Mario Odyssey encourages curiosity - and what higher praise is there?

[Administrator]

Halfway through every Mario game I have the same revelation, and it always comes as a shock, as a total surprise. Halfway through every Mario game I suddenly realise that it's not about where Mario takes you from one adventure to the next, it's about what he encourages you to become along the way. Mario games aren't just great because they're imaginative and generous and precision-made. They're great because, in being all these things, they prod you towards becoming an ideal kind of player - a player who's inventive when it comes to problem-solving, who's able to wield a complex move-set with real accuracy, and who's sufficiently engaged in what's going on right now to hunt down every available secret in a world that's thrillingly dense with them. Mario forces you back into the moment. He encourages you to be playful. For me, every Mario game is like taking a holiday. It's like taking a holiday from the kind of game player that I usually am.
And Odyssey, which I am playing at the moment in antic bursts, reminds me that Mario games are always finding new ways to bring out the best in you. This time I think it comes down to a brilliant recalibration rather than a sweeping sense of reinvention. Firstly, the moons you collect in Odyssey are a little less of an event than the stars were in Mario 64 or the shines were in Sunshine. Equally, there are a lot more of them. This means that, in the course of half an hour, you can hopefully collect four or five moons if the wind is at your back.
On top of this, the worlds you visit feel like they're smaller than they were in Mario 64. This may be memory playing tricks on me, of course, but I would argue that Odyssey's very best worlds are definitely also the snuggest. This means that all those lovely moons are always so much closer to hand. Voila: when finding a moon doesn't kick you back to the start, and when there are likely to be a gaggle of them around you at any time, Odyssey encourages extremely good player behaviour. The best kind of behaviour: curiosity.
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