Topic: Super Mario Odyssey

@Henmii I highlighted a row of four coins. There's also a crate that you can undoubtedly smash for more coins. A little bit to the right you can see two purple collectibles that can also be seen in other levels. Then there are the ?-traffic lights, of which I'm pretty certain that they will also give you coins when you hit them. And if you look all the way to the right, you can even see a Bowser checkpoint flag like this one, except a Bowser flag instead of a Mario flag.

@Octane,

They might be coins. But they are so far away that it is hard to tell. From the looks of it most coins have been replaced with strange purple things.

@Henmii They're coins, you can see them in other parts of the video too. And in motion you can clearly see they're spinning around. Uploading images doesn't do the resolution any favour, can be difficult to tell from the image alone, but I can guarantee you, those are coins.

We'll see! It would be weird without coins, but then again Breath of the Wild is without the Green tunic (from the looks of it).

I am curious about those purple triangle things. Are they like purple coins? Do you need to collect 100 of them to get a Power Star?

Is this game going to play like a normal Mario game?

Define normal.

Is there any such thing as a normal Mario game? The idea of an Italian plumber from Brooklyn, running around a mushroom kingdom to save a princess from a giant tortoise, was never exactly regular.

If by normal you mean generic crap like NSMB and 3D Land/3D World, then no. And thank God too, those games were getting stale, this game is a breath of fresh air for the series.

For those of you who thought (like me) that the only footage of SMO came from the trailer, this should be interesting (skip to 15:30):

It's an overview of Mario's move repertoire, which is more in-depth and explanatory than the trailer.

I'll edit in some rough translations, but the video's interesting (and self-explanatory) enough without them.

1) The Three Stage Jump: Makes its comeback having not been seen in a while. Can be used to reach high places.
2) Running Long Jump: You can use this when you want to jump to places far away.
3) Backflip: This jump is useful for jumping high in confined spots. It's a very convenient move.
4) Hip Drop (AKA Ground Pound/Butt Stomp) → Jump: Can be used to access high places without interrupting the flow of play.
5) Tree Climbing: There don't seem to be any actual trees about, but this can be used to climb up street lamps and also be used to jump from them to high places [bit of a theme emerging here].
6) Body Attack: This is another move we haven't seen in a while. You can use this move to reach places a little further away than you would with a standard jump.
7) Cap Throw: This is a new action for the current game; the Cap Throw. This is the first time Mario can throw the cap himself. You can use it as a platform to jump on amongst other things.

Most of that was fairly apparent. What's interesting - and was displayed, but not mentioned - is the ability to seemingly freeze the cap in mid-air for a variable amount of time. I assumed it had a set time where it would remain stationary, but I it now seems like this this depends on how long the player keeps hold of the action button.

This game looks so awesome! I haven't been this hyped over a main series Mario game in a long, long while. Here I was thinking Bowser needed a break in favor of a new villain, but I can't help but love his appearance here... he looks so fresh! And is that a Super Paper Mario reference with the wedding? A city based on Donkey Kong... with real people? I love weird Mario games, the weirder the better. And on top of that, it's open world! Like 64 and Sunshine! Well, I wasn't the biggest fan of Sunshine but I adored 64 and the DS remake. Hopefully Luigi is in this, and given how much it's already deviating, I hope Wario and Waluigi show up too. It's got a focus on hats, so why not use all four of the men with caps.

This game will make me buy the Switch for Christmas 2017. Looks very inspired.

I'm far from a hater of the more simple Mario games, I even thought 3D Land and 3D World were really fun and fresh variations of the classic 2D Mario concept, but a more expansive and ambitious Mario platformer is long overdue. And Mario Odyssey seems like it will deliver that in spades.

^^^

True dat.

On a different topic, am I the only one who thinks it'd be good to have a different word than 'open world' to describe 64 and Sunshine? Not that it's completely inaccurate, but the idea of having a series of boxed-off little playgrounds doesn't conjure up the same image of the epic, open expanses as found in Skyrim, XCX, The Witcher 3, etc, which are pretty representative of the open world design philosophy.

I've seen a lot of comments saying BoTW is 'Zelda gone open world' - and I think the term is a very good fit for that game - but it implies that games like OoT weren't open world. And it strikes we as odd that we can call SM64 - a game based around completing a series of tasks in relatively confined areas - 'open world', while OoT - where there's some freedom to explore the expanses of the overworld - gets labelled as 'not open world'. The story is somewhat linear, but I wouldn't call it less of an open world than than 64.

In the Japanese presentation, the director labelled 64/Sunshine as 箱庭探索/'Hakoniwa Tansaku', meaning 'miniature garden (lit. 'box garden') exporation' games. This seems more accurate, as it takes into account the limits of each level, and paints a picture of the stages being... well, 'boxed', even if you're given some freedom within that box.

'Open world' on the other hand, paints a picture of a world without bounds - which is rarely strictly accurate of course - but suits the scale of Xenoblade Chronicles X and Skyrim a lot better than the miniature playgrounds of Super Mario 64 and Sunshine in my opinion.

So yeah, I think something like 'boxed garden' style games is more accurate than 'open world'. The question is, where will Odyssey fit on the scale. We know it's far away from the 'reach the goal' style of 3D World/Land, but how much more open is it than Sunshine and 64?

God here come the kids who will next want a COD and NFS game with mario freeroam.....GTFO

@Maxz I agree that the definitions are a bit vague, but it depends on the context I think. Each level in 64 or Sunshine was a small open world, you can go anywhere you want, regardless of what the objective is. That wasn't true for the entire world of Zelda, up until now. But in the end, Zelda games always managed to create big seamless worlds, whereas that wasn't true for Mario games. I like the term ''box garden'' though.

@Octane That's absolutely true; Sunshine and 64 were essentially a collection of miniature 'open worlds' wrapped up in a hub world (which was expansive enough to qualify as an 'open world' in itself). So the use of the term isn't entirely unjustified.

However, I feel that if our terminology can't accurately (and without much context) differentiate between the structure of games like Super Mario 64/Sunshine, and games like Skyrim/Witcher 3, then the vocabulary we're using is deficient.

Those two Mario games have a very well defined structure; they are level-based, and each level has a set number goals/stars/etc. When you clear enough goals in the easier levels, you move onto harder ones. There's some freedom as to how and when you complete the tasks within those worlds, but the whole package is still fairly well ordered and compartmentalised. The macro structure is quite 'traditional', even if the micro structure is much freer and open-ended.

It's an interesting point you've raised with regards to the first 3D Mario and Zelda games; SM64 gives you (more-or-less) absolute freedom in a series of confined spaces, while OoT sets you on a more rigid path, but through a much more (as you've said) "seamless", expansive, and 'open'-feeling overworld. With that in mind, it's hard to argue which is objectively more 'open-world', and possibly not worth the effort.

I do however think that notion of "seamlessness" is very important to a game's structure and overall 'feel', and our vocabulary for describing them should be able to reflect that. Super Mario 64 is not Skyrim-esque in its structure, so calling them both 'open-world' games feels... off to me. What defines Skyrim/Witcher 3/BoTW/etc. is that they have both the freedom/non-linearity and the seamlessness/expansiveness of those two games. Mario games have either had the just former (64, Sunshine) or neither (SM3DW/L, NSMB etc), whereas Zelda games have typically only had the latter (and arguably Skyward Sword didn't really have that, given how disconnected the regions felt). BoTW seems to be the first game in the series to attempt both.

Some people have tried to get around the 'open-world' tag by calling 64/Sunshine 'sandbox' games, but I don't think that really clears things up, as 'sandbox' is either used and a direct synonym of 'open-world' (leading to the same problems), or for games like MineCraft and Gary's Mod, which are largely playkits who's goals are even more loosely defined, and therefore even further away from the explicit structure of 64 and Sunshine.

Nintendo seem to have got around the issue by firstly... using a different language (always helpful if you want to avoid pedantic linguistic debates), and secondly - as far as I can tell - making up their descriptive phrase for the game style:

The first category (コースクリア型3D) literally means 'Course Clear Style 3D', and the second (箱庭探索3D) means 'Box Garden Exploration 3D', and is later just referred to as 'Box Garden 3D' games. It's either a term they made up (which is fair enough given they made the game), or an obscure term they popularised, as nearly all results from Googling it bring up links to Super Mario Odyssey, and the Director in the above video has to explain the reasoning behind the term to the interviewer.

Until I see a suitable alternative already in English gaming vernacular, I think I'm going to use 'Box-Garden Exploration Games' as the phrase of choice for describing 64 and Sunshine as opposed to 3D World and Land. It's slightly clunky, but I think is quite a neat image, and side-steps cumbersome debates about what makes a game truly 'open-world'. And like I said at the beginning, if our vocabulary can't do that without unhelpful ambiguity, then it needs broadening.

Phew... Essay over. Now, what else would you stick in that category? Banjo-Kazooie seems a pretty good fit. I'm going to take a break before trying to think of anything else.

I could be way off here (probably am), but perhaps they're coins designed as tortilla chips. I believe those were present in the Mexico-style city (level), so that would be a nice little touch. Like I said, I could be way off with that assumption. Haha

@CThrash13 You can see in the background of the underwater section at 1:32 in the trailer that the purple collectibles seem to be replaced by things that look like cogs, so it seems likely that the shape will vary by region.

So who knows? They could be freaky purple tortilla chips after all!

@Maxz Pretty insightful stuff, great post. I agree about the ''non-linearity'' and ''seamlessness'', that's a pretty good way to differentiate the two styles. It's weird to me that they placed Galaxy with those other games. I understand the linearity in Galaxy 2, that game felt a lot more linear, but I still think that Galaxy 1 was a weird hybrid of the two; Some levels were open and others felt more linear. Good to see that Nintendo also acknowledges this though, and the fact that they specifically stated this, means we're really getting a 64/Sunshine type of game again.

@Octane I've been thinking exactly the same thing about Galaxy (although my earlier post was long enough without including it). It's definitely somewhere between the two extremes. Also, the simple fact that the neither of the Galaxy games had a timer allows for a much fleer and more explorative play-style, even in the linearly designed levels.

The Galaxy levels are still appear to be some way off Sunshine and 64's openness however - more so than I expected - I've just done a quick recap to jog my memory. The most open levels - at a glance - seem to be Freezeflame, Beach Bowl, Dusty Dune, Honeyclimb, and maybe Melty Molten. I definitely remember Freezeflame feeling satisfyingly exploratory.

But yeah, it's a continuum, really. SM3DL/W were restricted to being linear by design; a flagpole and a time limit leave little room for variation, but with the other games that linearity can change from level to level. Even Sunshine had its bare-bones platforming segments, often where you were literally just running from A to B in a straight line (with the occasional jump for interest). In fact, that's been one of the series' great strengths; you can have such a lot of different level designs all in one game, making the levels - and the game itself - feel more unique and memorable.

If I had to rank them from most explorative to most linear it'd be: SM64/Sunshine (I daren't say which), Galaxy 1, Galaxy 2, SM3DL/W (again, not sure which). And then you could throw the NSMB series right at the top if you're feeling cheeky.

Anyway, I've nattered on about this long enough already, and I need to get to bed, but still... I think it's been worth some thought.

@Dev: Is there any footage of Nintendo using the word 'sandbox'? That would... somewhat mess up my dismissal of the term.

EDIT: Found it!Mr. Miyamoto's translator (known only as Raymond) does indeed refer to 64 at a 'Sandbox-Type-Style Game', so there it is. In the sentence he's translating, Mr. Miyamoto's own words are "箱庭/Hakoniwa/Box Garden/Miniature Garden", so it's unclear whether "Sandbox" is merely Raymond's interpretation, or Nintendo's official life. Either way I think it's ambiguously close to the term used to describe Gary's Mod, MineCraft, and other open-ended creation tools. The point of a sandbox is that it's a blank slate; there's pretty much nothing there except sand, but that sand can be shaped and used to create anything the player desires. The whole point is the image of a blank space waiting to be sculpted.

Mario games aren't blank spaces, and you almost never freely sculpt the environment (even if you can often modify it); it's not a creation tool. So I think the term is inaccurate at worst and ambiguous at best. As a translation of 'box garden exploration game', it at least gets the 'box' image across, whereas a 'box garden' is likely to already be meticulously sculpted and manicured (in the manner of most Mario levels), a 'box of sand' is likely to be just... sand. Maybe appropriate for desert levels, but falls apart a bit as a general analogy in my opinion.

Not that it makes a great deal of difference. The games are what they are and it doesn't really matter what we call them. The main result of this is that I've spent a decent amount of time having a linguistic argument with myself. But... yeah, I think a different word from 'open-world' or 'sandbox' would be ideal. However, if it's me against Nintendo, I'm not going to put up much more of a fight.