ugh - really like the look of this but am being put off by the difficulty level.
It seems that all these retro-style platformers are either:
super hard
metroidvanias
collectathons
As much as I loved playing Super Metroid and Celeste this year I really just want a good quality 2D platformer which doesn't involve a ton of back-tracking or is gonna cause me to pull my hair out in frustration.
@Euler Apologies - clearly I had forgotten about the overworld in NSMBDS - must have been that I was uninspired by the lack of creativity compared to SMW.
I hadn't forgotten that there were overworlds in the other NSMB games however! Would happily play those titles again if they were to come to Switch (don't have my ds, wii or 3ds systems anymore)
@shadow-wolf yeah I guess that's fair. I didn't find the chimney pipe areas to be particularly difficult but they certainly were the highlight of the game for me. I guess if there had more more bits like those I would have been happier overall.
@GeminiSaint @EdScissorshands - ah okay the perfect run is a totally different thing - clearly never got to that!
I think the issue I have is that most other Mario games give you easy, normal, hard levels - Odyssey is 95% easy and 5% hard. I just wanted some levels with a normal level of difficulty.
@GeminiSaint yeah was going to mention that they had done the same thing in SM3DW also - but had gone on long enough
Do you think The Perfect Run was that much harder (you mean the one where you have to beat 3 bosses in under 5 minutes, right?) - I did find that incredibly difficult too but think the fact that I could move onto other difficult levels whenever that level became too overwhelming meant that I stuck with it until I finally beat it. With Odyssey once you're on the Darker Side of the Moon there's no real reason to go back to the other stages so when it gets frustrating you've got nowhere else to go - so I just gave up in the end.
I wonder if some of the people who loved this game can help me out here. Being a huge Mario fan, whenever I read out how much people loved this game it makes me a little sad that I didn't feel the same way and has me legitimately questioning whether my disappointment of the title lies within my approach to the game.
I'm sure I'm not alone in feeling that to truly enjoy a game you need some kind of natural stopping point wherein you've felt like you've at least achieved a certain objective that challenges you in some way.
Nintendo are notorious for not including difficulty settings in their games but this doesn't mean there aren't options; whether the player wants a straightforward relatively easy playthrough or more of a challenge there's generally something for everyone, which is why most Mario games have plenty of extra content once the credits have rolled.
Take Mario Galaxy 2 for example; you can complete the main story which is relatively easy, collect all of the stars in the main game which is more of a challenge and then has a final challenge to collect all of the green stars which is harder still. Effectively serving as a easy, normal & hard settings. Personally I stopped after collecting all of the main stars and was more than happy with that as an ending (it remains one of my favourite games of all time).
This moves me back to Odyssey, I just don't think I understand where these lines lie. The main story was, as expected, really quite easy and while I enjoyed my time with the game up until that point it wasn't enough of a challenge to feel like a natural stopping point.
But no problem, I thought; upon completing the game additional Kingdoms and moons were presented. Now the real game can begin!
But the problem is, I didn't complete either of these tasks. Firstly with the moon's, there's way too many and many are just pure grind - honestly how many of you can say you enjoyed rounding up three sheep for the 12th time? (Or for that matter, how about catching a rabbit? or grabbing the flying bird? or walking along an invisible line?) I was finding it tiresome after collecting the second sheep the first time I came across this challenge, I certainly feel no compulsion to complete the same boring task multiple times over.
After some time (prob too long tbh) I realised that I was never going to obtain all - or 999 moons - in the game due to tedium, but no matter, there was still the additional Kingdoms to complete which could bring me to the natural stopping point I so desired. But therein lies my second problem with the game; after a fun but relatively brief & easy visit to the Mushroom Kingdom two more unlockable kingdoms were made available to complete - the first of which turned out to be a slog if I'm honest, using gravity to handicap Mario's abilities and then having you fight through a load of boss battles that you have already completed earlier on in the game.
The second ramped up the difficulty level so much that it seems hellishly impossible to complete. Where was the difficulty curve? The game went from being pedestrian in difficulty to a dark souls level nightmare without blinking. Suffice to say I gave up after my 20th or so attempt and never went back.
But here's the thing, a similar situation has happened to me before, where I've had to amend my approach to a Mario game to truly appreciate it. That game was New Super Mario Bros. on the NDS - initially the game disappointed me due to a lack of a few 2D Mario staples (no overworld map, lack of flying power up or Yoshi) but the thing that I felt most let down by was the lack of secret (and harder) levels or alternate exits as found in Super Mario World - something that that's almost entirely missing from NSMB. I knew there were the 3 big coins to collect in each levels but these seemed to be extras for completionists so I ignored them and put the game down shortly after beating Bowser.
When I played NSMB Wii a few years later I realised just how much fun it was to collect the 3 coins in every stage which meant applying quite a bit more skill than a standard level walkthrough and ended up loving my time with the game due to this extra challenge. I'm willing to bet if I went back to NSMBDS today I'd enjoy the game far more the second time around with this hindsight.
So I guess my question is, am I doing something similar here with Odyssey? For those of you who loved the game how did you overcome the issues I've listed above? Did you actually enjoy the grind of collecting the moon challenges that repeated themselves endlessly or find the last levels enjoyable or easy to complete? Maybe I'm missing something here but if Nintendo are going to continue with this template going forward I want to make sure I'm making the most of my time with one of my favourite gaming series.
I'd be horrified if they announced a first person Zelda, I bought a Wii rather than an Xbox 360 or PS3 because I am sick of the amount of FPS after FPS games available for the other consoles, A FPAdventure Zelda would just be a bit like a Medieval Metroid Prime, which might appeal to some of you but I want Zelda not Metroid - I played MP3 for a few hours but couldn't get into it at all. Maybe it'll be a bit more over the shoulder view (but still in 3rd person) like Gears of War or maybe just up a bit closer, like Links Cross Bow Training.
Anyway, hopefully Zelda Wii won't be in first person view just like it's obviously not true that Sonic will be in Mario Galaxy 2, certainly not as a playable character anyway - that would be ridiculous.
I'm hoping the announcement will be Star Fox Wii like many of you out there, I'd like to see a new Ninty console on the way too but I can't imagine it's going to be a new handheld (they've only just updated the DS recently and I think they' will be concentrating on the DSi Store to compete with the iPhone more than anything) I'd love to see a proper succesor to the gamecube - Nintendo have got away with using the technology from the last generation of consoles for over 3 years with the Wii and made a buckload of cash by innovating with the wiimotes etc. so they could be in the position to release a new console soon which is much more powerful than it's rivals, with at least 2-3 years before Microsoft and Sony could respond (especially Sony - the PS3's cost so much to produce they'll have to sell them for years before they can afford to put out a new console), Ninty could then keep on selling Wii's to casual gamers and sell it's new powerful machine to the more hardcore gamers out there and clean up, Here's to hoping anyway but I expect the announcement will be something far lamer...
Comments 210
Re: Talking Point: What Are You Playing This Weekend? (December 8th)
@wazlon have you played Okami HD yet?
Re: Review: Monster Boy And The Cursed Kingdom - The Best Wonder Boy Game Yet, Even If It Lacks The Name
ugh - really like the look of this but am being put off by the difficulty level.
It seems that all these retro-style platformers are either:
super hard
metroidvanias
collectathons
As much as I loved playing Super Metroid and Celeste this year I really just want a good quality 2D platformer which doesn't involve a ton of back-tracking or is gonna cause me to pull my hair out in frustration.
Re: Nintendo Celebrates The First Anniversary Of Super Mario Odyssey
@Euler Apologies - clearly I had forgotten about the overworld in NSMBDS - must have been that I was uninspired by the lack of creativity compared to SMW.
I hadn't forgotten that there were overworlds in the other NSMB games however! Would happily play those titles again if they were to come to Switch (don't have my ds, wii or 3ds systems anymore)
Re: Nintendo Celebrates The First Anniversary Of Super Mario Odyssey
@shadow-wolf yeah I guess that's fair. I didn't find the chimney pipe areas to be particularly difficult but they certainly were the highlight of the game for me. I guess if there had more more bits like those I would have been happier overall.
Thanks for your response in any case!
Re: Nintendo Celebrates The First Anniversary Of Super Mario Odyssey
@GeminiSaint @EdScissorshands - ah okay the perfect run is a totally different thing - clearly never got to that!
I think the issue I have is that most other Mario games give you easy, normal, hard levels - Odyssey is 95% easy and 5% hard. I just wanted some levels with a normal level of difficulty.
Re: Nintendo Celebrates The First Anniversary Of Super Mario Odyssey
@GeminiSaint yeah was going to mention that they had done the same thing in SM3DW also - but had gone on long enough
Do you think The Perfect Run was that much harder (you mean the one where you have to beat 3 bosses in under 5 minutes, right?) - I did find that incredibly difficult too but think the fact that I could move onto other difficult levels whenever that level became too overwhelming meant that I stuck with it until I finally beat it. With Odyssey once you're on the Darker Side of the Moon there's no real reason to go back to the other stages so when it gets frustrating you've got nowhere else to go - so I just gave up in the end.
Re: Nintendo Celebrates The First Anniversary Of Super Mario Odyssey
I wonder if some of the people who loved this game can help me out here. Being a huge Mario fan, whenever I read out how much people loved this game it makes me a little sad that I didn't feel the same way and has me legitimately questioning whether my disappointment of the title lies within my approach to the game.
I'm sure I'm not alone in feeling that to truly enjoy a game you need some kind of natural stopping point wherein you've felt like you've at least achieved a certain objective that challenges you in some way.
Nintendo are notorious for not including difficulty settings in their games but this doesn't mean there aren't options; whether the player wants a straightforward relatively easy playthrough or more of a challenge there's generally something for everyone, which is why most Mario games have plenty of extra content once the credits have rolled.
Take Mario Galaxy 2 for example; you can complete the main story which is relatively easy, collect all of the stars in the main game which is more of a challenge and then has a final challenge to collect all of the green stars which is harder still. Effectively serving as a easy, normal & hard settings. Personally I stopped after collecting all of the main stars and was more than happy with that as an ending (it remains one of my favourite games of all time).
This moves me back to Odyssey, I just don't think I understand where these lines lie. The main story was, as expected, really quite easy and while I enjoyed my time with the game up until that point it wasn't enough of a challenge to feel like a natural stopping point.
But no problem, I thought; upon completing the game additional Kingdoms and moons were presented. Now the real game can begin!
But the problem is, I didn't complete either of these tasks. Firstly with the moon's, there's way too many and many are just pure grind - honestly how many of you can say you enjoyed rounding up three sheep for the 12th time? (Or for that matter, how about catching a rabbit? or grabbing the flying bird? or walking along an invisible line?) I was finding it tiresome after collecting the second sheep the first time I came across this challenge, I certainly feel no compulsion to complete the same boring task multiple times over.
After some time (prob too long tbh) I realised that I was never going to obtain all - or 999 moons - in the game due to tedium, but no matter, there was still the additional Kingdoms to complete which could bring me to the natural stopping point I so desired. But therein lies my second problem with the game; after a fun but relatively brief & easy visit to the Mushroom Kingdom two more unlockable kingdoms were made available to complete - the first of which turned out to be a slog if I'm honest, using gravity to handicap Mario's abilities and then having you fight through a load of boss battles that you have already completed earlier on in the game.
The second ramped up the difficulty level so much that it seems hellishly impossible to complete. Where was the difficulty curve? The game went from being pedestrian in difficulty to a dark souls level nightmare without blinking. Suffice to say I gave up after my 20th or so attempt and never went back.
But here's the thing, a similar situation has happened to me before, where I've had to amend my approach to a Mario game to truly appreciate it. That game was New Super Mario Bros. on the NDS - initially the game disappointed me due to a lack of a few 2D Mario staples (no overworld map, lack of flying power up or Yoshi) but the thing that I felt most let down by was the lack of secret (and harder) levels or alternate exits as found in Super Mario World - something that that's almost entirely missing from NSMB. I knew there were the 3 big coins to collect in each levels but these seemed to be extras for completionists so I ignored them and put the game down shortly after beating Bowser.
When I played NSMB Wii a few years later I realised just how much fun it was to collect the 3 coins in every stage which meant applying quite a bit more skill than a standard level walkthrough and ended up loving my time with the game due to this extra challenge. I'm willing to bet if I went back to NSMBDS today I'd enjoy the game far more the second time around with this hindsight.
So I guess my question is, am I doing something similar here with Odyssey? For those of you who loved the game how did you overcome the issues I've listed above? Did you actually enjoy the grind of collecting the moon challenges that repeated themselves endlessly or find the last levels enjoyable or easy to complete? Maybe I'm missing something here but if Nintendo are going to continue with this template going forward I want to make sure I'm making the most of my time with one of my favourite gaming series.
Re: Zelda-Inspired Hazelnut Bastille Wants To Bring SNES Magic To Switch, Kickstarter Coming Soon
@AloftStudio interesting - thanks for the info. Best of luck with this endeavour!
Re: Zelda-Inspired Hazelnut Bastille Wants To Bring SNES Magic To Switch, Kickstarter Coming Soon
Can anyone explain to me the difference between this and Blossom Tales and why I should be more excited to play this one?
Looks basically the same to me except this one isn't going to release for ages (if ever) while Blossom Tales is already available.
Re: Big Nintendo News Incoming
I'd be horrified if they announced a first person Zelda, I bought a Wii rather than an Xbox 360 or PS3 because I am sick of the amount of FPS after FPS games available for the other consoles, A FPAdventure Zelda would just be a bit like a Medieval Metroid Prime, which might appeal to some of you but I want Zelda not Metroid - I played MP3 for a few hours but couldn't get into it at all. Maybe it'll be a bit more over the shoulder view (but still in 3rd person) like Gears of War or maybe just up a bit closer, like Links Cross Bow Training.
Anyway, hopefully Zelda Wii won't be in first person view just like it's obviously not true that Sonic will be in Mario Galaxy 2, certainly not as a playable character anyway - that would be ridiculous.
I'm hoping the announcement will be Star Fox Wii like many of you out there, I'd like to see a new Ninty console on the way too but I can't imagine it's going to be a new handheld (they've only just updated the DS recently and I think they' will be concentrating on the DSi Store to compete with the iPhone more than anything) I'd love to see a proper succesor to the gamecube - Nintendo have got away with using the technology from the last generation of consoles for over 3 years with the Wii and made a buckload of cash by innovating with the wiimotes etc. so they could be in the position to release a new console soon which is much more powerful than it's rivals, with at least 2-3 years before Microsoft and Sony could respond (especially Sony - the PS3's cost so much to produce they'll have to sell them for years before they can afford to put out a new console), Ninty could then keep on selling Wii's to casual gamers and sell it's new powerful machine to the more hardcore gamers out there and clean up, Here's to hoping anyway but I expect the announcement will be something far lamer...
...Like Mario Paint Wii ha ha ha ha