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Super Mario Odyssey Announced (Holiday 2017)
- Thread starter FireBeaver
- Start date
Cave Johnson
Member
I had to go to the doctor to drain the massive amount of blood in my dick with that image.
Does it though? I'd call it light platforming.
It's the equivalent of something like SMB3's very first stage.
Fun because it's inherently engaging. Not because it's challenging.
Through large sections of SMG you cannot fall of the planet That doesn't exactly scream tight linear platforming.
I'll give you an example and it will not be unique. Battlerock Galaxy starts you off collecting things. That ain't pure. You slingshot from platform to platform using gravity mechanics. The section poses no challenge. Then you go to the next section, where it is a legitimate linear section. But there's no precision, because you cannot fall of the platform. There's no danger, because of the health meter. And then for section 3, you figure out that you need to guide the bullet bill into the cage and then execute the task. Again, that's not pure, precise, linear, tight, focused or any other adjective.
What it is, in essence, is the same exact thing as guiding the Snowman's head to his body in Cool Cool Mountain.
Figure out what to do, and complete a simple objective.
Collect things, Solve Puzzles, Fight Bosses, Engage in light platforming.
That's what SMG and SM64 are, with SM64 being sandboxy and open ended on top of it.
Having said that, fuck Galaxy, the cult of the tight focused level design can have it, and its expansion pack.
It's all about the Odyssey now and the age of freedom it will bring.
Huge Succeeded
Banned
New Donk City is obviously not the hub.
Am I the only person here who's played Super Mario Galaxy 2 at all? I honestly don't understand why anyone assumes that NDC is the hub world and not just another level. It's painfully obvious that New Donk City is just another level xp
The Hat Ship is probably the world select. You stop at a location, fuck around for a while, complete some objectives, return to the hat ship, and leave, I reckon
EmCeeGramr
Member
Galaxy is like a 90% linear game that hides it with fancy presentation.
Not gonna lie when Nintendo directly called out 64/Sunshine as the sandbox Marios during the presentation I felt some vindication for oldass gaf arguments
Aldric
Member
There's more things defining a 3D Mario game than simple linearity.
Which is why something as seemingly minor as the return of the dive is actually a huge deal. l personally wouldn't have cared at all about Odyssey's sandbox type level design if Mario's core abilities and basic movements were as limited and stiff as in 3D World.
Mario 64 and Sunshine put you in open world style levels that you replay repeatedly to find stars hidden in them. Loading a different mission may load a challenge somewhere on the maps that wouldn't be there outside that mission, but the map is largely the same.
Galaxy's levels may share a starting platform in groups of 3, but every level is a separate linear obstacle course with a star at the end. Loading each mission loads completely different levels beyond the starting platforms, and even then the starting platforms are often changed significantly each mission. Collection generally locks you to a small area of the course and lets you progress to the next section once completed. 3DLand and 3DWorld feature this same kind of collection, as well as finding star medals and green stars hidden in the levels, which are required to beat the game.
Banjotanooki
Member
Huh.
I always thought both Galaxy 1 and 2 were more like 64 and sunshine. At least galaxy more...
Huge Succeeded
Banned
Mechanically, Galaxy 1 and 2 are way closer to 64/Sunshine than 3D Land/World, but both Mario's moveset and the level design are restrained in such a way, that I feel there's not often as much room or reason to experiment with your moveset to progress like in 64. Outside of cool stage gimmicks, Mario's moveset in Galaxy is pretty straightforward and simple, to its benefit - but as a result it's simply not as enabling as 64's moveset at any given time.
At the same time, progression-wise, I do feel like Galaxy's course and objective design feels closer to course-clear Mario games, with 64/Sunshine's emphasis on enabling exploration and experimentation taking a clear backseat to tightly designed linear levels. In that sense, I agree with Nintendo grouping the Galaxy games with 3D Land and 3D World - at the very least, they're probably going to feel a lot less like 64 than this game appears to, both mechanically and progression-wise
At the same time, progression-wise, I do feel like Galaxy's course and objective design feels closer to course-clear Mario games, with 64/Sunshine's emphasis on enabling exploration and experimentation taking a clear backseat to tightly designed linear levels. In that sense, I agree with Nintendo grouping the Galaxy games with 3D Land and 3D World - at the very least, they're probably going to feel a lot less like 64 than this game appears to, both mechanically and progression-wise
And it was perfect. 3D World felt like way too much of a simplification. Or maybe it was just more honest about what it was.
Regardless, I'm stoked to be getting another open style Mario again. It's been too long.
Well the prologue level in SMG has you hopping from planet to planet to fight goombas to open the way to the next planetoid that you cannot fall from and you end the level by stepping on switches to change their colors.
The first 'real' level has you visiting more planets that you're stuck to, collecting more things, stepping on more switches, negotiating some of the simplest platforming obstacles ever invented, fighting enemies with your fists, and then fighting a boss.
The same things I did in SM64's first stage.
J
Jpop
Unconfirmed Member
RagnarokX says it well.
SMG Galaxy planets act as hubs that drastically change level to level and are primarily having you go from one point to another by platforming. They are not cohesive, open and explore-able areas.
Galaxy 1/2 were A to B
64 and Sunshine were 'here's your world, here's your goal, now it's up to you on how to get there.'
I hope it removes the drop-in/out of levels aspect though. I just wanna keep going like Banjo-Kazooie.
D
Deleted member 30609
Unconfirmed Member
I like both styles. It's cool to get confirmation that the open world style is still considered viable by the devs (rather than the linear style just being the "improved" way of making 3D Mario).
There were some pretty open levels in 3D World and 3D Land (although still limited in scope).
Elfforkusu
Member
Galaxy 2 is definitely a bridge directly to 3D World.
I think Galaxy 1 kind of defies categorization though.
Huge Succeeded
Banned
when you were playing Mario 64
did you also run around, exploring different areas of the map, familiarizing yourself with the environment?
did you experiment with your moveset to reach new destinations on your own?
did you forge something of your own path toward the objective?
did you take note of other objectives in the area that you couldn't reach yet, but may come back to later?
timmyp53
Member
He fits inside plumbing. He may be an a unidentified aquatic parasite.
Aldric
Member
Galaxy had enough 64 in it to feel like a more linear evolution of the original 3D Mario concept. 3D World was entirely tailored to the needs of the people who somehow think 64 was a historical mistake and are convinced Mario should have been crashbandicoot'd from the start. Pretty obvious difference really.
I would really love to see this get two player co-op online or in person using two Switches. Even if it's just DLC, having a series of missions designed to be played with a friend would be so fun. Imagine the timing and platforming challenges they could design. It could be one of the coolest co-op experiences since Portal 2.
For example, in 3D World's first level you can get a secret green star by catching a bunny, and another secret green star by catching the giant bunny, getting the mega mushroom, and breaking blocks with Mega Mario. Which is obviously the same as the chain chomp star in Bob-omb Battlefield.
TheSpaceBetween
Member
These are my thoughts as well. There was a decent amount of space to explore while still having a linear goal most of the time in G1. G2 was nearly always a straight line to the end.
The context of the level layout (open vs 'linear') is a factor but it doesn't transform SMG's gameplay on a moment to moment basis into 3D Land gameplay.
When I collect things in SMG, or solve a puzzle, or fight a boss, I'm performing the same tasks as I did in SM64.
When I traverse a bunch of obstacles in SMG, I'm also doing the same things as I did in 64.
When you say obstacle course, I have to actually think if you're really talking about SMG. To call it that conjures up an image of a ruthless gauntlet that chews up players and spits them back out. SMG wants you to engage with its platforming elements because it's satisfying in the same way that running to the top of Whomp's Fortress is satisfying. Look at all these different elements and isn't it fun to triple jump over them? That's what these games are.
3D Land is a game that's interested in actually obstructing the player's progress which is why moves were stripped, puzzle solving was done way with, and levels were constricted.
So what was this presented for? Is it just for illustrative purposes or are they saying these are their two Mario lines going forward?
Everything feels so FRESH.
I'm getting "Alice in Wonderland" vibes from a number of things, most notably the hat motif and white rabbit bosses. Not only do they remind me of, well, White Rabbit, but they're dressed like the Mad Hatter.
All of the surreal places feel like a trip down the rabbit hole, too. New Donk City looks like a photorealistic NYC circa 1980. The Mexico-themed world has a day-night cycle, living sphinxes and Day of the Dead imagery. The jungle world is dark and industrialized, with sprinkler robots and rusty rigs. And then you have the abstract food world with its highly stylized low-poly graphics and bright pastel colors — home to living forks, a featherless turkey, and Hammer Bros that wear chef hats and throw frying pans.
To quote "The Nightmare Before Christmas:" What... is... THIS? Whatever it is, it's magical. Imagine if someone had leaked this (like an actual description of the levels, not just the name). It's something I can still hardly believe, even with this amazing trailer at my fingertips.
So exciting. And to think that 3D Mario usually look weakest at the start and appear dramatically better by the time the game releases. If the game looks this good NOW, and it's not out until Holiday 2017... Imagine how epic the final product will be. :-O
I'm getting "Alice in Wonderland" vibes from a number of things, most notably the hat motif and white rabbit bosses. Not only do they remind me of, well, White Rabbit, but they're dressed like the Mad Hatter.
All of the surreal places feel like a trip down the rabbit hole, too. New Donk City looks like a photorealistic NYC circa 1980. The Mexico-themed world has a day-night cycle, living sphinxes and Day of the Dead imagery. The jungle world is dark and industrialized, with sprinkler robots and rusty rigs. And then you have the abstract food world with its highly stylized low-poly graphics and bright pastel colors — home to living forks, a featherless turkey, and Hammer Bros that wear chef hats and throw frying pans.
To quote "The Nightmare Before Christmas:" What... is... THIS? Whatever it is, it's magical. Imagine if someone had leaked this (like an actual description of the levels, not just the name). It's something I can still hardly believe, even with this amazing trailer at my fingertips.
So exciting. And to think that 3D Mario usually look weakest at the start and appear dramatically better by the time the game releases. If the game looks this good NOW, and it's not out until Holiday 2017... Imagine how epic the final product will be. :-O
CharminUltra
Member
This is why, even though I feel they're still classics, I've never felt compelled to rank the Galaxies up there with SM64.
Bring on the Odyssey!.
Boss Doggie
all my loli wolf companions are so moe
To people being confused about Mario and "real humans", you guys haven't played Smash? lol
same concept - different dimension/world
same concept - different dimension/world
The Galaxy games, 3D Land and 3D World are great... but their linear course-based nature makes it feel like you're only visiting their worlds, rather than truly inhabiting them.
With SM64 and Sunshine, you were given a vast playground and you felt free to spend as much time exploring them as you wanted. You could pore over the same corners again and again, and through repetition create a sense of intimacy, approaching the same places and spaces from many different angles.
It creates a sense of "home." I look forward to Odyssey allowing me to get similarly cozy with these weird new worlds.
With SM64 and Sunshine, you were given a vast playground and you felt free to spend as much time exploring them as you wanted. You could pore over the same corners again and again, and through repetition create a sense of intimacy, approaching the same places and spaces from many different angles.
It creates a sense of "home." I look forward to Odyssey allowing me to get similarly cozy with these weird new worlds.
That's the key. Almost every recent 3D Mario has had a weak debut but then they always come together in the final few months with amazing trailers brimming with creativity.
We're going to be in for something special in November.
broncobuster
Banned
Galaxy falls between the get to the flag and the collect stars games. There's a variety of levels
To be honest I don't know. And I don't say that to be flippant because it was twenty years ago and who really can say except people who played it recently.
I did replay it recently, and I can tell you I did all of those things but not until after I beat the game and was simply goofing off.
I played it exactly like I would play Galaxy, going from objective to objective. And it feels identical because once you get to where you are going in SM64, it plays out just like each Galaxy planetoid does.
@Lijik
I don't think I'm being unfair because there is a typical suite of gameplay that a Galaxy star features and it matches up extremely well with the typical objectives in an SM64 course.
And as Aldric pointed out, there's a lot of other things bearing on the gameplay that tie SMG to 64, like the moveset, health, suits, prevalence of bosses, and a general puzzle solving element that permeates the game (how do i get past this obstacle / off this planet?)
If stringing four disparate segments together like Galaxy does is more important than what you actually do on those planets then so be it. I have no doubt it had a major impact on how the game was received because it affects me too! SMG's brilliance wastes away for me on subsequent playthroughs because of its level layout. I don't have to be convinced of that. But it's elevated to a degree of importance that I don't think is warranted if you're actually classifying the games. To say so is like stringing together a beat em up on four consecutive planets and saying, well, it's just like 3D Land! It's putting pace and structure ahead of tangible gameplay and I think that's incorrect.
Aldric
Member
One thing l also like is that the game seems to have a slightly "darker" (big quotation marks here) atmosphere than previous entries. Remember how Mario 64 had that somehow eerie atmosphere, maybe undeliberately, with the deserted castle, the giant heels, the final bowser battle etc? This game seems to have shades of that. The forest world for ex seems far less welcoming than similarly themed levels from previous games. The night time pyramid part of the trailer reminded me of the gates of hell level from Bayo 2. Obviously it's still very cartoony but already quite distinct.
Boss Doggie
all my loli wolf companions are so moe
I prefer linear courses because you get more content out of them. Each "star" is its own completely unique level and set of challenges.
The open world style features a lot of filler to make up for lack of content. You have to traverse the same challenges repeatedly to reach goals you could have reached before but the game makes you start over from the starting point after each goal instead of letting you continue to the next. One of the worst examples of this is Tall Tall Mountain, where the first mission is to climb to the top of the mountain, the second mission is to climb to the top of the mountain where a monkey now is and will give you a star if you follow him, another star is in a waterfall at the top of the mountain, and another star is hidden at the end of slide accessed via an invisible portal near the top of the mountain. Another star is a red coin hunt at the start. All of that would be a single level in a linear type game. The top of the mountain has the goal pole. On the way to the goal pole you can catch the monkey for a green star, find a green star behind the waterfall, find a hidden challenge level for a green star, or collect green coins for a green star or red coins for a powerup or key coins to open progression. And then there would be 80 more levels like that instead of 14.
SM64 was the first stab at the formula, to be fair. With Odyssey, I think they may be bringing together the best of both worlds. Perhaps we'll see highly explorable worlds with many unique branches containing focused gauntlets for each objective. The exciting part is it'll feel like a grand adventure again since each world will be immersive in its openness and scale.
Keep in mind though the very real possibility that memory limitations restricted the number of courses SM64 could hold. Which means that reusing them actually got you more content not less.
Now maybe it's not always significant content, but level reuse is not at all a definite sign of filler or anything like that.
For a non Nintendo example look at Ground Zeroes. It comes out first, one map, reused extensively with different objectives.
Right now I'm playing thru MGS2 VR missions where they again take the same levels from the main game and remix the guard locations to create great new gameplay segments.
Even in a game like SMG with significant content they reuse courses. Are they being lazy, or wisely reincorporating one last little planet into a bigger course rather than leaving it on the cutting room floor?
I don't think Nintendo has any intention of leaving any good ideas out of this game. Revisiting the course may actually facilitate getting more of them.
Captain Europe
Member
The original Mario Bros. was also inspired by Alice actually, IIRC that's what inspired the shrinking growing mechanic.
This also gives me Doctor Who vibes, Mario in a TARDIS travelling to batshit places.
It's nice to see Nintendo lump in the Galaxies with 3D Land/World, people are so blind.
The Real Abed
Perma-Junior
What you just said is everything Nintendo said it isn't. Which is why Galaxy is in the top section and not the bottom. Galaxy is more like SMB3 and World and Yoshi's Island in that you choose a stage, go play it, and come back.
They're saying Odyssey is more like Mario 64 in that you not only get separate stages, but a whole big open hub world like Sunshine and 64 had. Which is why it's in the bottom section.
What we need to know is what exactly this hub will be and how it will connect to each world. In Mario 64 you had a castle full of paintings, and Mario could go into the paintings and play around in their world. In Sunshine, you'd actually go visit each world by finding its transport location in Delfino Plaza.
If it's just the Hat Ship that takes you to all the places, it'll be disappointing because it'll just be the same as Galaxy 2 was, which is what Nintendo has specifically said it isn't.
Yet, a good bunch of people are still kinda nay about it, which seems pretty much a guaranteed thing with 3D Mario lately. Actually pretty exciting what they'll do with the next trailer.
Huge Succeeded
Banned
When did Nintendo state that an explorable hub is an essential part of the Open World Mario formula? I know that I don't feel it's anywhere near as necessary an element as the open ended level design and Mario's moveset, and so I don't see how traveling between big ass maps through a glorified menu is such a compromise that it absolutely can't be had - or that its omission would lead Nintendo to classify the game as more similar to Galaxy and 3DL/W, when mechanically speaking it appears to play far more closely to Mario 64 than any Mario game before it. And it certainly wouldn't make the game 'just the same as Galaxy 2 was'.
At any rate, I really do think that if you have the Hat Ship serve as a location within each level, that you return to in order to travel from world to world, that's better than a hub. In a game where Mario appears to be traveling the world in a personal airship, I think that makes a lot more sense thematically than a hub Mario travels back and forth to in order to access literally the rest of the planet. And it means that focus is placed on the places themselves throughout, and they aren't just abstract zones living in a painting or exotic destinations to cannon blast to or different docking stations at an airport or some such shit