Super Mario Odyssey (Part 2)

Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3

Gonna run through several kingdoms in one go.

Lands of Themes

Put a coat on that man, he's freezing!

From the Cascade Kingdom, Mario and Cappy travel to the Sand Kingdom, the location of Tostarena, inhabited by Dia de Los Muertos-style skeleton people. And yet, the first thing the heroes do upon landing… is shiver. The desert is overtaken by ice. Well, that’s a new twist on an idea! We’ve seen plenty of video game worlds that were a mix of lava and ice, rarely one where part of the plot involves one taking over the other – and generally, it’d be the opposite, like fire burning a frozen land. Several worlds in Super Mario Odyssey play on the concept of contrast, and as a result many have two coexisting themes, which is more interesting than just having classic video game world themes to walk around in. (Not the first game to do this, but those are rare. The only other example I can think, off the top of my head, is Rayman Origins.)

2D or not 2D, that is the question!

The fancy bunny gal with the explosive temper. (Fun fact: I
added images to this article right on Easter day. So I'm only
a day late with all the bunnies!)

We investigate, going past the  town and into the ruins, where we find one Power Moon; this opens the way towards a floating island, in which we’re introduced to another concept: Collecting five Moon Shards to obtain a full Moon. That, in turn, opens the way to an inverted pyramid, with the Broodals’ ship hovering around its top. The bunnies up there boast that Bowser has stolen this land’s most prized treasure, the Binding Band, to put on Peach’s finger during their nonconsensual wedding. One of them, Hariet, comes down and fights Mario with an arsenal of explosives. Nothing we haven’t seen before. Following that, the inverted pyramid rises in the air, and Mario descends into the new chasm to fight this land’s deity, Knucklotec, protector of the ring and the true reason why the desert has frozen over.

When the occasion arises, Mario doesn't turn down a good ol'
mano a mano combat.

I swear, Rango is one black nose away from laughing
"ah-hyuck!"

Finishing the Sand Kingdom unlocks two more. We can go to the Lake Kingdom, where the Broodals are stealing a wedding dress designed by the local Lochladies, or to the Wooded Kingdom, where they intend to take the famous Soirée Bouquet, because what’s a nonconsenting wife without a bouquet to toss? The Lake Kingdom doesn’t have a boss beyond Rango, the Goofy-like Broodal. However, the acid-spitting Broodal Spewart isn’t the sole threat in the Wooded Kingdom; once he’s defeated, an alien flower-shaped machine appears, vacuuming up flowers. This one, you can choose to skip if you already collected enough Moons. Following the theme of contrast across Odyssey, Wooded Kingdom is a land of robots and plants, with the former taking care of the latter.

This guy spews poison/acid? He should get that looked at.

Even tanks can be captured! Wow.

There’s two kingdom sizes; medium ones, and large ones. The number of Moons per kingdom is so varied that there isn’t a set amount based on kingdom size, though large kingdoms have more Moons. The other difference is that medium kingdoms contain 50 purple coins to collect, while big ones have 100. It also takes more Power Moons to progress beyond a big kingdom. However, there are smaller ones on the way…

Detour by the Land of the Lost

On their way to the next kingdom, Mario and Cappy catch up with Bowser’s head airship. The three duke it out on an arena in the clouds. The turtle-dragon, dressed up for his wedding, uses his large top hat to fight; it’s equipped with robot arms that can punch things. He also tosses said hat at Mario, giving the plumber a chance to claim it to fight back.

We can now report that even Bowser's ass can cause
fiery shockwaves. Not a bit of info I wanted, personally!

I haven’t touched on controls in Part 1, but I guess I can talk about them here: While this game is designed to be played no matter what your Switch setup is, it strongly encourages playing with the remotes separated, one in each hand. Several actions are easier through motion controls. Several forms of Cappy-tossing are easier that way, like flinging both remotes at once to spin Cappy around Mario. A captured creature’s special move can be used by pressing Y, but shaking a remote will trigger a faster version of the move; other times, shaking a remote will instead reveal another ability. If Mario runs, you can hold down L to make him roll instead, which is faster but more unwieldy; you can boost Mario’s rolling speed with Y, but it'll happen even quicker if you shake the remotes instead.

Doesn't matter how often I try, every screenshot of this makes
it look like I'm punching Bowser right in the crotch.

Then, there’s the odd case of a new, temporary mode of control, like in the Bowser fights; when Mario is under his top hat, you’re the one punching the turtle, shaking the remotes one after the other. (The game always opens with a suggestion to play with the remotes separated… even if they already are.)

Each new phase introduces something new to look out for. Either way, steal the hat, run at Bowser, give him a knuckle sandwich, send him flying into the electrified barriers around the arena. Three times, and done! Didn’t think this would be the end though, did you? When Bowser is defeated, he gets back on his spaceship and his cannons fire at Mario and the Odyssey, causing them to fall from the clouds.

Come back here, you dumb bird!

They land on the Forgotten Isle, smack-dab in the Lost Kingdom, an island surrounded by poisoned waters, with the ship too busted to take to the skies. Welp, good thing a liberal application of Power Moon energy can repair anything. This hunt for Moons is interrupted by Klepto the vulture, a surprise comeback, stealing Cappy off Mario’s head. Guess we better save him too. It doesn’t take long, but you can tell Mario plays differently when he doesn’t have Cappy; throwing the lil’ guy is becoming muscle memory. We rescue Cappy, then collect a couple more Moons in the area, enough to get the Odyssey up and running again.

I love when my screenshots do my work for me. In this one,
you can tell Mario is thinking "I know all that, no need to
remind me, skip to the new stuff already!"

One thing I haven’t mentioned yet is that every time we travel between kingdoms during the main story, we MUST get through a scene in the ship where Cappy tells us some Super Mario Odyssey controls that we likely already know about. This cannot be skipped, and it gets annoying, especially since he repeats only the same few pieces of advice and we already have access to a guide within SMO itself. Thank God those end after we beat the final boss.

Cities, Snow, and Beaches

If Super Mario Odyssey has a central setpiece, it’s New Donk City, which establishes that "normal" humans exist in this universe, and they live in the a metropolis. …well, it’d be a metropolis if it wasn’t just eight city blocks. It’s smaller than it looks, but it leaves an impression because you can explore both its streets and its heights. This city connects Mario’s backstory to the rest of the franchise, implying that he is from here rather than NYC. Further aiding that implication is the presence of Pauline, the woman Mario rescued back in the first Donkey Kong. The reveal of Mayor Pauline's return had Nintendo fans picking up their jaws off the floor.

Mechawiggler is impressive, but in the rematch?
We fight two of these damn things.

But when we arrive, it’s not joyous; a thunderstorm is raging, enemy tanks are roaming the streets, and there’s a power outage. Bowser has already left, but he stuck a robotic Wiggler on the City Hall, the tallest building. Let’s capture over one of those tanks and destroy the Mechawiggler! Defeating it magically ends the rain, but Mayor Pauline needs help with other things. We first find four musicians for that evening’s festival, and then we restore the power to the city. As a reward, we take part in the ceremonies, with Mario being celebrated and participating thanks to a long 2D SMB-style segment paying tribute to the original Donkey Kong!

I love this bit so much. Everyone who got there loves it.

Contrast? This world contrasts with the rest of the more fantastical Mario universe. Past this one, we have the choice between two places opening at once; Shiveria in the Snow Kingdom, or Bubblaine in the tropical Seaside Kingdom. Winter or summer, your pick. These two don’t really offer much contrast within themselves but do contrast each other. Either way, the Broodals are hard at work, stealing the Frost-Frosted Cake from the former and the famed Sparkle Water from the latter.

A bouncy race like this would feel right at home in
Mario Party.

Shiveria is suffering from a blizzard. We can still find the entrance to the home of this world’s residents, the spherical Shiverians. We collect Power Moons to open the path to their race track, since these seal-like creatures love to race each other, and then we participate to said race – by capturing one reluctant Shiverian, of course. (Racing? More like bouncing around the race track.)

Mollusque-Lanceur is one rare example I've seen of a boss
that takes over the entire stage for the battle, and life keeps
going on around Mario and the boss as they fight.

Bubblaine is found under attack from Mollusque-Lanceur, a French jerk of a squid, who has conquered the Glass Tower in the center of the bay. We first ground-pound switches that will blast giant corks out of fountains and right onto the squid’s head. We do that four times around the Glass Tower, after which we battle the sea monster. We capture Gushens, smaller squids surrounded by water, to douse the bad guy’s head, clearing it of lava, then ground-pound his head for damage. This battle wasn’t easy at first because I hadn’t yet mastered controlling the Gushens. Oh well, I still managed!

Ruins and Castles

This lava, like bubblegum candy? Looks like Pepto-Bismol,
yeah! Even though it's doing the complete opposite...

After getting 10 Moons in each the Snow and Seaside Kingdoms, the path opens to the Luncheon Kingdom, land of Mount Volbono. The themes here: The world made of food… and the world made of lava. Don’t trust the hot pink stuff, it looks like bubblegum candy but it burns like ghost pepper gumbo. Lava Bubbles live in that stuff; in fact, you have to capture one of those to travel around the area. We start by fighting Spewart again, but it’s too late; the Broodals have stolen this land’s Stupendous Stew. Geez, that’s a lot of food for the reception.

....Ew.

Following this, we deal with Cookatiel, a giant bird with a chef’s hat, that has taken over the volcano-like mountain that serves as a cooker for the stew pot. To be taken to it, we even capture a non-sentient slab of meat, which the big pink bird will carry into the pot! …This game is weeeeiiiiird sometimes. Cookatiel will blow Mario away, so we must climb all over again and attack the bird, while wearing the fiery skin of a Lava Bubble. And how do we defeat the high-flying bird? By swimming up its waves of bright pink vomit (…looks like it’s more of a vulture!) and smack it upside the head. Did I mention weird?

Sorry mister turtle sir, we did not order a kaiju.
You must be looking for a flying hat ship one kingdom over.

The Metro Kingdom was odd due to how out-of-place it
felt, but this thing may be one of Nintendo's ballsiest moves
in a Mario game. It literally looks like it was teleported
from another universe.

After 18 Moons, the ship is ready to move on to what we assume to be its final destination: Bowser’s Castle. However, during our flight, we encounter the turtle, who isn’t on his airship, no; he’s on the head of a giant, hyper-detailed, non-cartoony dragon that blasts the Odyssey with its lightning bolt breath, breaking it (...again). The ship lands in the Ruined Kingdom, where we fight this dragon, the Lord of Lightning. Both the kingdom and the dragon look like they arrived from a whole other franchise; Elder Scrolls, Dark Souls, pick your favorite. They contrast the rest of the Mario universe in just how different they are from everything else. Bit uncanny valley, in a weird way. Also, scary as all Hell. This boss is no slouch, either, requiring the player to avoid plenty of other electric attacks, then do some light platforming, and then use Cappy to clear the dragon’s head to ground-pound it on the noggin.

You can't take away my belief that this dragon's existence is a reference to Charles Martinet voicing Paarthurnax in Skyrim.

Downside of this Bowser Castle: You never get to see the
interior. The upside: You don't need to, there's just so damn
much to explore around the walls.

This Multi Moon suffices to repair the Odyssey, and we fly to Bowser’s Castle, which looks quite different from before. Yeah, it’s the usual “giant castle at the end of the game” deal, but it’s Japanese in design compared to the European style the turtle-dragon is more commonly seen inhabiting. This “land” is a bunch of tiny islands connected by spark pylons over an endless pit. The new enemy here is the Pokio, a small bird that attacks by extending its beak; when he captures one, Mario can plant the beak into wooden walls, and he can swing his Pokio body upwards to climb.

Li'l birb and sting-beak are surprisingly versatile. I bet
they would be useful everywhere.

Before the main door to Bowser’s Castle, we defeat Topper and Hariet in sequence. Then, it’s a climb up a wall using a Pokio, and we reach the roof to confront Bowser. However, the turtle has better plans; he’ll depart for the Moon, where he will marry Peach! Against her wishes! Mario tries to give chase, but gets smacked down onto an arena where he must fight the Broodals, sharing a lousy but giant mecha! By again capturing a Pokio (these birdies are doing all the legwork in this kingdom), we toss cannonballs back at the mecha’s legs, then peck at the four spaces where the Broodals are placed on its body. Once all four are down, the mecha explodes into fireworks, netting another Multi Moon.

Speaking of… time to travel to the actual moon. In Part 3!