Refreshment.01
Member
i was browsing the Mario Odyssey OT and saw some of the old posts made in regards to the Cappy system. Since the taughts were sparsed across various posts and the OT is mostly inactive i decided to make a new topic to concentrate them in one place in the case someone could find it interesting.
Mario is no stranger to Power Ups and transformations, from his first apperance in games with Donkey Kong to his first debut in action side scrollers, these ability enhancement mechanics have been there in some way. However, the theme, presentation and mechanics have come in many forms: for example the disguises/suits in Mario 3, vehicles in Land, a companion in the form of Yoshi in SMW 1 or the power granting caps featured in 64. We also witness different takes on this videogame concept in many other series within Nintendo itself, like the Yoshi's Transformations in World 2 or Kirby inhaling enemies to gain abilities in Dreamland.
But even as early as Super Mario Bros 1, power ups not only gave the character new abilities but also had an influence in the level's exploration since it let Mario reach new places. The murshroom transformed Super Mario could brake bricks and jump higher to reach new parts of the level that small Mario couldn't, meanwhile the latter could more easily fit in narrower spaces.
Historical perspective aside, we are here to talk a bit about Cappy. At first glance to me it seemed like a variation of Luma that also disguised the power up/costume system of past Mario games with a clever presentation trick. But after a few months of Odyssey release maybe Cappy has proven to add more functionality to the power up and companion system of the series while holding lot's of untapped potential for the future.
Cappy is full of functions, amounting to a 1 input multipurpose mechanic. At it's core, works as a jump modifier and a projectile/physical attack. Clearly inspired by Galaxy "Star Spin" which both doubled as an offensive and jump safety net manuver.
Another thing that brings to the table is a way to streamline and add aditional freedom to Power Ups. The Power Up system becomes less geographicaly dependand since taking the form of enemies means they can be more "naturally" scattered across a level and once captured they can be moved from one position to another far away one opening up even more interaction possibilities.
As we see, Cappy is solving multiple problems with a button, while quite remarkably, control scheme mostly remains the same with it's simple 3 action button setup no matter what power up state Mario is in. This is for a game in which interaction can get really complex. This is achieved by cleverly contextualizing character actions and by layering them on top of the same control scheme. It also makes the Power Up system a bit more flexible as is less location dependent and give players a bit more of freedom with creative use. See the presented Bullet Bills and Gushen examples in the above video. Contrasting this to the original 2D Mario side scroller and this is just 1 more action button for the core control set up that works wonderfully in a far more navigational intrincate game.
The other important issue Cappy solves pertains enemies in 3D mario games. When an extra dimension was added to Mario with 64 enemies became more trivial, they could be easily avoided in a tridimensional open space and their behavior patterns being so simple exacerbated the issue. With Odyssey, since most of the power up system is tied to taking possesion of an enemy with Cappy, the player is forced to aproach and engage them to some extent. Aproach, attack and then Capture.
Contrary to other games, like Mario Sunshine or Galaxy, Odyssey's progression within levels is not intrinsically tied to the power up use. Or to better put it, while indeed many Moons are designed with a power up in mind, the game presents the freedom for many of them to be gained withouth the use of an specific power up. Moons can be gathered with a variety of Captures/Power Ups or none at all. The latter pending of the player mastery of the basic move set.
Mario is no stranger to Power Ups and transformations, from his first apperance in games with Donkey Kong to his first debut in action side scrollers, these ability enhancement mechanics have been there in some way. However, the theme, presentation and mechanics have come in many forms: for example the disguises/suits in Mario 3, vehicles in Land, a companion in the form of Yoshi in SMW 1 or the power granting caps featured in 64. We also witness different takes on this videogame concept in many other series within Nintendo itself, like the Yoshi's Transformations in World 2 or Kirby inhaling enemies to gain abilities in Dreamland.
But even as early as Super Mario Bros 1, power ups not only gave the character new abilities but also had an influence in the level's exploration since it let Mario reach new places. The murshroom transformed Super Mario could brake bricks and jump higher to reach new parts of the level that small Mario couldn't, meanwhile the latter could more easily fit in narrower spaces.
Historical perspective aside, we are here to talk a bit about Cappy. At first glance to me it seemed like a variation of Luma that also disguised the power up/costume system of past Mario games with a clever presentation trick. But after a few months of Odyssey release maybe Cappy has proven to add more functionality to the power up and companion system of the series while holding lot's of untapped potential for the future.
Cappy is full of functions, amounting to a 1 input multipurpose mechanic. At it's core, works as a jump modifier and a projectile/physical attack. Clearly inspired by Galaxy "Star Spin" which both doubled as an offensive and jump safety net manuver.
Another thing that brings to the table is a way to streamline and add aditional freedom to Power Ups. The Power Up system becomes less geographicaly dependand since taking the form of enemies means they can be more "naturally" scattered across a level and once captured they can be moved from one position to another far away one opening up even more interaction possibilities.
As we see, Cappy is solving multiple problems with a button, while quite remarkably, control scheme mostly remains the same with it's simple 3 action button setup no matter what power up state Mario is in. This is for a game in which interaction can get really complex. This is achieved by cleverly contextualizing character actions and by layering them on top of the same control scheme. It also makes the Power Up system a bit more flexible as is less location dependent and give players a bit more of freedom with creative use. See the presented Bullet Bills and Gushen examples in the above video. Contrasting this to the original 2D Mario side scroller and this is just 1 more action button for the core control set up that works wonderfully in a far more navigational intrincate game.
The other important issue Cappy solves pertains enemies in 3D mario games. When an extra dimension was added to Mario with 64 enemies became more trivial, they could be easily avoided in a tridimensional open space and their behavior patterns being so simple exacerbated the issue. With Odyssey, since most of the power up system is tied to taking possesion of an enemy with Cappy, the player is forced to aproach and engage them to some extent. Aproach, attack and then Capture.
Contrary to other games, like Mario Sunshine or Galaxy, Odyssey's progression within levels is not intrinsically tied to the power up use. Or to better put it, while indeed many Moons are designed with a power up in mind, the game presents the freedom for many of them to be gained withouth the use of an specific power up. Moons can be gathered with a variety of Captures/Power Ups or none at all. The latter pending of the player mastery of the basic move set.
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