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Super Mario Odyssey Announced (Holiday 2017)
- Thread starter FireBeaver
- Start date
forknknife
Banned
Nah, i think that must be the Egypt level. But OK, probably there's more to it than it seems at first glance.
Adam_Vania
Banned
just got home from work. holy crap then this Mario was announced and it is open world!
and a new Bomberman too! wtf? awesome!
and a new Bomberman too! wtf? awesome!
Aldric
Member
Do you guys even bother looking at what the trailer shows you?
lt's a large "open world" level with the town at the start and a variety of structures and landmarks scattered around it: the large fortress in the background with a high tower where the objective seems to be, a huge floating pyramid, more traditional platforming sections high above the ground where you have to dodge Galaxy's circular lasers, a poisonous lake with a smaller structure in the middle of it etc.
lt's Sunshine type level design supposed to excite your curiosity and desire to explore and experiment. As far as l'm concerned it already succeeds based on simply a few seconds of footage.
That's what I thought initially too, but looking back at the footage shows the same red sand/blue sky/clear crystal structures in the "Egypt" areas as we've seen in the "Mexico" areas. So unless they're repeating that same visual motif in two distinct areas, they must be part of the same one.
I don't think anyone is making Sonic comparisons for anything other than the visual style.
CrashPrime
Member
Did anyone else catch this?
Dixie Street? Cranky Avenue? Diddy's Mart?
Might as well call it Kong City.
It's actually called New Donk City. As in Donkey Kong.
Anyone able to find out who the art director is? I'd be extremely surprised if it's anyone that's worked on a previous Mario game outside of maybe the visually uninspired New series.
Even the low poly world, an aesthetic I LOVE, disappoints. The art really just isn't up to the quality of most other Mario games. Obviously it's subjective, but whatever, I'm pretty disappointed.
Even the low poly world, an aesthetic I LOVE, disappoints. The art really just isn't up to the quality of most other Mario games. Obviously it's subjective, but whatever, I'm pretty disappointed.
Adam_Vania
Banned
so it seems pretty likely that the boss of the city will be Donkey Kong? maybe atop a Empire State Building-style skyscraper you have to scale? including a mini re-creation of the first DK game?
forknknife
Banned
Ah shit, you're right, the Mexico level is the one with the pyramid! I did not notice. I assumed there was a Mexico level and a Egypt level (the one with the bullet bills)
And even that's an insult. ;D
AtomicShroom
Member
This game is the only total surprise of the presentation for me! Totally in love with everything about it! Just a shame that I will have to buy a Switch to play it...
I get that but it's not just DK that's getting references here.
forknknife
Banned
Yeah! Just watched and noticed! I stand corrected.
There was a snake-like boss thing crawling along the top of an Empire State Building clone in the trailer, I think.
If it's SM64 style like they said, there will probably be multiple missions set in the same world. I wouldn't doubt that one of them will involve DK throwing barrels from the top of the highest building.
Yeah, look at all those open world 60fps PS3 games.
Is "open world" really the right term? I thought this was more like Mario 64, i.e. moderately-sized levels that you can explore in a non-linear fashion?
teacupcopter
Banned
This is the one thing that has me excited about Switch. I think it looks divine, creepy hat eyes not included. I can deal with that.
The scale of it looks like it qualifies as an open world in the same way that Dragon Age Inquisition is called open world.
I have been actually working on a game with a similar art-style for WiiU but due to lack of funding I stopped development on it :-/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRq6hmISB-A
I think one thing I would say about 3D World is, the art direction was more cohesive.
Disagree.
Sonic 06 completely borked and compromised the design of the characters going for this hyper realistic look to match it's angyst edgelord bullshit of a story and direction.
Stretching out proportions and choosing straight up stupid looking stances and poses for the characters.
Ffs they even ruin Eggman.
Here's what they look like in their games when good aesthetics are in play.
This is absolutely not Sonic 06. Mario is as vibrant as the world around him and maintenance his trademark features and proportions. The lighting is great and helps him blend into any world he's in. Just because the world isn't the traditional cohesive look, doesn't mean they "clash" because we're not accustomed to seeing them in Mario games. It looks fine. It may not be your cup of tea, but Nintendo's artist didn't fail by any means.
Edit
ardon the shit links. I'm on mobile.
Simbabbad
Member
How so? It's the exact same art style? Not that it looks very good, but then again, that was the N64.
The fact you have to go back to the very first 3D Mario game and one of the first 3D platformers to find something as visually problematic is telling. This thing is a visual abomination.
I strongly disagree, it looks beautiful in my eyes. It has the variety of 64, but with even more imagination and vastness. I was in awe at the reveal. Made the last few games look like lego sets.
Huge Succeeded
Banned
Sonic 06' didn't 'try visuals like this'. Sonic 06's city and this game's city look nothing alike, and Sonic 06's visual asthetic (especially in the city) has far more problems to it than just that Sonic is among humans. I suggest you hit up youtube and remind yourself what that game looked like.
It'll be the closest way I can get my Diddy Kong Racing sequel. Adventure mode was fucking fabulous.
Did anyone else catch this?
Dixie Street? Cranky Avenue? Diddy's Mart?
Might as well call it Kong City.
Just waiting on the E3 trailer where we see (King) Donkey Kong, on the top of the scyscraper!
Graphics Horse
Member
3D Mario just looks like it's going back to its 64& Sunshine sandbox roots really.
I did wonder if they'd mix up the next Mario Kart like that, to differentiate it from 8/Deluxe, but maybe they'll keep 8 going with more dlc
There's a K Rool road too so it's not just Kongs
Did anyone else catch this?
Dixie Street? Cranky Avenue? Diddy's Mart?
Might as well call it Kong City.
Pretty cool that the structure on the sign seems to resemble the level shown later in the trailer.
valkillmore
Member
LOVE. IT.
yo
We both obviously love sonic so I feel bad if I came off patronising. Apologies.
However, I have to disagree with pretty much everything you said :lol
Your notion that SA's level themes follow naturally from the Megadrive games is probably what I have least problem with. Maybe given better technology, Sonic Team could've pulled off what they were going for and it would have fit with the classics better. As it stands, Adventure looks like trash. Maybe the first three were also going for a semblance of realism but the abstraction required to make them on megadrive clearly worked wonders.
I really don't think you can argue that the boost games lack the exploration aspect of the originals. In 1 through 3 you had your high, mid and low routes and in Generations especially that is translated to 3D perfectly. You can just boost (aka hold right, fam), but take the time and you can spend hours finding all the routes, getting your red stars and finding the critical path for a speed run. I honestly doubt I can change your mind, but trust me when I say we both have an equal working knowledge of the blue dude ta very much.
Anyway it's 1am in England and we've derailed this thread enough. If you want to post a new thread bout this I'd gladly post in it in the morning.
Fuck sonic adventure with rusty razors
RayearthRob
Member
I loved it.
Everything!
Guys, the city is probably just one world... Not a full game based on thar!
Everything!
Guys, the city is probably just one world... Not a full game based on thar!
MisterGrey3000
Member
Like three of them.
I imagine they'll be a few token levels that resemble the dense, rich, tightly focused, creative obstacle courses from the so called "accessible" (this is what Mr.Miyamoto officially called them in the stream) 3D Mario games like Galaxy and 3D World.
But I'm expecting this game to mainly consist of lot of "Oh no! This person's cat is stuck in a tree, roll down the hill and bash it to get the MaGuffin!", "Gather some food in the immediate area and throw it in the pot!", and "swing on these 8 or so polls to get to the MacGuffin!"
You know that Spyro the Dragon/Banjo-Kazooie shit, stuff that feels like a Zelda side-quest.
Sandbox Mario in a nutshell.
redmetal86
Member
Did anyone else catch this?
Dixie Street? Cranky Avenue? Diddy's Mart?
Might as well call it Kong City.
New Donk City? Urge to expand rising.
PS3 graphics on a handheld? Sounds awesome to me.
BodiesWithoutOrgans
Member
Really hope mario friends appears camoe's all over the place etc
XANDER CAGE
Member
I mean to be fair, both pro and anti Donk posters are sort of talking past each other with stuff like this right now. People really need to stop acting like people who disagree with them aren't as learned as they are about artistic dissonance/artistic cohesion and explain why they think it's good or bad.
yo
We both obviously love sonic so I feel bad if I came off patronising. Apologies.
However, I have to disagree with pretty much everything you said :lol
Your notion that SA's level themes follow naturally from the Megadrive games is probably what I have least problem with. Maybe given better technology, Sonic Team could've pulled off what they were going for and it would have fit with the classics better. As it stands, Adventure looks like trash. Maybe the first three were also going for a semblance of realism but the abstraction required to make them on megadrive clearly worked wonders.
I really don't think you can argue that the boost games lack the exploration aspect of the originals. In 1 through 3 you had your high, mid and low routes and in Generations especially that is translated to 3D perfectly. You can just boost (aka hold right, fam), but take the time and you can spend hours finding all the routes, getting your red stars and finding the critical path for a speed run. I honestly doubt I can change your mind, but trust me when I say we both have an equal working knowledge of the blue dude ta very much.
Anyway it's 1am in England and we've derailed this thread enough. If you want to post a new thread bout this I'd gladly post in it in the morning.
Fuck sonic adventure with rusty razors
No problem dude.
Also, I don't think the first three games were going for realism, at least in a comparable sense to one another. However, the longer the series was developed for, the more materials (trees, flowers, rocks, metals, water/ice, etc.) began to trend towards more realistic depictions. Most plants weren't flat planes of color anymore; they started to be more comparable to real leaves in terms of shape and number of instances. The only real outlier to this is in terms of a linear timeline is Sonic CD, but then again I consider that game a fucking abomination until Taxman finally fixed it.
The different paths in the boost games don't amount to much except for diversions from the main path. A rail here or a path here to perhaps find something like an extra life, but in quick time you're diverted back on the main path. On top of that, because the game's goal is speedrunning there's only one real optimal way to go anyway; couple that with the self-admitted nightmare of making up to 10 real-world kilometers of geometry for Sonic to travel along per level, then it's clear the style gives Sonic Team far less leeway to make levels that have the kind of vertical nature of something like Marble Garden from Sonic 3. Indeed, the classics on average had more vertical space, lending themselves to an actual possibility of dropping deep down in the annals of the stages and taking completely different paths all the way to the end without ever really seeing the "main path," if there was a "main path." This type of exploration just isn't physically possible in the boost games because the land space doesn't exist. Boost gameplay (and by proxy the appearance of Classic Sonic in Gens) is not classic gameplay in any meaningful sense, no more than the godawful Sonic 4 was classic gameplay.
But you know what? That's fine. I don't inherently think 3D Sonic games need to ape classic games to be good. If anything, that's what the boost gameplay proved! But I find that it's an objective falsehood to say that there's greater parity between even just the physics systems of the boost and classic games versus the physics of the first two Adventures and the classic games, whether you're comparing them in terms of what the math was doing or just their spiritual feel: the idea of Sonic being a ball that gradually traveled in arcs versus a bullet that immediately blasted straight forward. And I think it's these kinds of inaccuracies and simplifications taken as fact over the years that have both completely ruined online discourse surrounding Sonic and actual direct communication to Sonic Team.
As a result, the 3D Sonic games still don't have much of an identity worth being excited about to me, and they have proceeded to leave really good ideas by the wayside because these ideas- the simple idea that Sonic should act like a pinball similar to how he did in Adventure- are easily conflated with "Sonic 06" and thus people shut down; they don't even want to hear it because visceral reactions overtake reasoned discourse. I feel the games are now a shell of their former selves even as quality control standards have undoubtedly risen. Each level is completely interchangeable with one another in design, and taken as a whole these games have a nonexistent difficulty curve which makes them, well, boring! You're doing the same thing against the same obstacles with the same skill threshold from beginning to end for six hours, if that; it's the definition of tedium! Reskin these boost levels with different textures and you lose absolutely nothing in terms of identity, because the designs are not at all informed by a creative context of their setting or their place in the story, but by the maintenance of a rigid and limiting design threshold that prevents Sonic Team from implementing a creative idea like, say, actually having the casino stage function like a working pinball machine (versus a boost stage with casino textures), and dropping you in the sewer system- the real Sonic level- if you lose! Don't even get me started on all of the wasted design potential by not even including Tails anymore as a playable partner.
I get it. Sonic 06 came out and was a disaster. Sonic Team had to do something real fast to recover whatever semblance of dignity they and the franchise had left, and I'm grateful they did if only because Sonic Unleashed was an absolute riot for me personally. But the systematic removal of everything that made Sonic unique, fun, and worth buying over other platformers because these ideas were also used during Sonic's early 3D days should have been a stop-gap measure to regain trust and focus, not their modus operandi going forward for his entire foreseeable future. Sonic Team doesn't need a New Sonic The Hedgehog U. It needs a fucking Sonic The Hedgehog Odyssey since yesterday. It needs the depth back. It needs the unique ball physics back. It needs the reliance on narrative and spacial context back. And these things were present in the Adventure games and classic games. Reskinned boost games with empty narratives and locations that are checked off a "Generic Platformer List" aren't cutting it for me anymore.
.......................
So how about dat dere Odyssey?
GlassAwful
Member
I'm glad to see the return of semi open worlds and the acrobatic moveset but I'm disappointed the game appears to transport you through a series of unrelated stages via your hat spaceship.
Member the 2d marios where you would move through themed naturally connected lands of the mushroom kingdom? When will they recreate this in a 3D Mario? :/
The art is all over the place and looks extremely amateur in the city and forest environments. Like something you'd see in a crappy 3D card graphics demo fifteen years ago. However, the possibility that Donkey King may return as a mini boss where they could recreate Mario ascending a crooked building framework while jumping barrels and dodging obstacles is quite awesome.
Member the 2d marios where you would move through themed naturally connected lands of the mushroom kingdom? When will they recreate this in a 3D Mario? :/
The art is all over the place and looks extremely amateur in the city and forest environments. Like something you'd see in a crappy 3D card graphics demo fifteen years ago. However, the possibility that Donkey King may return as a mini boss where they could recreate Mario ascending a crooked building framework while jumping barrels and dodging obstacles is quite awesome.