Odyssey is not Top Tier | Change My Mind

[EDIT: A lot of the comments stated that my claims were unsubstantiated. Upon reading the post again, I have come to agree that this is the case. While I still have the same opinion on Super Mario Odyssey, it is much more of a subjective one. In future Change My Mind posts, I will use more evidence and try to choose a much more objective topic. Please keep this in mind when reading this post.]

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Hey everyone! My last two Change My Mind posts, Nintendo Switch won't sell 100M, have definitely opened my mind to opposing views from the community, so let's talk about another controversial topic and see if you can change my mind.

The topic is:

"Super Mario Odyssey is a great game, but it does not deserve to be listed among the top games of the Switch, like The of Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and Splatoon 2."

I will discuss points for and against this topic and explain why I have come to the conclusion that the topic statement is correct. Then, it is your job to discuss it with me in the comments. I will mainly be comparing Super Mario Odyssey to these three games throughout the post.

Table of Contents

Gameplay

Content

Story

Potential

Conclusion

Gameplay

Super Mario Odyssey's gameplay is great and it is definitely one of the best features about the game. In fact, I would argue that its gameplay is equal to that of the top three games'. There is nothing more fun than being Mario and getting to bounce around the kingdoms using all of the very interesting jumping mechanics. This is especially true when using Cappy. The range of movement options is phenomenal and definitely means that the game is very fun.

The exploration is also very fun, but it is nothing compared to the amount and quality of exploration in Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. In these games, secrets are packed all across the world and hidden areas are everywhere. While you can find little minigames from finding doors in Super Mario Odyssey, most of the paths that you can take are along the path of the main journey. Even though Odyssey's kingdoms are quite large, there isn't as much optional content that requires vast exploration.

Furthermore, while the core gameplay is very fun, it is annoying how easy most of this game is. People who want to defend Super Mario Odyssey will always point out that the post-game is hard, but it sucks that you have to play through so much easy content to access this difficult part of the game. This compares to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild where the game stops holding your hand as soon as you unlock the Paraglider, or right from the start in Splatoon 2, where almost every player is better than you when you begin. It's truly unfortunate that a game with so much potential is so easy just so that they can cater to new players. There already is an assist mode so they should have made the game harder and allowed new players to use the assist mode. The game is horrendously easy until the very end.

Content

Super Mario Odyssey does not have nearly enough content to justify it being among the top three Nintendo Switch games. While Splatoon 2, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Xenoblade Chronicles 2 can last upwards of 250 hours, Super Mario Odyssey's post-game ends about 75 hours in. Of course, you could spend hundreds of hours more if you replayed the game, perhaps speedrunning it, but it is very repetitive and it is not fun at this point.

There are 830 Power Moons in Odyssey, which at first is very impressive. However, when it takes no more than an average of 2 minutes to find each one, it doesn't exactly take a long time to collect a lot of them. This ties in with the argument about difficulty. Because the game is so easy, the Power Moons are collected so quickly and you end up with 600 easy-to-get Power Moons, and the rest mostly aren't too difficult.

The Kingdoms are a huge playground for Mario to move around in and find Power Moons. However, only a small amount of Power Moons are needed to get to the next Kingdom. You find that you can beat Kingdoms in half an hour which is way too fast. In The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, certain quests can take hours to complete. Even the four main Divine Beast quests combined take longer than the main story of Super Mario Odyssey. This should be concerning, especially since there is so much more content than the Divine Beasts in Breath of the Wild.

Story

Story has never been an important part of a Mario game, which is one of my critiques of the series. I think Odyssey handles it well, but there is still so much more that can be done. I can't comment on Splatoon 2's story, because it is completely different to the other three games discussed here. However, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Xenoblade Chronicles 2 both have stories which are much more apparent. Odyssey, you have to save the Kingdoms from destruction after Bowser wreaked havoc on them when stealing something for the Wedding. In Tostarena, he stole the ring. In Mount Vonbolo, he stole the delicious soup. The story is actually pretty good for a Mario game, but there is little character development and you never get to know the characters beneath the surface.

Potential

Super Mario Odyssey has an amazing potential which stems from the large number of options that the capture mechanic provides. The Writer Division of SIB has already explored new capture ideas, so I won't spend any time on that. Instead, I am going to talk about how these captures are used. Currently, they are pretty boring as they are just a method of getting from Point A to Point B. They could also be used for advanced puzzles and fast-paced parkour. There are many different ways that captured enemies could help to solve complicated puzzles. However, in Super Mario Odyssey, it seems that the puzzles are limited to "bring an Uproot over here and break these bricks to get to the secret platform." If different captures could be combined, it would be so much more fun. Maybe you have to make a stack of Goombas, get an Uproot to stand on the stack (they would have to alter the mechanics to make this possible) and then you could reach a certain area. They could also be used for fast-paced action areas. You could capture a Cheep Cheep, swim it over to an area with a Bullet Bill Blaster and capture the Bullet Bill in the middle of the air before having to jump out of the Bullet Bill to quickly wall jump up to a Volbonan (the fork that flings you to places) and use it to get over a ledge all in quick time. Unfortunately, we do not see these types of ideas in Super Mario Odyssey because the developers never fully explored the game's potential. While this does give me hope for a sequel to Super Mario Odyssey (perhaps a future Change My Mind will be why a sequel is better than DLC), it's disappointing that they couldn't explore its potential in the first game.

Conclusion

I've presented my negative views on Super Mario Odyssey and why I believe it does not deserve to be categorised among the top three Nintendo Switch games. Now it is your job to change my mind in the comments. I'll respond to every comment by someone who wants to change my mind because I want to have an open discussion. Until next time!

Special thanks to Astrid and Obby who both made the thumbnails for this post. You two are great!