The Electronics and Entertainment Expo or E3 was off to a slow start in the minds of the Internet but that was going to change with the arrival of the first official day of the convention. Some of the companies coasted through their events but then there was Nintendo, which released their event online, yet again. Check out the recap of just how well the Big N did while all eyes were on them. Just a tip, it was pretty good. Anyway, lines were out the door in typical E3 fashion at the Nintendo booth but the fans were there for one reason and that was to play Super Mario Odyssey and from what was already shown of Mario’s newest adventure for the Switch, who could really blame them?
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before but Bowser has kidnaped Princess Peach yet again. It looks like he has the nerve to try and marry the princess of the mushroom kingdom and you know that isn’t going to sit well with our favorite plumber from Brooklyn! The E3 booth was set up just like one of the locales from the game, New Donk City as well as some of the booth staff dressed as the non-playable male/female people Mario interacted with in New Donk City. Nintendo always goes that extra mile and this was a nice touch.
Like I said, lines were crazy long and I just jumped on anyone that looked like it wouldn’t take all day to wait. Super Mario Odyssey looks great in portable mode and I know this because the line I jumped on was played off of the TV. That wasn’t a problem because you’re going to be playing this game in all kinds of places, it’s that good! Something that caught me totally by surprise was Pauline being the mayor of New Donk City and having to do things for her. Pauline is one of those characters in the Mario Universe that vanished for a while and you never know when she’s coming back, like when she did in the Mario VS DK series.
Mario games of the past have always been about keeping your hat on but Odyssey is the exact opposite. You will be throwing your hat all over the place to “possess” all kinds of enemies and items. During the demo you were jumping into a power line to travel up buildings as well as traffic cones to speed up. The game allows you do pretty much whatever you want and however you want to and that’s the joy of an open world adventure game! If you wanted to wall jump to climb, you have that option. If you wanted to jump off the cliff and throw your hat at the very last second to soften the fall, you can. Super Mario Odyssey allows players to control Mario the way they want to and complete things in the order they want to!
The E3 demo was about ten minutes so it was a little tough to get a handle on things and put the game through its paces but that’s what I’m here for. The game uses the Joycons to control Mario and you can roll Mario to move faster in the levels. The more you shake the Joycon, the faster Mario can move. The controls felt pretty good and actually felt pretty natural. I would have liked to play with the Pro Controller but the Joycons get the job done.
Odyssey does a good job in not giving away the next location of something important too easily. One of the missions you needed to do in the demo for Mayor Pauline was find musicians for New Donk City and their locations were on the map. Other than checking the map, no one was telling you where to go. Most games will tell you on the map but they’ll also have something in the world advising you as well. As far as I can tell, there weren’t hint characters giving me well, hints to complete this task.
I’ll end with this, customization is alive and well at Nintendo. Pokémon got people thinking about it recently and now Super Mario wants people to know even more about it. There was a shop where you can put Mario in all kinds of get-ups like a hardhat, football uniform, or a tuxedo. Nintendo is going all out for their favorite son, Super Mario; it shows with Super Mario Odyssey. Pauline and Peach are here, the only question is, where is Luigi?
I almost forgot, how cool is the Super Mario visors that Nintendo gave out to the E3 attendees?