brought up the possessions now it's best to dive right into how they work they're not the weakest part of Odyssey but they're not the strongest either I think some people don't realize that possessions are simply a different version of power-ups that are being present in the series since the beginning from the fire flower to the Tanooki suit the winged cap water nozzles bee suit cannon block and now possessions the method you acquire them is different but the idea is still the same even if that wasn't the case or you view them as different we already went back to see how Yoshi's Island did it before so did banjo kazooie with the mumbo-jumbo transformations there was also an entire game built out of concept of body possessions called Space Station's Silicon Valley that released on the n64 the major difference that I think most people hone in on is that power-ups and Odyssey are a replacement instead of an enhancement this is what makes them visually interesting but also prevents them from being a mechanic that I can fully enjoy let's rewind and go through that list again from the beginning power-ups in Mario have typically been an addition gained on top of Mario standard moveset this can be a new move or a buff the fire flower allows you to shoot fireballs the power star grants you invincibility nothing else has changed you can still run and jump and move like always the feather in Super Mario World is just like this it grants you the ability to fly glide twirl attack and also control your rate of fall by releasing the jump button it's a great powerup that purely increases your options nothing is taken away from you the caps in Mario 64 are the same enhancements not replacements its sunshine where things first change with the nozzle upgrades these give you a new function at the cost of losing another nozzle not only does this make them feel more narrow and restricted in use and it makes them a hassle to find switch to and then switch back when you're done you can also never mix their abilities together I don't think I really need to go through any others but I'd still like to point out two more spring Mario and Galaxy being on the replacement side I think you can even imagine Cappy possessing a spring monster with his eyes sitting on top and you can see it's the same thing there it's just a possession and the double cherries in 3d world being an enhancement it's one of my favorite power-ups in the series because of how much it changes things without a single addition to the move set it's also an example of something that couldn't work in an open-world 3d world had to be this 3d version of Super Mario Brothers 3 for this powerup to be possible almost all of the power-ups in Odyssey are replacements on one hand this can be seen as a strength because it adds some variety you're not always Mario sometimes you're a bullet bill or a tank or a bird or a stretchy onion plant thing the dream of every child the positives here are that the transitions from Mario to whatever Victor you're possessing are as quick as acquiring any power up in the series everything controls well and never felt awkward likely because each of the possible possessions are very simple that's the problem though the moveset and abilities that replace mario are never close to interesting or varied you're a tank that can shoot you're a fireball that can swim in lava you're a Goomba that can jump this comes back to the idea of player options versus the environments and challenges you're put through this issue of low complexity isn't strictly the fault of the possessions themselves but rather that Nintendo never did anything worthwhile with them even the boss fights that use the possessions are boring until the rematch is later even then some of them aren't that engaging there's a final gauntlet of challenges in the game after you acquire 500 moons these incorporate many of the enemies you can possess in the game and even here at the end the concept isn't taken very far this should have been about where the game hit in the middle and built even further not the ultimate challenge of Odyssey power-ups could have been enhancements instead of replacements to alleviate the issue but I think the cat possession was a concept worth exploring the solutions are obvious to me which means they must be even more obvious to Nintendo so what am I about to go through is in a sense a waste of time when it comes to providing critical feedback but it is worthwhile to build to a point that I mentioned earlier about why the game was so disappointing for me a longtime fan of the series outside of more developed challenges the two solutions are to either use more buttons on the gamepad so that each possession has more abilities to learn and master or to make it so that each possession functions like a saved powerup in Super Mario World you know when you already have a power of active and a second one is stored in the blue box at the top of the screen capi could store a possession when you're in Mario form so you can switch quickly between the two for a series of challenges that incorporate both movesets for a boss this might require switching back to Mario to do some running and jumping over obstacles before switching back to the possessed enemy for a specific move for platforming this could be required for mid-air switches to do some hat bounce his mario and then switch back to the bird to back into a wall at the end or jumping as a fireball for some height switching to mario for a jump then switching back to the fireball to land safely in some lava that would have killed mario otherwise remember that there are at least four buttons that aren't used on the controller for this game that doesn't include pressing down the analog sticks or combining any of them like the ground pound dive either adding moves isn't the only way to increase complexity to a game as we just saw with Stephen sausage roll but it is one of the easier ways that Mario Odyssey could have done it this is all obvious which means that there are likely other more difficult and better options that can make possessions more enjoyable and interesting that Nintendo likely dismissed that I can't think of and the reason they would do that is I think because I'm not the target audience for this game most likely neither are you Super Mario Odyssey was made to harvest two new fans on its new hit system with gameplay that's as accessible as possible with Rewards teaming around every corner to create a constant positive feedback loop with levels that are understandable and a bit creative with its inhabitants but never too wacky or unique to be off-putting or confusing to newcomers with its setting with a cool toy figure like ship and a fun Cappy sidekick along for the ride a visual spectacle is never far away there's not even a challenge in the end game more than any other Mario game Super Mario Odyssey was made for children children that have never played a mario game children with the brand new system that selling so surprisingly well children that will become new fans forever viewed like this the title of this video is false Super Mario Odyssey is a masterpiece if you're looking at it from developer intentions if I'm right the problem for me is that I feel like hardly anyone else sees this I'm not alone I've seen more people pointing out Odysseys flaws than I did for breath of the wild but I definitely feel like I'm in the minority reviewers haven't been qualifying their scores with hey this is a 10 out of 10 because it's such a great kids game and that was the point they've been about how they enjoyed it so much that they literally applauded as the credits rolled and how it was a glorious return to their childhood and the best in the series and that Mario has never been better and that they were enjoying it as adults not adults judging it as a game for children to be clear games and movies for children can be great for adults they can be enjoyed as wholesome entertainment or they might have some subtle jokes for an older audience games can also include options for more complex play or optional content at the end for the audience that's been with them for longer most Mario games have done this in the past Odyssey does not its post-credits content is more of the same and barely a step up from what came before in fact I'd argue that it's less optional than ever and if you don't complete it you're not getting the same amount of value out of Odyssey that you did from the previous 3d games you're only getting half a game when compared to the other titles there are many ways I can support this conclusion about the game for instance how Kathy will continue to read tutorial messages about moves you should have already been using for hours and hours as you move from one world to the next but the strongest way is to go through how you spend the vast majority of your time without a/c collecting filler power moons that should be boring to most players that have played any Mario game before now or maybe any game at all there are 880 moons in Super Mario Odyssey which can be further boosted to 999 if you want to collect coins to buy moons above the limit those are separate from the listed canon moons that you'll also be buying throughout the game if you'll forgive the indulgence here I think it's important that I lay a foundation for people who haven't played Odyssey yet to show them what getting these moons looks like at the beginning of the game so they understand how bad most of these moons are later on Mushroom Kingdom is the first world in Odyssey it's right there on the leftmost side of the kingdom list at the beginning and it makes sense that Mario would start out in a relaxing version of peaches home before getting abducted it also serves as some heavy-hitting nostalgia for those who have played mario 64 since it is the first level it's understandable that most of the moons here are simple and straightforward that being said even here at the start I think you'll agree that they could have stepped things up a bit here are some examples you get moons for finding some seeds and carrying them back to a pot for them to grow into a moon there's no special obstacle or enemy that tries to stop you it's simply find the seed plant come back later for the moon around here there's also a rabbit that's bouncing around for you to catch for a moon you can climb to the roof of the castle for a moon that's waiting at the top of a flagpole likewise there's a moon for throwing your hat on the shiny part of a tree here and another for jumping on top of the shop and speaking to captain toad know of the requirement you just talk to him there's a timing challenge involving riding a scooter to get a moon before Dee spawns this is also the only area in this kingdom that has enemies in it a group of goombahs you can possess these goombas for two different moons first by scaring a toad away from where he's guarding a moon which you figure out by simply speaking to him and another by stacking goombas to reach a lady Goomba after draining the castles mow pretty simple this area also has you eating a lot of apples as Yoshi for three different moons which is really repetitive but again it's the starting area just like those four moons you got from planting seeds it's early on so it's forgivable same for the moon that you get by leading around a dog to areas where he'll dig eventually you'll find the right spot that will spawn a moon instead of coins it's tedious but a cute way to get people to adjust to the controls of this early on in the game just like this moon you get from trying out the Cappy hat throwing move on this flower field there are two moons from doing the same race twice with some friendly koopa troopas there are many of these races in the game and I think this is the shortest easiest one since it's the first level you run from here up to the castle entrance and that's it the way the game introduces the 2d transitions is also at the same level of accessibility you follow a straight path while collecting musical notes for your moon there's a moon for collecting 100 coins to buy at the same store that we saw earlier there's also a moon for purple coins that unlocks a mario64 outfit for you to wear this grants you access to a room guarded by another toad who says he wants to see the outfit when you speak to him inside is a memorization test for the order these chests spawn and another moon for throwing a hat onto something this time it's the star in the middle of this room where the Haunted Mansion entrance was in Mario 64 and don't worry we're almost done now there's a moon for finding six sheep in the level and herding them back to the pen with hat throws and running at them it would be ridiculously tedious anywhere else but again we're at the start of the game so this is just practice with the controls same for the music toad that teaches you how to play different music tracks by requesting a specific one from you you get a constellation moon for doing this tutorial I guess inside the castle itself you get a moon for noticing that a tile is sticking up from the floor and ground-pounding it down this knocks another one up I think you do a series of ten or so tiles in a row here for a moon which is probably teaching you the ground pound or something or to look out for things that notice them there's also another nostalgia moon here for looking up at the light like you did in 64 for the winged cap challenge unfortunately Odyssey just gives you a moon for this instead of leading to something to do looking at a light and Odyssey is on the same level as this shrine and 64 for some reason I don't get that one finally there are some challenge rooms around the kingdom one is a picture match mini game which is charming and fun but not really anything to do with Mario platforming it's one of many many minigames in Odyssey another shrine has you eating more fruit as Yoshi so I think that's five moons here that you get from eating fruit there are a handful more of these challenge rooms but for now let's move forward from this and show you one of the final levels in the game and make a comparison from how simple the game starts to how complex it is by the end which means that it's finally time for me to drop the act and get to the punchline Mushroom Kingdom isn't the first level in Mario Odyssey it's actually the second to last one you get some Mushroom Kingdom after B the first part of the game and saving peach which means you have to do cap Kingdom Cascade Kingdom sand Kingdom wooded lake cloud lost yes I am saying them all to emphasize the point Metro snow seaside luncheon ruined Bowser's and Moon Kingdom you have to collect over 120 moons along the way to progress more than the entirety of stars in Mario 64 all those and the final fight with Bowser before you get to do Mushroom Kingdom with all of those simple beginner tier moons that I just went through also I'm sorry if that was tedious to go through for anyone who's already played the game but I figure if you have then your use of TDM already and shouldn't be too bothered by it now before anyone accuses me of cherry-picking I want to point out that there are seven other challenges I didn't go through in the Mushroom Kingdom that you can do on your first visit there these are tougher moons to get however six of them are rematches against bosses you already fought on your way here this isn't new content it's tweaked recycled content that's been made slightly more difficult raise the level it should have been the first time through in my opinion the other challenge is a really good 2d section that has a moving background that you need to stay in or else she'll be ejected back into 3d and fail the level it's a cool idea that could have also been used for possessions some sort of feel that banishes Kathy from possessing an enemy so you have to play around it this is in my judgment the only good area in the entirety of the Mushroom Kingdom that is also new content for this world I also like the memory minigame but as I said that has nothing to do with Mario's moveset it could function just as well as a browser game or slide content in any game really every Kingdom in Super Mario Odyssey is like the Mushroom Kingdom an overwhelming amount of shitty filler moons and only a rare few that are worth your time now obviously I can't go through all of them in a video like this is what I would usually say right about now but no we're doing all of them for this video so buckle up and hold on to your juice box first up that tutorial I mentioned with playing music for toad you do that 5 times and 5 separate kingdoms that riveting task of leading the dog around to dig in different spawn until you finally randomly stumble onto one that has the moon buried underneath it you do that five different times - these are the least offensive ones by the way we're starting slow and ramping up here the trend you're going to see is that next to nothing in Odyssey has ever done once nothing is pure every idea enemy embosses copy and pasted and copy and paste it again usually with no changes so you're always encountering the same version of the same task instead of it being built on in any way it's just the background that looks different remember the seeds we found and carried all the way back to the pots to plant them you might not fully grasp how much time that takes and how boring it is to carry them across the entire world to plant them do you want to guess how many times Odyssey asks you to do that across the whole game how about we channel our inner jigsaw and play a game pause the video scroll down to the comment section and type out this is my guess for how many plants a seed moons there are in Odyssey I'll give you a hint it's more than five okay all done all good unpause the answer is 18 there are 18 of these seeds to find throughout all the kingdoms with no challenge other than to Waddle your way back to the pots while carrying them in luncheon Kingdom they're golden turnips instead that you need to throw into a cooking pot and then wait for the moon to spawn and fly out before you can go and pick it up and watch the goddamn moon jingle which brings us to all the prep work that went into this video see this is actually my second video on SuperMario Odyssey the other one is on my second channel and is all of the you gotta Moon animations strung together to see how much time it takes the answer to that is 72 minutes if you get all 880 moons you might think that making that was a waste of time and you're half right I was collating all the moons in Adobe Premiere anyway and decided to make the video while doing that the other criticism people might have is that other games especially other Mario games have a lot of wasted time when achieving things - Mario 64 and sunshine keke levels so did the galaxy games there are the flagpole celebrations in the 3d world there's a running trend of this stuff in this series well first off aside from Mario Sunshine those games only do that at the end of a structured piece of content you have a goal you're working your way there you succeed here's your celebration enjoy your star or moon or shine sprite or whatever it is in Odyssey these interruptions happen constantly since you're given moons for just about everything later on you're even given moons forgetting moons yes you heard that correctly these moons that are all over the place take you out of the flow of gameplay 3d world had them too and did not stop the game for a celebration jingle when you picked them up it only did that at the flagpole at the end of every level you are free to keep moving and not lose whatever flow of movement or momentum you were currently in another way of looking at this is that the celebrations you get in Odyssey for beating bosses or for reaching the end of a challenge room never bothered me it was the hundreds and hundreds of filler moon celebrations that bogged everything down there's one part way through a challenge room that interrupts gameplay so severely that it has to remove your speed boost flower power up and make you pick up another one after it's over in order to continue the level the majority of the prep work for this video is cataloging every moon in the game to find out exactly how many of them are a waste of time and or repeated content as you can see from these categories there's a ton of repetition depressingly enough only six moons out of 880 ended up being put under a miscellaneous jumping group these were for jumping gauntlets or killing enemies in the world that weren't tied to another type of challenge there were only six in the whole game everything else fit under these categories and labels the most common counter-argument that I've seen in defensive Odysseys filler moons is that you don't have to do them all just like you don't have to do all of the cork seeds and breath of the wild there are 880 and you get to pick and choose which ones this argument is mostly correct just like I said in my breath of the wild video there are so many croc seeds in the game to cast a wide net so that exploration we consistently rewarded for observing players its side content that you're meant to do only a portion of there are a few key differences between Odyssey and breadth of the wild though first of all it was funny to realize how much the two games resemble each other shrine x' and croc seeds are big parts of zelda shrines or doors you find in the world that lead to a separate instanced area with a challenge and a reward in it croc seeds are strewn all over the map and found often if you're hunting for them Odyssey has challenge rooms that are doors pipes and rockets that you find in the worlds that lead to a separate instance area with a challenge and a reward in it filler moons are strewn all over the map and found often if you're hunting for them [Music] the challenge rooms also have the same problem of a lack of complexity when it comes to exploring their ideas but we'll get to that later on however despite these similarities it's easy to see that breadth of the wild has a lot more going on it has a lot more involved combat loot and equipment crafting and cooking a much larger play area in its overworld a climbing and gliding mechanic special powers that are to me way more interesting and it spends a lot of time on its story.if core exceeds our side content this is what they're placed to the side of Mario Odyssey has none of these things finding moons is the main objective and most of them are on the same level as these core exceeds and breadth of the wild if anything is side content it's the purple coins placed in each Kingdom that really could function just the same as any other moon hiding spot if Nintendo had decided to switch places with them there are tons of moons sitting out in the open just like these coins are way more than you might think now you could argue that the moons are just there as a carrot dangled to have the player perform acrobatic feats with Mario's controls just like the objectives and breath of the wild are there to push you toward fighting and exploring with link but that's a poor way of excusing that this is all there is to do in Odyssey all side quests are for moons all main quests are for moons all exploration leads to moons all shrines lead to moons everything leads to moons most of which barely required in depth usage of Mario's movement just imagine if everything in breath of the wild led to a core exceed still it wouldn't be fair to say that you have to collect all 880 of these moons just like I'd say finding 70 to 100 stars in Mario 64 is enough to be done and finding the same amount of shrines and breath of the wild is enough to be done for Odyssey I think this number sits at 500 moons it's a lot higher because the maximum is also a lot higher relatively however it's about the same as these other examples plus it makes a lot of sense when you see the ending after acquiring 500 moons it brings the game back around to where Mario and Cappy started with them possessing another frog the first thing they ever possessed at the beginning and reflecting on the long journey that they've taken together there are still 380 moons to find after this but this is enough to be considered done I still went and got all 880 but that's my own decision and I won't hold it against the game I mostly did it for research anyway to determine whether there are even enough worthwhile moons to get to 500 turns out it's nowhere close and you're constantly going to dip into these filler core exceed moons that's the other counter-argument I see brought out a lot if you don't like the filler moons just don't do them there are a few problems with this argument even if it may sound reasonable at first for starters let's make it absolutely clear that there aren't even 500 good moons in Odyssey even if you could magically only do those ones if you combine every moon you get from fighting bosses doing challenge rooms and every minigame you would still be more than 200 short from this 500 moon goal and that's being overly generous because not all of those moons are worth your time many of them are the same content used again and again and our core exceeds here instead of actually good worthwhile moons [Music] secondly there's no way to know ahead of time whether something is worth your time or something you should avoid until you go and do it not every door leads to a challenge room some just lead to a chest sitting there that you open and get a filler moon you can't tell how good a mannequin timer challenge is going to be until you throw your hat on it and find out most of them are bad but you can't know until you try and what you're trying you're already there and you should probably finish same goes for speaking to NPCs four moons will they have tasks or will they just give you a moon if they do have a request will it be interesting or not while it would be very helpful if Nintendo put all the bad moons on a list and read for us to avoid I think that would do more harm than good for the game's image and they wouldn't be willing to do it all so think about what that argument is really saying you could have had fun with Odyssey if you avoided 80% of its content and only did the good stuff it's ridiculous lastly there are also moons that are so easy to get that you would be wasting more time if you didn't pick them up remember on your first time through you have no idea how long the game will be or how many moons you'll need by the end the game has made it very clear that they're important they're the reward for everything after all so why not grab that moon you see sitting on a pile of salt or hanging on top of that archway or in this hole or hovering on this cliff or stuck to this wall or floating on top of this rotating platform these are some of the strangest moons in the game they're just sitting there no challenge no task just a moon floating waiting for you to get it should we play the guessing game again pause the video and scroll down to type out your guess I think there are X many moons and Odyssey that are sitting in the world of waiting for you to pick them up your hints this time is that it's more than 50 all done here we go a hundred and two almost as many stars in the entire game of Mario 64 almost one eighth of all of the moons in Odyssey they're just floating there waiting for you to pick them up but the worst ones of all are the NPC moons these are the same category that hold the play a song for Toad moons those ones actually require more effort than most in this category do you know how in mario 3d world captain toad has his own set of unique levels with perspective based challenges and no jump button to offer some variety and gameplay well in Odyssey captain toad is just an NPC he finds somewhere in the level who gives you a moon for free just for speaking to him he was never hard to find either since the game is all about wandering around looking for stuff you just stumble across in here's your free moon other NPC moons include a quest line that starts with a taxi in the sand Kingdom these two guys are visiting most of the other worlds in a certain order that you follow by speaking to them in each Kingdom they're usually right next to the Odyssey ship after you arrive talk to them and get a moon and that's it after beating the game Princess Peach can be found in every Kingdom for a free moon she is also never in a difficult place to find talk to her and get another free moon 115 moons are acquired via this method just talking to NPCs unfortunately we have to linger on these ones for a bit because some of the worst moons in the game are in this category for some mists potential we have the research ghost that wants you to bring a possessed enemy for inspection these could have shaken things up by making it difficult to reach the goal wall in possessed form but instead it's just a simple matter of finding the enemy and waddling over with no obstacles whatsoever it's more seed and pot planting tear [ __ ] think of how this issue was already addressed and solved in earlier Mario games and I mean early Mario 2 & 3 on the NES when you steal a key in Mario 2 and those floating mask things begin to chase you or the evil Sun appearing in the desert level to harass you while you try to get forward there's none of this in Odyssey 2 of the first games in the series did this better these NPC moons are also inexplicably tied to the main questline in Metro kingdom when Pauline asks you to find some musicians four of them only one of these could possibly be considered hidden and even that's being generous since you'll be exploring the tops of the buildings anyway this world has more of a focus on scaling vertically than the other for some insane reason each of these triggers the fancier version of the gada moon animation and teleports you inside one of the buildings just like getting kicked out of a painting in 64 nothing changes in the city however so I truly do not understand the intent here aside from padding or a Nintendo thought it was really important that you hear how the song they're playing changes when each new performer is found there was also Pauline's trial and error questionnaire that you do later that's arguably even worse than this lastly and by every means least we have the toadette achievement tracker in the Mushroom Kingdom this is where you get a moon for getting moons XI Awards moons for beating the game jumping so many times throwing the Hat so many times catching rabbits collecting coins and I think you get the idea these are things you are doing anyway they are bonus moons on top of every other moon you're collecting the issue is that toadette gives these out one at a time you need to speak to her for each one you go through the dialogue prompt then watch the animation then do it again for 60 moons doing just this all by itself took more than eight minutes to go through and I had queued them all up already and had the achievements when I came in so this was the most efficient way of doing this because I never had to leave and then go back when I earned another achievement the solution here is to have them be granted automatically with an achievement jingle or just not have them award moons at all since with these out of the game Odyssey would still have 820 moons to get something tells me that having that number as close as possible to a thousand was important though it sure does sound like a huge chunk of content doesn't it [Music] unfortunately toadette is not the worst example on this long list of npc moons there's one just one that's far far worse [Music] bench friends there's a problem that infests and rots endgame when there's a lot of copy and pasted content especially in something close to a collectathon like Odyssey in other 3d marios you're given a hints for what objective you're currently on and Odyssey you only get that for the main quest in each Kingdom the rest of the moons are blank on these lists here they could be anything they could be anywhere there is a hint system but that's clearly a last-ditch effort a safety net if you're actually meant to run to this parrot and get a hint for every moon then the game is even more tedious and drawn-out than I thought so when you get a moon like bench friends your heart should sink so low that your thongs should get heavy bench friends implies that there are other moons like bench friends this moon is a reward for sitting down next to a guy and waiting for a moment if you see another guy on another bench you should do it again just in case they have moons too now you may think this is a nitpick how many moons could there possibly be from sitting on benches in Odyssey it turns out there's only this one although that feels like cut content since there are similar benches with this guy on other levels but this concept is actually used and stretched out with other moons expecting there to be five bench friends moons or even a bench family isn't unreasonable for instance there's a moon called Hatton seek which has you looking at the hats on every NPC in every Kingdom to see if they have eyes these are Cappy ghosts in disguise if you're not using hints this means you have to inspect every single NPC to find them if you are using hints all that means is you've narrowed it down to this specific Kingdom you still need to look at every NPC with a hat which is pretty much every NPC in a world since that's the theme of the game NPCs without hats is an indicator that you can control them after all with your own hat being swung on their head there are six of these hat & Seek moons in Odyssey six of these hats to find in a whole sea of other hats before you're done with this kind of content at some point you'll find a moon in a rock you'll kick a rock sitting in the ground it'll glow break open hey it's a moon so now you better break open every single Rock you find because there might be a moon inside they don't glow until you start kicking them either there are five moons hidden in rocks like this in the game one in ruined Kingdom requires you to kick it 50 times in order to break it or you can throw it from as high as possible off the Dragons head three times something that isn't clear at all since you have no way of knowing if this extra height is causing more damage with each throw you have to take a throw of faith three times in a row this moon is insane and sadly somehow isn't the worst one in the game at this point some of you might be thinking that this is also nitpicky that's only five moons please understand that there are far far far more than five rocks in Odyssey these are only the rocks that end up having moons in them something you can't tell until you try kicking them since it's the same task no matter if there's a moon or not you will be doing the same thing dozens of times even then though you might still think it's a small amount of moons the issue is made much larger when these are put alongside other objectives that are in the same tier as this for instance we caught that rabbit earlier in the Mushroom Kingdom there are twelve moons in Odyssey that are gotten like that twelve rabbits that are copy and pasted onto levels that reward a moon however there are more than twelve rabbits because some are decoys that only give you coins this copy and paste is also so lazily done there's no unique area that makes chasing them interesting there's no set obstacle that spawns once the chase begins to make a challenging they're just rabbits plop down to admins to a level [Music] even worse are the moons you get from hitting birds these are glowing as they fly around levels you see them you hit them you get a moon there are 11 of these in case you're not keeping count and why would you be if you add up all the filler moons we've seen so far leading the dogs around talking to NPCs planting seeds sitting out in the open kicking rocks catching rabbits and birds we're at 268 moons and we haven't even gotten to ground pound moons or the bad possession puzzles and filler challenge rooms yet the last type I want to point out for this problem of noticing something and then having to try it every time you see it again are the unlit torches once the game shows you that you can get moons from these then you're drawn toward wasting your time doing it for every unlit torches that you see just in the same way that breaking open these nuts all over the wooded Kingdom also gives you moons your reaction to this might be why are you complaining about this how many unlit torches could there possibly be to light in Odyssey 15 there are 15 of them if you want to get every moon you have to light 15 torches if anyone enjoyed doing this more than once please let me know and let me know how did you learn that smashing open crates can give you moons better smash open every crate did you learn that killing all the enemies in a room can give a moon better clear every room just in case did you learn that destroying chunks of rock wood possessed enemies can give you moons better destroy every chunk of rock did you learn that ground pounding glowing parts of the floor can give moons better do that for all of them as well there are 47 moons and Odyssey from ground pounding spots on the ground 47 but it's worse than that because not every spot that responds to a ground pound has a moon it's the same problem as the rocks and everything else that we've seen even the glowing ones don't always have moons some have coins even then some spots don't even glow at all you either have to feel for a rumble in your controller which means running over the whole map and paying attention to the vibration like a game of hot and cold or just guessing sometimes there's no Rumble and no visual pure gas work 47 moons throwing your hat is the same way some of these are flower patterns some spawn moons some don't some of these are glowing tops of objects that your hat spins on and spawns a moon sometimes they're not glowing sometimes they don't spawn moons better throw your hat on everything 21 moons from doing this stuff we're not even halfway done with the tedium of these moons we've barely scratched the surface on the recycled content either that puzzle we saw earlier with stacking Goomba so you can flirt with the lady Goomba there are 12 versions of that same thing in the game it got to the point that whenever I saw a bunch of goombahs I automatically started making a stack of them and then went hunting for whatever they were needed for some kingdoms even have you do the Pauline Goomba flirtation twice the sand kingdom being the worst of all since it has you possessive Goomba and then waddle over the entire length of the map with no challenges obstacles or special enemies getting in your way it's just walk from point A to point B a waste of time just like every other moon like this in the game many of the possession moons were like that this is where my grouping of moons becomes more subjective because I tried to separate as many of the challenge rooms from the others as I could so by my count there are 45 possession puzzles in the game whereas you may think there are more than that if you're counting shrines that have you using enemies to overcome challenges almost all of these moons are boring possess a Chain Chomp to smash some rocks use a bullet to smash open a stone block or a cage or another stone block use the shades on a statue to see invisible platforms that sort of thing some of the worst ones are in the sand Kingdom you take the jacksie all over the map doing boring [ __ ] like knock over a cactus or ride him into an empty statue spot for some dialogue and a moon reward something than tendo thought was so captivating that they have you do it twice in two separate parts of the desert most of these moons are rewards for doing very basic tasks with the special ability of whatever enemy you possess so as a tank you'll shoot some things as the accordian caterpillar you'll move between platforms and slip into holes that are too big for Mario as the water squid you'll fly to places Mario can't reach I wouldn't call any of this content bad but it's so uninspired not even the bosses that use these possessions show any creativity except for jumping on the vomit during the bird boss and using the wooden parts of the robot to climb to reach weak spots in the final bunny boss these are exceptions though sadly not the rule the most tedious of these are when the game expects you to possess something at one end of the level and March it to the beginning because if you thought the Goomba and the sand Kingdom was the only time odyssey will pull this [ __ ] you clearly haven't been paying attention there's no special path or obstacles during these journeys to break open some rocks with a tank or a hammer bro or get a fish into a bowl or park a scooter on a roof I was bored throughout all of these I can only think of three that I thought began to explore the potential behind these possessions but even then they're not that great this challenge was stabbing your bird beak on these moving panels for a hidden moon wasn't that bad working out how to launch this bomb creature into this breakable pillar was fun since it required a bit of thought with changing a nearby stair pillar and aiming after throwing the Hat or doing a high dive from the big bowl of stew into a smaller bowl which while awkward is held to aim on the way down was much more creative than most moons I'm worried this may be seen as more evidence against the game than for it since these aren't all that great looking back but these were the three that stuck out in my memory the most and I enjoyed the most of these possession puzzle type of things for each of these there are so many that are worse a whole series of puzzles involving sticking your beak into holes around Bowser's Kingdom that's all you do really then another duo for moving slow hopping statues into the right places possessing a flying lizard guide to landing clear obvious places with a quick fast travel point back up if you miss imagine if breadth of the wild had done this and had everything laying out in the open from gliding points no shrines just orbs you can glide down and pick up these sorts of things should have opened the paths to more challenges not be the entire challenge all in themselves a candidate for the worst moon in the entire game is also among these in a secret area called the deep woods in the wooded you have to find an invisible wallet monster possess it and then March it over to a flower sitting in a pond and shoot coins at it in order to grow it into a moon flower what's your clue for figuring this out these murky looking coins in the floor around it how many coins do you have to shoot to finish this 500 how long does it take almost 2 minutes firing coins into the plan the next set of moves I want to go through were made really clear to me after going through the previous games in the series especially Super Mario Sunshine and the galaxy games Odyssey doesn't have any 1up mushrooms which is funny considering the big song 1up girl was pushed so hard leading up to the game's release and has played a bunch in the game itself two green mushrooms have been replaced with more moons in Mario Odyssey or what would have been in blue coins in sunshine do you remember those and how much most people hated them how they were everywhere literally graffiti spoiling parts of levels that you needed to clean up sometimes they pooped out blue coins immediately other times they were timing challenges sometimes NPCs gave them to you or they were just hanging in the open to pick up they even interrupted gameplay by asking you to save just like filler moons and Odyssey galaxy 2 has challenge rooms it's also brimming with secret places you can reach for extra star bits or 1ups in Odyssey these would be moons going through galaxies again I did a mental count in my head of every time a challenge would have resulted in a moon if it had taken the Odyssey approach and there would have been way more in that game than in Odyssey those musical note challenges for 1ups in Odyssey those are moons mainline content there are fun thing to do on the side but when they make you pause and do a jingle and apparently also took up so much development time that there's barely any real content in the game after this and makes me hate them should we play our guessing game again for musical note moons let's drop it actually 26 there are 26 collect musical notes challenges in the game which are as big of a waste of time as you might expect and that's not including those inside challenge rooms for those timing challenges whether you lose your hat or flip a switch you're looking at 36 moons I can't think of a single one of these that was interesting sometimes they spawn tight jumping shapes and act as something like a tutorial but they remain at that level for the whole game at best they're the blue coin timing stuff from sunshine that's at best at worst they're a room with a single Koopa Troopa to jump on or stuff like this in the previous game some of these challenges would have just been for red coins that you need to total up to eight to get a moon instead it's giving you a moon right at the start you can see one in the first Bowser level in Mario 64 when you hit this switch and run back and get something in time before Dee spawns and you just get a red coin not a whole moon or star or whatever it would have been it's a shame that many of these moons couldn't have used the theme in a way to make them more acceptable it's right there really staring us all in the face quarter moons half moons three quarter moons challenges could have been weighed and given pieces of full moons that only trigger the animation after a certain amount it wouldn't slow anything down some challenges would be worth way more than others but instead jumping across these blocks and then back again is apparently worth the same as some of the longest shrines in the game and deserves just as much celebration just imagine for a moment if all the shrines and breath of the wild rewarded you with a single core ox eat at the end imagine that and you'll understand one of the biggest problems that Odyssey has there are moon pieces in the game already by the way some moons are gathered that way seven of them in total if we're looking outside of the challenge rooms which is weird because each of these pieces are on the same level as many moons or purple coins in the game some of them are even better hidden yet they're split apart here but not anywhere else it doesn't really make sense to me as for hidden things we should talk about the notice something moons that could also function as one-upped rooms in the previous games you can see an example of one here in galaxy to see that in Odyssey that would have been a moon with a four second animation tied to it there are 51 of these one moons in all of the kingdoms not counting those in shrines which we'll get to later the majority of these are what the tag sounds like just notice something you can see the first here in the 2d wall screen part in Cascade Kingdom likely the first secret moon that many will find see how the screen continues to the left there that's a moon that's worth a moon this early in the game it probably really is worth the moon but almost every 2d screen has this exact same moon over and over and over again these almost never lead to hidden challenges just hidden rewards the challenge is just noticing I've lumped the painting teleport's into this category as well since you have to see the painting and jump on in which some people might disagree with the others are more like this hidden chests or moons floating in places you won't see unless you're really hunting or notice that there's a path leading off the main trail I won't pretend that all of these are simple to find this one here in San Kingdom is easy to miss as is this extra moon on a wall on the way to this kingdoms final boss but most of these moons are noticing breakable blocks in the floor or noticing a hole you can swim through or a moon shining in a girder or through some bars there's one in Lost Kingdom that requires a ground pound to reveal a hidden slot with a moon in it I can see this being fun for some people but for me I wish that these hidden moons led to hidden challenges instead of being instant rewards and sorry to sound like a broken record with this point but the game is making me do it I think we can all agree that two sets of moons in this list are terrible the first are noticing hat knobs on a cactus a tree or a statue these don't open to reveal anything other than you guessed it a moon or this door barely hidden behind a waterfall or on this wall in luncheon Kingdom you go in and get a moon that's all there is there are also a clump of moons that many of you might not know about even if you played the game you know those binoculars you can possess and fly into the sky to look around did you know that there are moons to get with those how many you asked six of them you look around until you find a taxi floating in the sky or the puzzle Sphinx loading his way in point the binoculars right at them and you get a moon pure chuck-e-cheese [ __ ] having brought up the Sphinx we can move on to some of the more substantial moons in the game and where things get more interesting and more up for debate whether something is worth a moon for those not keeping count we've gone through five hundred and twenty seven moons by now even with a generous charitable sweep of a hundred of those moons being somehow worth your time that's still more than four hundred that had been filler I'd argue that it's much closer to all of them minigames are up first which take up 75 more moons if you want to include the puzzle pictures under this category then it gets bumped up to 95 I'm quite positive about these pictures because they do require some amount of thinking and perceptive ability well some of them do at least not so much for these poochie's selfie ones the loading between levels and guesswork bringing them down a bit but I'm surprised to remember them so fondly maybe it could have been better by being introduced earlier in the game in some TARDIS style bigger on the inside room in the Odyssey for example so you could always be on the lookout for them as you're going through levels instead of backtracking but this is still a good chunk of moons I think the other minigames are much more mixed let's address another big group right off the bat the Koopa races remember coop with a quick from Mario 64 well his hobby lives on and spirit with these races there are two of these in every Kingdom a normal version and then a hard version I would feel much more favorably about these if there was just one hard version especially since these don't appear until after you've seen the first ending in the game and that both versions are exactly the same you just have to do the second one faster having two of each bringing the total moons on offer from the mini game up to 26 Sprint's into the realm of ridiculous filler at the very least they could have split them up to have the first race happen your first time through and a second after the first ending but no you do these back-to-back some of these span the entire length of levels the Bowser Kingdom race being the most extreme example of how much gameplay time is being patted onto Odyssey via these races however much like many of the minigames I'd appreciate them more if they were distractions included as a bonus to proper main content rather than on this level as it because most of these minigames are more involved and have more going on than many of the moons we've seen so far I think we should get the stinkers out of the way first answering the sinks his riddles may be charming once but having six moons tied to the idea was at least four too many for me likewise this slot machine game was okay the first time it didn't need to come back twice later for three moons total fishing with a possessed lakitu is even worse clocking in at five full moons for waiting around waiting around waiting around and then finally responding to a gamepad rumble finding the sheep is even worse and high on my list of the most terrible thing I've ever seen in a Mario game not only does it happen in two separate kingdoms there's even a shrine dedicated to the concept for a grand total of four of the shittiest moons in the entire game not to be outdone there are three moons from the open the chests in the right order idea that was already rung out in mario 64 there are also two whole moons dedicated to these rooms where you walk around until you feel a rumble to ground pound sometimes their coins sometimes it's a moon the game does this twice for the most excessive example of recycling on this list we have to go to the snow kingdom and watch some of the bounding wacky races believe it or not you do this as part of the main quest in the game then you can come back and do it again then you can come back for a secret course and do it two more times after that six moons are awarded for these races I think some people might like these but with three laps on each one I was already bored of it before I got the multi moon we saved the best for last and it would seem that even intend to agreed because this is the only minigame in Odyssey that only shows up once in the same dreaded deep woods as the coin flower we saw earlier there's a challenge of has you going through a trial and error pipe choice to find the correct route there's no way to determine the right way forward it's just guesswork and memorization a process of elimination after you get sent back to the beginning and try again and then try again is this worth a moon I don't think so if you do please let me know how you could possibly we think that the rest of the minigames are those that I thought were worth my time but that doesn't mean I consider all of them to be good for example there are three moons from the remote-control car races first the tutorial outside and then getting better times on the track inside nearby I think this minigame is terrible and yet I found myself enjoying it I didn't know you had to come back after beating the game to unlock the second moon for the better time so I was here for a while learning how this car controlled I ended up enjoying it probably a guilty pleasure and I should be ashamed of myself same goes for the jump rope and volleyball challenges these have two moons each getting 100 jumps in a row on the rope is possibly one of the hardest things in the game I say that an ironic ly same for the volleyball challenge now that I think about it they're not hard it just goes to show you how easy the rest of the game is and that this volleyball minigame was more engaging than most of the moons we've seen so far speaks volumes to me finally there are the waka line games and the pitcher memory ones both of which I like a lot I don't think I could tell you why either they're just great fun side pieces that feel great when you succeed and make you laugh when you fail so you can't really lose they're just really enjoyable that's all of the minigames and leaves us only with three categories to go through the shrine challenge rooms boss fights and playing dress-up clearly these three were important enough to leave for last there's something I'd like to say before diving into these moons I've complained a lot about filler and Odyssey many of my criticisms have been about that and recycled content there will be more of them to come with the bosses it's not fair to criticize adjust Odyssey for this when all of the 3d marios have this issue it's one of the core problems in the series that I mentioned way back at the beginning of the video Mario 64 has repeated moons and some that are overly simple but remember it was also Nintendo's first attempt at a 3d game they were pioneering something and objectives had to be built around ringing as much content as they could out of the same levels it's tragically funny to realize that Odyssey took that idea as inspiration instead of understanding that it was either a hardware limitation a developer limitation or both as I said earlier many of Odysseys levels are surprisingly small and not much bigger than some in 64 a game that came out in 1996 sunshine has so many filler stars with collecting red and blue coins not to mention some of the most underwhelming level design in the entire series but it's not fair to pick on sunshine when even my beloved galaxy games are psycho a lot too not just at the end of the game either even early on you'll see some levels used in uninspiring ways or twisted with new challenge modifiers but still reused just like the bosses are in Odyssey I still think it does a better job than RC does but it still is kind of laying that the game does that the reason why I'm harder on Odyssey than these other games is it because of how much filler and recycling it has it's because it barely has anything else whereas these other games have a significant amount of good content you almost almost justify the filler it would be better if it was gone of course but with time constraints or budget limitations the games still have them there are 13 bosses in Super Mario Odyssey and 1 mini boss spaceship thing that I'm also gonna count in this group but there are 60 moons attached to these fights not all of them are multi moons either those numbers should say a lot there isn't a single boss fight in Odyssey that you only fight once even this forgettable mama brutal rabbit mother-in-law creature comes back again later on the moon something that you may have forgotten even if you played the game sometimes these rematches do not award any moons which is surprising considering how many are left out in the open defiant you fight each of these brutal bunny rabbit people three times twice during the main story and then a third time on the dark side of the Moon these fights did not feel significantly changed to me during the rematches but they're also the quickest boss fights in the game the other bosses are the temple boxer the Nira tama de spaceship the robot centipede seeking them as fire octopus the big vomit bird and the dark souls dragon bowser also belongs with these bosses since these make up the big fights that you only do twice an easy version first and then a harder version later technically you can fight Bowser a third time but it's barely with mentioning the top problem for these bosses is an immense amount of waiting around before you can do damage to them some of these are worse for this than others and ultimately it comes down to how interesting they make the defensive phase that you go through before you can attack again for the big vomit bird this means what feels like a minutes of pure boredom especially the first time you do the fight there's nothing really threatening you in the bowl of stew as you wait for it to start vomiting so you can climb up and hit the bird in the head which is a cool idea and it even looks neat but too much of this fight is boring the rematch helps with the addition of rotating spiked balls but even these are too easy to avoid a counter points of this boss is that you can push the phase faster by jumping into its stomach but this is awkward as hell to realize never mind execute as you can see here I tried doing this during the first time that I fought against it and after seeing that it did nothing because I didn't hit the right spot exactly on its stomach I assumed that the phase was just something that you weighed out I think most players are going to have this same experience I could be wrong about this though and you should know that the robot centipede has the same problem along with some aiming issues with the gamepad for dealing damage too much of the fight to spent avoiding really easy attack patterns this fight isn't much better in the rematch either since the second centipede is only there for the easiest phase and only changes things visually it's a shame that it's the brutal z' that end up being so much better about this because they look nowhere near as interesting or cool there are many tricks in these fights except for the lanky Kong one to skip defensive phases or to deal damage faster they're more flexible and it's for this reason that I wish they had more health and embrace this back and forth these are actual fights instead of scripted my turn your turn tennis matches with the bigger bosses the green brutal can have his hats knocked off with your hat or you can sneak in a jump when he topples over and starts up his spin you can also avoid his hats going crazy on the ground or stomp on them to push the face sooner instead of waiting around for them the purple brutal can be knocked into a vulnerable state early if you get the angle right on her bomb throws and she can also be knocked out of her UFO phase by quickly hitting a bomb off the ground into her this is great and exactly what the other bosses are lacking the puke brutal can also be stomped on early in both phases with little waiting around to the point that he probably needs more health unfortunately the lanky brutal ruins this trend by having an invisible spike on his hat during his hopping phase that forced me to wait it's a shame about that because it ruins the streak that these four fights could have had the near otama de spaceship almost pulls this off with a more interesting defensive phase with the damaged rings and the onion possession jumps but the rest of the fight falls flat it's too easy to slip into a monotonous rhythm bouncing between blocks to deal damage it's a fight that could have been dramatically improved if you have to switch between Mario and the onion form for different challenges the temple boxer shows that better than any other this is probably the best boss in the game because it isn't just about this kingdoms main possession flavor although I think the mummies spawning directly below you is [ __ ] there's a more frantic rush during this bosses defensive phase that keeps you moving you can also get through it faster if you're good at luring a punch on some ice only then do you become a bullet bill version of his hand and do a quick possession attack before back to Mario for some variety it's a cool boss and one that Odyssey systems suit better than any other four - done poorly we can go back to the mother-in-law brutal and the seaside fire octopus I hate to keep repeating myself but it's the same problem here and as always I'm obsessed with showing examples to support my arguments even though the mother-in-law brutal does have you switching between a possession and Mario there's simply too much boring down time during which you can never attack and have to actively be slacking off in order to take damage the fire octopus looks cooler than almost any other fight in the game especially with the rain during his rematch but is awkward to fight against when you're trying to aim your squids jet stream for maximum uptime it's also strange that the rematch for this boss is easier than the first fight because you have unlimited airtime which is another thing that can add to the tedium your first time around constantly dropping to refill your water I enjoyed the big brutal robot fight a lot but mostly because of the gimmick of climbing up the patterns that it would make after toppling it over once that novelty had worn off it stopped being one of my favorites especially since the rematch with a hammer bro possession makes it less interesting this is another fight that has boring waiting phases before you can go on the offensive the darksouls dragon on the other claw is a fight that manages to pull it off the attacks it sends it you are difficult enough to avoid during the rematch that it doesn't feel like you're waiting it feels like you're fighting which is an important distinction it also doesn't rely on any possessions and has Mario fighting instead which is the only non brutal boss in the game that functions this way since mario has the most interesting move set that's a real shame which leaves us with Bowser who is a curious fight because it has a powerup that's an addition to Mario's moves that instead of a replacement when you steal his hat and can punch your way through obstacles and then hit him in the crotch while this fight is definitely more interesting than the Bowser tossing in 64 it still devolves into some very predictable jumps intercepting Bowser's hat when it comes at you and then something like a rhythm game as you punch him and then jump over his counter attacks it has some waiting around but mostly this fight stands out to me because it shows Nintendo was willing to build at least a little on Mario's move set and that it's a missed opportunity that they didn't do it more oh and we should also mention the mini boss UFO fights these are fun because you can beat them via the Goomba stack trick while dodging attacks with some conflict for a change or you can do some triple jumps and hat bounces to do it yourself the game desperately needed some more enemies that were like this which may be the moment that you realize that the game has practically nothing interesting in that department enemies have been regulated to powerup dispensers instead dangerous enemies is a big chunk of the Mario experience that's absent in Odyssey I want to return to the discussion on repetition now that we finally looked at all of the bosses the problem still remains that having rematches is fine and even a welcome addition to the game but there's nothing else new that's added in combination with these repeats in fact after seeing the credits and reaching the postgame there's a very little fresh new content that's tailored for players that are looking for challenge what little the game has are these repeated boss fights repeated harder versions of challenge rooms and a few one-off bits and pieces the final gauntlet is one of the easiest in any of the 3d marios and feels more like a stroll down memory lane with all of the possession mechanics than anything else more rooms at the same level of challenges of the 2d room in the Mushroom Kingdom would have been far more satisfying something you have to understand is that Odyssey is already split artificially into two halves we already touched upon how much content is gained behind returning to worlds and pushing them through phases to unlock moons that weren't present in the level before after beating Bowser and rescuing Peach all of the kingdoms go through two changes new moons and challenge rooms show up but the big moon cubes are now breakable this was a perfect time to push the game's platforming and possession abilities to more interesting heights you can guarantee that players who have gotten this far are familiar with most of the game that should be the primary purpose of gating content like this a sure level of mastery and then build levels to match that instead the vast majority of the moons that are unlocked in this stage are just floating in the sky or require ground pounds or very simple requirements like hitting something shiny we've already gone through these moons but I want to stress this point these are moons added after you've seen an ending not only that they have treasure follow the ex tile markers on the map and mini maps so you can't even miss them there busywork an excuse to explore each world again perhaps for a third or fourth time now with no major changes in enemy presence or challenge just more and more filler moons what's particularly bad about this phase of the game is how much further Odyssey Rings content out of what you've already done moons are added to both the 2d screens and the linear parts of the main quests you did in most kingdoms there's no way to stumble upon this naturally during exploration you have to go back and do all that content again with no changes other than the shitty core exceed tier moons that are now waiting for you collect musical notes throw your hat on flowers move a block around a grid ground pound a spot you get the idea that the same shitty moons that we've seen again and again in this video some of the shrines added at the stage are a step up and challenge from what came before but they're like a toddler's first step of an increase plus the game has the same issue that breadth of the wild did with easy medium and hard shrines because you can do all of these out of order you could find extremely simple shrines in the late game that you missed from earlier considering that these pipes rockets and doors all lead to instanced areas that almost always have nothing to do with the kingdom they're attached to and even if they do it's not really that important it's a shame that some sort of progress paths couldn't have been found that uses this limitation as an advantage the opposite problem can be found on the Dark Side of the Moon where you can do the harder versions of challenge rooms before you found and completed the easy versions back on earth there are 93 shrines in Super Mario Odyssey plus the really long challenge at the end on the darker side of the Moon I feel the need to point out immediately that if you counted them all that you might come to a different total shrines like these that contain a block puzzle the ground-pound moons and the treasure chests memorization game are filed under minigames for me and not shrines same for things like the Wacka sheep down an open path and into a pen this one is much closer to a shrine and maybe it should be lumped in with the total but I tried to be consistent with it you may also disagree with me calling some of the 2d screens and the game's challenge rooms but once again I aim to be consistent if you get a moon for completing one of these especially those that are in their own room and separated from the game's kingdoms then I counted them as a shrine so that's my method explained and disclosed you may think the game has a few more or a few less shrines than my 93 total this is what I considered the core content in Super Mario Odyssey funnily enough if you take a more generous criteria for what could be considered a shrine and include the boss fights then the total sits at around 120 the same amount of stars in 64 Sunshine galaxies and the amount of shrines and breath of the wild almost as though the rest of the game is superfluous crap slathered over these core challenges that's not to say that these shrines are all pristine examples of gameplay quite the opposite actually just that this is where Odyssey keeps almost all of its platforming originally I was going to say that this is where the game becomes super mario galaxy in 3d world instead of 64 and sunshine after advertising that Odyssey was meant to be a successor to the latter games it's surprising how much time you spent with stuff that would fit in with the former group however saying that wouldn't be accurate saying that they're bad 3d world levels wouldn't be right either most of these shrines are so disappointing that they feel like they were made with a prototype version of a yet to be released Super Mario 3d Maker tool that will be the big switch follow-up to maker on the Wii U of these 93 shrines eight are recycled in fact every single challenge room on the dark side of the Moon is a harder version of one from an earlier Kingdom and the boss rush here are also fights you've seen before which means aside from the puzzle pictures every bit of content in this end game world is something you've already done a breakdown of these shrines show that 17 of them are 2d screens 38 of them involve possessing enemies as the primary way to beat them and another 38 used just Mario or only light possession elements to get through the biggest letdown of these challenge rooms is the same failing of the majority of shrines and breadth of the wild they introduced some fun ideas and then do little with them as I am writing this script I am constantly having to go back into Adobe Premiere to refresh my memory about the shrines because they were all so forgettable the worst ones are the shrines centered on a possessed enemy not all of these are bad but most states use simple because of the lack of options on the possessed form and uninspired levels there are two of these shrines devoted to tank shooting galleries which are the opposite of fun made worse by one of these returning later to be an arena for Yoshi to eat apples and remember in Super Mario World you would eat apples for coins and mushrooms yeah and ought to see their moons instead almost every shrine has two moons in it a main one and a secret one not unlike the orb and the secret chest in breadth of the wild shrines it's sort of eerie how many comparisons can keep being drawn between these games it makes me really concerned for what kind of translated core oxy mechanic will make it into Metroid Prime for Metroid eggs are plus one individual missile capacity increases or something like that [Music] please understand that because of this insistence to have two moons per shrine many of these diluted set pieces are watered down even more there's also a bigger problem with them that we'll get to shortly one shrine has you running around mindlessly smashing rocks and ferb it things with the possessed t-rex better kill them all for a moon you do the same thing with another t-rex in the deep woods because every major possession in the game had to be wrung out for 3-4 or more uses for it to be deemed worth the development time I guess the t-rex is also used in another shrine that replaces Mario's moose at a Jurassic Park chase sequence on a scooter this is admittedly one of the better shrines in the game but you also have to understand what that means this crash bandicoot style racing into the screen following the lines on the floor and doing some turns and jumping is an example of a good gameplay piece in Odyssey there are three shrines meaning six moons that all have you possess a flying enemy and then just flap around with no real obstacles or enemies or anything you just casually go about your flopping business finding moon trunks and whole moons and then you're done think of how perfect these would have been for the phantom chaser style challenges from the earlier games that's still recycling and it's already better there are five similar shrines that have one simple mechanic and nothing else to them there's no progression on any idea you're just a fish swimming through a dark tunnel with easily avoidable eels your frog bouncing around this frog playground this is the whole shrine you're a bird pecking rolling bombs around this time area that looks closer to what a tutorial zone should be that introduces a mechanic before sending you through a series of challenges instead you're already done and out of the shrine there's another room of the size that has you possess a football guy from Super Mario World a woefully under used enemy and Odyssey to just charge around a little bit for filler moons then there's this tiny shrine where you possess a Koopa and Chuck hammers at blocks of cheese who is this for why does this shrine even exist why are two moons devoted to throwing hammers at cheese compare that trine to one that has some amount of complexity jumping and throwing in this construction site in the sky is this a good shrine no but it's not terrible either it has something that's used more than once as you go through it it's building on a concept this shrine with poison waves is even better and is one of the best challenge rooms in the game you can also decide to ignore the Frog possession and do it as Mario it builds on a concept and has an optional challenge at the end to prove that you fully grasped how it all works this is still on the short side but it's a great example of what a shrine should try to be another good shrine was this one in the sand Kingdom you possess bullet Bill's and fly them through short mazes and obstacles to things to latch on to here are that these bullets have a time limit that makes you have to play quickly and that this is one of the first shrines in the entire game yet with no word of exaggeration most are below this one in complexity and don't build on their ideas this is a good starting point for shrines it's even positioned as one yet the game rarely reaches past it instead we get three shrines that spice things up with fireball possessions as cool as it is to squish a tomato and then use its corpse as a lava puddle to continue jumping on land it wasn't good enough to reuse three other times with no alteration you can't do anything as this lava sprite you move and jump that's it plus one of these moons is just given to you by jumping into a pot of stew nearby that's the whole moon I get that this is showing you the objective for the next pot but at this point you've already cheapen the achievement of getting to the other side by giving the same reward for this insultingly simple right here at the start why not have this give you coins instead so you know that it's important to jump in the pot and then have an extra challenge at the end this like bench friends blows my [ __ ] mind that it made it into the final release of the game the rest of the shrines involving stretchy onion legs the water squids beak bird and Yoshi aren't offensively bad but I still have to look them up in Adobe Premiere to remember them just now the problem is once again that they feel about equal in terms of exploring the mechanics tied to each possession EE so for the oshi levels which are just repeats of stuff you've already seen look at this caterpillar shrine is a contrasting example this is the only challenger room in the game that uses this possession it also has a limited move set and yet multiple challenges were built on this in a row that used both the caterpillars long reach and stretched out body as ways to interact with the level and its challenges if there was another just like this it would be treading over the same ground instead it's a shame that there wasn't a more complicated version of this that's what the Dark Side of the Moon shrines could have been not Yoshi eating fruit one of those darkside rooms was good though although it comes with a caveat there's a shrine in Metro kingdom that has Mario riding a scooter across some time platforms take too long and you fall to your death there are three stages to this challenge which is far more than most shrines in the game have on the Dark Side of the Moon you have to do this without the scooter this is where I died the most on my first playthrough I enjoyed this shrine a lot I had to learn how to gain speed on Mario and keep going to reach safety between these surprisingly tightly time switches there was even an optional moon here that takes more effort to get than the path straight forward the caveat is that here I was 12 or more hours into the game only now having to learn how to move Mario in the quickest possible way that's how long the game took to test me on that and after the shrine it never happened again we've gone through almost all of the shrines that use possessions now but there are three more I want to show that I think support important points the first is that even within these shrines there are moons that fit into categories we went through earlier some of them are musical notes Goomba stocks sitting in plain sight or require you to notice something this one with jacksie which is an okay sign since it has enough playground space to not feel like a total waste has you following a 1-up musical trail for a moon this shrine which also is in bad has a secret moon that requires you to simply notice a Ledge below you that leads to a key just like this tank shrine that has something you shoot near the ceiling the cheese shrine has a block you hit for the secret moon there's noticing you can swing yourself to the right at the end of the shrine for another moon I think you get the idea there are a lot of moons that are like this in cascade Kingdom in one of the first shrines in the whole game it's actually the first one that I did when I play the second time there's something identical at the end of the shrine at the exit pipe is a secret path that you have to notice that leads to a moon except that I'm lying the shrine is built around the idea of possessing chain chomps to knock other chain chomps into the target across the room a chain reaction if you will instead of this shrine ending with a free moon for noticing this path you get an extra challenge that is more difficult than what you've done before you notice this and as a reward you get development on the concept you earn the second moon hopefully some gears are turning right now with what I just said this is a crucial difference these notice something moons are an epidemic across the shrine content in Odyssey which is a shame because all of them could have functioned like this one in the chain trompe shrine this is a perfect way to provide some challenge to players who click with something while still rewarding those who may have struggled with what they just went through in this way they are very similar to the hidden chests and breath of the wilds best shrines however you may recall that the game had the same problem with some of those chests being boring to acquire - or having nothing to do with the shrines core challenge at all those that did were usually quite good let's play our guessing game one last time almost all of the 93 shrines have a secret hidden moon do you want to guess how many of them lead to an optional extra challenge like last time pause the video and add your comment if you want to play or just hold it in your head if you're tired of typing it out as proof to show others here we go the answer is 18 that's all and I mean including moons like this and this in that total so I think I'm being generous here if I had my way I'd put even lower than that but let's go with 18 the majority of these hidden moons are just as plain and boring as most of the filler ones like ground-pounding in the right spot or noticing some boxes stacked on a wall or cancelling a possession to land on a platform or breaking a crate I think this video has gone on so long that I don't need to show every single one of these but please note that I could keep going I do want to make it clear that some of these secrets are fun to discover having something easily missed that leads to something hidden is a good idea but it should lead to more content that rewards that perceptive ability it shouldn't be the reward itself at least most of the time it shouldn't be the 2d and Mario focus shrines have this problem more than the possession of shrines for some reason there are more 1up moons here even in shrines that aren't that bad such as thinking to hang on to the top of this moving platform or wall jump up to an extra set of poles to swing on these could have led to great expanded versions on the shrine that came before but even I have to admit these are still superior to moon's you get from just looking over the edges of platforms or behind a pillar or thinking to possess a fireball to explore the lava I'm more positive about the 2d screens that I am about anything else in these shrines but I think that's coming from a more experienced place rather than gameplay I really enjoyed the creative use of surfaces that display these sequences some like the theater in metro city were a bit bland but the screens and Bowser's Kingdom cascade Kingdom and seaside Kingdom stand out same for the pillar and sand Kingdom the platforming in these sections was never all that good except for that one shrine with the moving background in Mushroom Kingdom we saw earlier but the creativity and how they were presented still made me enjoy them there's also a good example of a notice something Moon becoming an extra challenge in this TD shrine in the ruin Kingdom I think it's really disappointing that something this simple deserves such a special remark in this video that this sort of exploration on a concept was so rare a 2d sequence that I didn't like so much was the long celebration in Metro Kingdom maybe it was because the lead-up to that point was boring recruiting the musicians and then do less-than-stellar shrine in the sewer you'd think they would have made that one a hell of a lot more substantial considering all the throw backs here and the plumber theme but no they didn't it was one of the more boring shrines this festival felt too much like the series was masturbating to a picture of its younger self but I think maybe I'm alone in this one I will say that I do agree the ending 2d sequence was quite good and made me think that it was the whole reason for the hot possession mechanic to exist it was always leading to this moment I liked it a lot for the twist and gameplay over to Bowser it didn't make me literally applauded though many of these shrines involving mainly Mario really reinforced the idea that they were thrown together in a simple level creator shrines like this one which have the lights turned down and some enemies patrolling a stacked pile of cubes feel thrown together as quick tests to see what they could do their unfinished VR missions that made it into the game somehow a line of moving poles to jump on a bunch of platforms rising in and out of lava a repeat of the birds stealing your hat a bunch of breakable blocks and bullets being fired at you these are one room one layer concepts that feel unfinished more than anything else some of the worst hidden moons in these simply require you to turn around and backtrack to find them they'll be hidden in a compartment on a moving platform or floating behind a pillar that had the entrance door on it the worst hidden moon of all requires a hat toss onto a sign sticking out of some poison with no hint that I saw that this would even lead to a moon it's something that you get by exhausting all options until you stumble onto this totally worth the moon and have fun wondering if every sign you pass from then on has a moon hiding on it and maybe you should stop and throw your hat and get a coin instead of a moon like the possession shrines not all of these are bad but this was content that made me feel like I was going through the motions in a comfortable way not seeing anything new or exciting whether that was the same Yoshi style running fast on a wall trial that I had already seen a much better version of in galaxy 2 or a shrine in the clouds that had me holding right to keep bouncing with nothing else going on it's a shame that other power-ups couldn't have been carried over from previous games and used on top of the possessed enemies the cloud platform show this clearly since they were a much less interesting version of the cloud powerup from galaxy to that allowed much more flexibility in getting around here you're stuck on the tracks and have much less freedom the biggest missed opportunity amongst these was the shrine with zippers I thought this was also barely used in the lake Kingdom it was the only interesting thing about the world that I can remember and I wish they had just carried it over to other kingdoms that they weren't even gonna use it very well here instead of the shrine being a thorough exploration of this idea it's closer to a scripted set piece with each zip our only having one set result that you follow the secret moon here was also disappointing I don't know if a shrine made up of more zippers switching possessions between them and planning ahead to create specific shape platforms would be that interesting but I would have liked to have seen something more done with this that sums up how I feel about almost all of the shrines really the final gauntlet sits right there - it's probably the part I enjoyed more than anything else in Odyssey but I was still left with the feeling of that was it after I was done same goes for the kingdom's after beating Bowser for the first time - Mushroom Kingdom was a wonderful trip for a nostalgia that got to me more than I care to admit but after that it's back to the same kingdoms as before and two more levels on the moon nothing new nothing creative there are 24 moons that I haven't shown you yet that I've been saving for the end these are filler content linked to side collectables that aren't moons regular coins and purple coins there are play dress-up moons that require outfits from the stores in each Kingdom these are separate from the NPC moons we listed earlier you'll speak to someone and they will request that you dress up for them as a doctor a cowboy an astronaut or strip down to your underwear another one has a depressed guy standing uncomfortably close to a long fall in Metro City that wants to see a clown to cheer him up if you've bought these costumes already ought to see demands that you run back to your ship and change into them and then run all the way back to get these moons sometimes the NPCs will just say thank you and give you the moon sometimes they open doors for you to go inside and do a little dance number sometimes they open the way to a 2d trying but I counted them as challenge room moons instead of in this category eleven moons are this way and all of that running back changing clothes and then running there again is exactly as tedious as it sounds imagine instead if it had sent you back to the Odyssey automatically change your clothes and that had a time limit or some sort of challenge built around something as you go back to the guy that show them the outfit but instead it's just the same as get a seed and put it in the pot the other moons are bought in the same stores that you get the clothes 100 coins for each kingdom shop this may sound like the same thing as the stars from 64 but there's a huge difference 64 has you collect those coins in one life it's a challenge sometimes quite a difficult one in the later levels it's also something you can combine with another star you're going for since 100 coins stars don't kick you out of levels in Odyssey it's any 100 coins you have collected over the entire game no challenge no commitment you just buy it as much as I do enjoy how coins were made relevant by some of these creative looking costumes I question why these 100 coin moons exist outside of more filler you could argue that they're there to help people reach certain moon thresholds but like you can argue against all the filler moons they could have lowered the amount of moons you needed instead and the total amount of moons in the game period Super Mario Odyssey was a colorful inconsistent blast that wasted too much of my time in many ways it feels like a game from another series or maybe even a new series by Nintendo that had Mario skin stretched over it if I'm right about this game being a way to draw in a new generation of fans then it's more than acceptable to me I can't and don't demand that every game be made just for my tastes and expectations however that also doesn't mean I have to pretend that I like it I can hope for a Super Mario Odyssey to that like galaxy 1 and 2 before it has a long jump at the cap throw dive worth of difference in complexity and development in its gameplay if I'm wrong however and this game was still meant to be a triumphant return for a long time fans of the series then that's something I'll have trouble reconciling for a long time in the future but please remember that if you doubt this game has more filler than cheap dog food that there's a moon in Metro City for spelling out Mario you return here after beating Bowser and the bright bold letters are there to greet you you have to possess each one with copy and get them into position individually does this open a door or make a pipe emerge to a secret challenge no it spits out a moon that you watch Mario twirl underneath for the 400th time not only that Nintendo thought this was worthy of its own spot on the possession list in the menu screen a unique worthwhile moment on a list of how much content is in this game you spelled out Mario the name of the game it shows how obsessed Odyssey is with constantly reminding you of what you're playing it's Mario yeah you grew up with this remember Mario remember 8-bit Mario remember Mario fighting Donkey Kong even before that do you remember it's like they thought they had to do that to make sure you knew you were playing a game in the Mario series because the game sure doesn't feel worthy of it otherwise [Music] thanks for watching as usual here are a few more things I'd like to say before you head out first up is that I'd like to introduce you to a channel ran by a friend of mine heavy-eyed a Kiwi from the planet New Zealand he goes through a variety of topics with videos that are much shorter and direct than mine although he does have some longer ones - on Star Fox and the Far Cry series that one is a good run through some of the strengths and weaknesses of the series and a great way to prepare for Far Cry fives upcoming release if you like to think about games as you play them my favourite video of his is a look at all of the openings in the console Zelda games from the first on the NES to Skyward Sword he took a much less cynical approach than I would have about the later games Twilight Princess in particular and managed to be constructive and even positive about them while also pointing out their flaws most discussions about Zelda tend to be on either extreme side of things it's a refreshing video to avoid that trap just like his one on Majora's Mask other videos of his that you may be interested in are on the high bid era starting with Al Boy and then moving on to other games or a thoughtful exploration on platformers if you're looking for more on that after watching this video on Odyssey in any case he has 27 videos to choose from and I should let most of them speak for themselves I'm sure something will catch your eye and you might have a new channel to binge there it's definitely worth a moon as for me this video wasn't planned which is why it's kind of late I streamed the game at release and didn't decide to do a video on it until I was about 20 hours in it was a rocky project because of that especially having to go back and play so many of the older games in the series for examples and evidence and to make the points in the script as always if you liked the video please consider supporting me on patreon apologies for the plug but videos this long have to have a mention of it at the end at least support from viewers makes long in-depth videos like this one viable compared to many short easy ones especially with some of the changes on YouTube lately there are also some links below if you'd like to check out the second channel some streams or our discord server thank you again for watching I'll see you next time you

Channel: Joseph Anderson

Views: 3,339,512

Keywords: super mario odyssey, review, critique, criticism, negative, analysis, bad, disappointing, nintendo, mario, switch, 64, sunshine, galaxy, 3D World, yoshi's island, 1up girl, dark souls, odyssey, funny, interesting, debate, logic, peach, toad, luigi, logical, bowser, video games, game, juegos, 2017, 2018, nintendo switch mario odyssey, mario odyssey switch, nintendo switch, mario odyssey all moons, goty

Id: kYJx5xt2cB0

Length: 120min 0sec (7200 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 11 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/Idenia_13]

Didn't agree with somethings but very very good video overall.

[u/TriceratopsHunter]

Watched it through, and while I disagreed on some of it, the key thing he touched on at length that I agreed with is quality over quantity. Considering moons are the be all and end all collectable of the game (short of maybe purple coins), a large amount of them are just filler. Even with the end game moons from cracking moon rocks, they are marked on the map and are often easier to get than the moons you got on that map the first time. Then you compound that with the fact that you can physically buy as many damn moons as you want. I would have rather had 200 moons that felt meaningful than 900 moons with 300 cool or interesting ones.

EDIT: That said I still think it's a great game, but a couple of those moons left me thinking, why even have this one in the game at all?

[u/ObiDoboRight]

Dunkey > Joseph Anderson

[u/joemammaunderstands]

That opinion is so disruptive^TM !