New Review: Mario Odyssey plays it a little too safe for my liking, but the fun and the charm it offers is hard to resist

Super Mario Odyssey is a game that I thought I’d like much more than I did, and it’s puzzling, because I enjoyed my time with it quite a bit. For all that it has, and it has a lot, it feels somehow empty, and the experience, though memorable in its own right, was one I finished with fairly mixed feelings. This has been a tough review to write, in part because of the excellent quality and the high level of polish that Mario’s latest adventure brims with at every turn. The eagerly-anticipated return of the Mario series to an open world, sandbox-style game is something I greatly appreciated, and there’s absolutely no denying that 3D Mario controls as excellently as ever and that there’s no shortage of fun to be had. I guess I just expected it to be more memorable. I thought it would push the envelope more for the Mario series than it does, that it would evolve its storytelling, that the various kingdoms would be larger, that they’d feel more connected to each other than via a static map, that the bosses would present just a bit more of a challenge… that the game would be just a little bit more daring. 

But let’s step back for a second and take a look at how the Mario series has gotten to this point.

Though Super Mario 64 arguably helped to invent what we now know of as open world gaming, the Mario games shied away from this approach as time went on. Super Mario Sunshine kept its open world aspects fairly intact, but then Super Mario Galaxy on the Wii and its sequel came along. Both were incredible games, but both were unmistakably designed more along the lines of the quickly-paced “start-to-finish” level style of Mario’s 2D incarnations. This served as a major contrast to the more exploration-driven 3D series up until that point. Galaxy 2 went as far as to eliminate the idea of an explorable 3D hub world almost entirely, a direction more or less maintained by the similarly linear Super Mario 3D World on the Wii U. 

The return of exploration to Super Mario Odyssey was much-celebrated, though it doesn’t entirely manage to re-create the scope of 64 and Sunshine, mainly because its world is broken up into various smaller “kingdoms” which are separated by a repeating cutscene/load time after being selected off of a 2D map. The locations themselves are of course fully explorable, but the disconnect between them takes away from the feeling that this is a singular world to play around in. There’s an attempt to connect the kingdoms through hidden paintings that warp you from one to a secret area on another; an incredibly cool concept that unfortunately plays only a small role in the game. Similarly, characters from some kingdoms make appearances in others, which is another great idea, but these both feel more like window-dressing than a solid force that pulls together what’s otherwise a fairly fragmented world. None of these fragments are quite as impactful as Super Mario 64’s Peach’s Castle, in large part because it was a singular, seamless world, which Odyssey’s simply isn’t.

The strangest thing for me in retrospect is that Mario Odyssey arguably peaks with one of the game’s earliest kingdoms. It surprisingly isn’t the Metro Kingdom, whose New Donk City was predominantly featured in the game’s marketing, but rather the Sand Kingdom, the first you get to explore after two small tutorialized ones. Whether it’s the little village of Tostarena, surrounded by expansive sand dunes and underground worlds, modes of transportation including zipping through electric wires and riding on creatures called Jaxis, or a story-driven change to a beautiful, haunting night time reminiscent of Breath of the Wild, the first major world you get to sink your teeth into is truly amazing and sets a high standard for the rest of the game. It’s a mark that the following kingdoms don’t seem quite able to meet. They all have their own story missions to complete, their little NPC areas, their unique features and currencies. But none match the expansive scope and true sense of adventure felt in Mario Odyssey’s first couple hours in the Sand Kingdom, the only one for me which captures the adventurous spirit that Mario Odyssey seems aiming to deliver. Though to be fair, a couple of the others do come close. 

It’s initially a bummer, but thankfully the incredible level of personality and amount of sheer invention and sense of detail throughout Mario Odyssey helps to lessen the disappointment. The Metro Kingdom has a jazzy, vibrant feel to it, with a bustling sense of activity and vibe that I certainly don’t remember having seen in a Mario game before, while sunset in Bublaine of the Seaside Kingdom is something truly beautiful and relaxing to boot. The many kingdoms that you get to explore across the world of Mario Odyssey brim with such a sense of life that I couldn’t help but wish more had been done with them. The story mission that takes place in each one is over rather quickly, and due to the incredibly small role that the NPC characters in each world play in the proceedings, little seems to be truly at stake despite the dire circumstance each kingdom finds itself in. It’s here that the Mario series’ historic focus on minimal storytelling proves to be a hindrance; in an imaginative world filled with charming characters and excellent bits of dialogue, it’s simply a missed opportunity that none are given the chance to leave a mark. Even your companion Cappy, who’s relegated mainly to repeating gameplay hints to you when traveling from one kingdom to the other, has little to say or offer beyond the game’s opening hours. The main story meanwhile can't wait to let you to travel to the next kingdom, and though you’re welcome to hang back and continue exploring and collecting Moons, (Odyssey’s version of Stars or Shines) it made me wonder what the game’s hurry was, and why it couldn’t give us a more substantial story to experience on each world before telling us to rush off to the next one. 

That said, the benefit of an exploration-driven Mario game is that you can play it how you want. As was mentioned, you’re able to hang around and continue exploring and collecting Moons, and while many of the kingdoms aren’t as large as I’d have liked, they almost all have no shortage of secrets and tons to interact with. Mario Odyssey’s platforming itself, with takes place in either 2D or 3D, is for the most part self-contained, separated through a warp function from the exploration. As far as 3D Mario is concerned, the platforming sections don’t have quite the same magic of those featured in the Galaxy series, or even 3D World, with Odyssey focusing more on its exploring and collecting. I think a better balance was there to be had, but it’s nevertheless always fun to stumble across a hidden platforming section, and the game does a pretty good job of letting you know if there are still Moons or currency to collect within them, or whether you’ve already found all there is to find, which is helpful. 

Visually, Mario Odyssey is often quite gorgeous. The kingdoms you explore have incredibly distinct visual styles, and the game handles itself well at 60FPS (save for some understandable stuttering in the bustling New Donk City) which is a pretty great accomplishment given the speed and fluidity in which Mario can move through the non-linear level design. As with much of the rest of the game, I wished its art direction took a few more risks in places (an equally derivative food kingdom replaces the standard fire kingdom,) but when Mario Odyssey does try something new, such as a massive dragon boss that’s very much out of the realm of what you’d expect from a Mario game, it pays off. I just wish there was more of it. The music similarly doesn’t break down any walls, but it’s often pleasant and atmospheric, and, on rare occasions such as a quiet night in the Sand Kingdom or the jazziness of New Donk City, manages to stand out.

I’d like to end by repeating the point that Super Mario Odyssey is a lot of fun. I don’t want my disappointment with it to turn you away from giving it a shot yourselves, especially if you’re excited about it. As a showing of the Switch’s capabilities, in providing a charming world with endless hours of gameplay and content to access, including an incredibly lengthy post-game, and in delivering a quality title that fans would expect from Nintendo’s main mascot, Mario Odyssey certainly does its job.

It’s possible that Breath of the Wild, which came out in the same year that this game did, took some of the wind from its sails, as it did for many of its fellow open world-style games. I tried my best while playing not to compare the two, because they’re of course very different experiences, but it was hard not to wish that the spirit of some of that game’s more daring innovations made it across to Odyssey’s development, especially as its opening hours seemed to indicate that it might have. Doing my best to remove the latest Zelda game from the equation, however, Mario Odyssey still plays it a little too safe for my liking. The idea of an epic, world-traversing Mario game had many possibilities, but the decision to keep its characters and narrative aspects firmly in the background, and the decision to break its world up into many smaller-than-expected pieces goes against these possibilities and leaves us with a fun and polished, albeit a somewhat predictable, experience, and as a result one just not as adventurous as I’d have hoped for.  

An enjoyable game and a fun way to try out your brand new Switch, just don’t expect it to do much to innovate or to really take this series to places it hasn’t gone before, despite the huge possibilities its concept offered to do so.  

3.5/5

New Review: The surprisingly good Yakuza 6 proves to be a breath of fresh air in what has become a rather stagnant series

It’s always a nice thing when a game can come around in such a long-running series and manage to completely reinvigorate it, and Yakuza 6, against all odds, happens to be one of those games. 

For what feels like the first time in many years, I found myself not only invested in what a Yakuza game had to say, but also entirely immersed in its world. A big part of this is due to Yakuza 6’s back-to-the-basics approach; I don’t deny that some fans may mourn the loss of certain features, and 6 also sidelines a majority of the recent Yakuza games’ ever-growing cast of characters. But for me, the narrative sidestep serves as a welcome return to form, allowing the writers to focus almost exclusively on main character Kazuma Kiryu, telling a refreshingly down to earth story that, I’m happy to say, comes without the forced J-pop elements and the mandated mini-games of recent installments. This takes place amidst the most dramatic visual upgrade seen since Yakuza 3, proving to be the real star of the show and re-energizing what had otherwise become an incredibly stagnant series. 

While I once fully enjoyed the Yakuza games for their involving storylines, fun combat systems, and immersive cities to explore and interact with, I’d been growing increasingly tired of what I’d begun to realize was the game basic gameplay being featured again and again. Yakuza’s 4 and 5 painfully divided their narratives among several different playable characters, while increasing the focus on (what I found to be) filler content and tedious mini-games mandated by the main story. Their minute-to-minute gameplay however remained incredibly similar to what it was from the very beginning, over the years having only tepidly evolved from there. Last year’s Yakuza 0, as a result, proved to be the first installment that I had to force myself to finish: a game that, for all its fancy battle system upgrades, still felt like it belonged on the early years of the PS3, and even the PS2, in some regards. 

Despite all this, Yakuza has always managed to carry with it a level of fun, with the games being fun enough on a basic level that I couldn’t help but wish they were better. Yakuza 6’s biggest triumph, then, is its much-overdue new graphics engine, which finally brings the presentational aspects back up to speed for a far more well-rounded experience than anything this series has seen in a long time. Kamurocho feels alive in a way that it hasn’t quite before thanks to some incredible visuals and audio. The lighting effects and reflections are stunning, and combat as you explore is more seamless than it has ever been, with the transition from exploring to battling almost an instant one. Similarly, entering and exiting buildings comes with no load times to speak of, with it even possible to enter buildings while fighting enemies and having them follow you inside. The incredible graphical facelift comes with features that this series should have had years ago; Auto-saving instead of having to run to a phone booth to save your game is alone a major convenience, and the ability to Pin locations on your map is a much-overdue feature that makes a world of difference. Narratively, the removal of the blocky PS2-era text boxes, which has plagued these games from the start, dramatically improves pretty much everything about Yakuza 6’s storytelling. Menus have also been completely revamped, with a mobile phone interface allowing easy access to quest menus, items, and leveling up screens, which, while not necessarily new (GTA4 did a lot of this back in 2008) easily puts its presentation far and above that of other Yakuza entries. 

As with part 3’s Okinawa, this game’s Onomichi (Hiroshima) serves as a relaxing, more laid back and beachy counterpart to the hustle and bustle of Kamurocho. This new city regrettably doesn’t allow you to enter too many of its buildings, something the Yakuza games have always struggled with when it comes to new locations, but the graphics are beautiful and the vibe relaxing enough that I enjoyed my time spent there as much as I enjoyed exploring the all-important red light district of Kamurocho, which, as always, features a true abundance of sidequests to take on, mini-games to play, restaurants to enter, and various bars and clubs to make use of. 

Presentationally, the only thing that hurts 6’s next gen appearance is an over-abundance of screen tearing and moments where the framerate falls below its targeted 30FPS. In Kamurocho especially, the seamlessness seems to take its toll on the engine, with abundant, almost hallucinatory screen tearing happening any time you approach the entrance to a building or run through a crowd of people, even extending to just rotating the camera or scrolling across the map.  Yakuza 6’s screen tearing may be among the worst I’ve ever seen, and while this isn’t something that really gets in the way of gameplay, it’s hard to believe that such an obvious visual flaw was allowed to exist in the final product. I’ve read that this is less a problem if played on the PS4 Pro, so if you have the choice, that would seem to be the best way to enjoy the game, as you also apparently get a higher resolution and more stable performance on top of it. Still, it’s unfortunate that fixing or at least reducing this doesn’t seem to have been a priority for those playing on standard PS4s. 

These visual shortcomings aside though, I can’t stress enough that Yakuza 6 looks and sounds great. Would I have liked a larger area to explore? Perhaps, but all in all I’m okay with taking a smaller game if that’s what it took to make Yakuza 6 feel like a current gen product, and, for the most part, it does. 

Combat also sees itself retreat from its complex iteration in Yakuza 0 to a more basic template reminiscent of earlier entries. Instead of featuring multiple fighting styles, as the recent few games have had, Yakuza 6 instead primarily focuses on you achieving HEAT mode by building up attacks, and then unleashing your increased strength on enemies while avoiding their own attacks. It’s simpler but still works, with the reduction in the number of over the top battle animations and the fewer weapons available to pick up being the only cutbacks that I think could have been avoided. Otherwise, the leveling up system is fine, granting you a solid amount of control over the customization of your character, and there remains little that’s more satisfying than throwing your enemy to the ground and mashing a bicycle on top of them, so in that sense, Yakuza 6 certainly delivers. 

As alluded to earlier, the storyline similarly seems determined to scale itself back from the sprawling, multi-character casts of Yakuza’s 4 and 5. As such, Yakuza 6 actually feels more like a follow-up to Yakuza 3 than to those that came since, and I can’t help but think that this was a determined developer choice; characters and events from parts 4 and 5 drop off the map entirely for much of the game, making them appear to be largely unrelated to the series’ present. Yakuza 6, in cutting out a lot of the filler, is also one of the shorter entries in the series, clocking in at around 25 hours, with a good portion of wandering and side missions tackled to boot. Sticking to the main quest alone would probably put you closer to 20 hours or shorter, which still isn’t bad given the length of your average game nowadays; and being left wanting (just a little bit) more is I guess better than being left wanting less. 

The story itself is solid, featuring some surprisingly well-directed moments throughout its many compelling cutscenes. From the beginning, Yakuza 6’s narrative held my interest. Haruka, the daughter-like figure Kazuma has been looking after since the first game, has wound up in a coma under mysterious circumstances; in addition, she happens to have given birth to a child. Given the increasingly irritating role Haruka’s been playing throughout the series, especially in Yakuza 5, her comatose state in 6 alone helps elevate its narrative above many of its predecessors’. The scenario that unfolds feels both focused and personal, and while still not holding a candle to that of parts 1 and 2 (the only ones with crime novelist Hase Seishu’s involvement) Yakuza 6’s simpler tale easily tops the many that have come since. That’s not to say that things are perfect; the new characters aren’t especially memorable, and their lack of screen time can make it hard to keep track of some of the game’s villains. Yakuza 6 does make an effort to shorten the series’ sometimes excessively long cutscenes, but of course the Japanese-only dialogue means that there’s still a lot of subtitle reading required of the player, and depending on the size of your TV and your distance from it, reading subtitles for extended periods of time isn’t always the easiest on the eyes. I understand the budgetary reasons for this, and the Japanese voice acting's universally excellent, so this isn't a huge problem, I just still find myself wishing that there was a way Sega could incorporate an optional English voice track. On a final note, a lengthy mid-credits sequence also reverses a couple of the story’s more daring plot developments, but the ultimately predictable ending doesn’t take away from what happens to be a surprisingly compelling story, even if the series still sadly pulls back when it appears that it’s about to attempt something truly bold narratively. 

All in all though, I was pleasantly surprised by Yakuza 6. Adopting a “less is more” strategy is always a risky move in a long-running series such as this one, but in this instance it’s a decision that I feel paid off. I wouldn’t be surprised if there are fans, especially fans of 4, 5, and 0, who are bummed that many of the characters and combat mechanics from those games have had a greatly minimized role in this latest installment. But the slimmed down and more focused nature of Yakuza 6, including its gorgeous new graphics engine and a much-needed upgrade of the series’ presentational elements, to me proved far more important. I’d have preferred a little more to explore, with more buildings to enter in Onomichi and a Kamurocho that’s at least as explorable as it was in previous entries, but Yakuza 6, which I’d thought would be my final Yakuza game, has instead reinvigorated my interest in them. And that’s a pretty big accomplishment for a series’ 7^th major entry, and definitely a game I recommend to fans of story-driven games and open world beat-em-ups. 

4/5

New Review: Night in the Woods is as unforgettable as it is understated and beautiful

A truly evocative narrative-driven sidescroller, Night in the Woods is as unforgettable as it is understated and beautiful.

The game begins with main character Mae Borowski, stranded inside a bus station, her parents having forgotten that she was arriving in town that night. From the minute Mae begins chatting with the station repairman, the dialogue grabbed me, coming across as both true to life and incredibly genuine. Night in the Woods is an adventure game, with its dialogue and narrative ultimately taking center stage, and they’re both thankfully more than up to the task.

After dropping out of college in her sophomore year, Mae returns her hometown of Possum Springs, a working-class municipality surrounded by a dense wilderness, to move back in with her parents. Her friends, who have remained in town and mostly work retail jobs, seem pleasantly surprised, though clearly caught off guard, by her return. Much of Mae’s backstory is communicated slowly as the game progresses; the interactions Mae has with those around her, including her friends and parents, all seem to contain their own little secrets and in-jokes. Though Night in the Woods opts to slowly introduce its characters to you, it isn’t done in a gimmicky way. Everything has a natural flow to it, and the game’s revelations are handled in a manner that somehow feels real, as if these characters were people we know in our own various existences.

This is despite Night in the Woods’ characters being, well, animals. Mae Borowski takes the form of a cat, and all the other residents of Possum Springs are given animal appearances as well. The world is styled like a comic book, its artsy visuals somehow juxtaposing wonderfully with its incredibly realistic story, which dabbles quite easily into serious topics such as mental illness, sexual identity, the death of the middle class town, and much more. Night in the Woods is also, at other times, an incredibly funny game, and the way in which it so effortlessly walks the tightrope between its different tones is something to behold. The gorgeously simple but compelling visuals help hold everything together as well; though the framerate does struggle when running through parts of town, and the load times are a little long for what's on display, Night in the Woods otherwise presents itself beautifully.

Each day you’re given the freedom to wander the town. Visiting and making plans with either one of two friends ultimately advances the plot, taking you to some sort of event which propels the narrative forward, allowing you to sleep before once again repeating the proceedings. Each day those who live in Possum Springs are available to talk to as you pass by, all offering new things to say and insight into the world in which these animals inhabit. Gradually a storyline emerges, with townspeople going missing in bizarre ways, and Mae and her friends begin to take an interest in getting to the bottom of the mystery. It winds up being incredibly compelling stuff.

What Night in the Woods though sadly doesn’t do as well is allow you to know exactly what it is you’re doing that will advance the plot. I eventually realized that visiting either Bae or Gregg and accepting their respective invitations will propel the story forward, but due to the game’s determined lack of interface and therefore a lack of an explanation of its systems, something all too common in games today, there are early on some frustrations when I wanted to continue exploring but the plot advanced before I intended it to. This is especially evident in the game’s final act, where I’d had no idea that advancing to the evening would be taking me to, essentially, the point of no return towards the end of the game. Given how great the storytelling of Night in the Woods otherwise is, its abruptly-arriving final chapters aren’t a huge flaw in the grand scheme of things, but the unexpected realization that I might suddenly be experiencing the final 30 minutes of a game is always is bit of a bummer for me, as I usually like to do some last-minute exploring, especially in a world I love as much as this one, and to be more mentally prepared for its impending conclusion.

Night in the Woods, though primarily focused on exploratory sidescrolling and its storyline and dialogue, does include some platforming and mini-game aspects as well. These segments pop up throughout the adventure and while they do shake things up, it isn’t always to the game’s benefit. Similarly to how other aspects of Night in the Woods suffer from its interface-less interface, it’s at first confusing when platforming to know what you’re able to jump off of or onto and what you aren’t. The mini-games that often crop up, including a Guitar Hero-styled rhythm game and other story-driven ones such as a knife war between Mae and Gregg, are amusing and add character to the story but ultimately are a mixed bag to play, as they all have a tendency to go on for a bit too long.

But it’s easy to see why the developer felt the need to include these “gameplay” aspects, even if I don’t feel that the game necessarily needed them. (Or at least not as much of them.) The mini-games and platforming aren’t bad, it’s just that they’re merely serviceable when compared to others in their respective genres, and the addition of “serviceable” into a game that’s otherwise fantastic doesn’t help it so much as distract from it.

Afterall, Night in the Woods is in many ways an unforgettable little adventure. The above-described gameplay elements feel almost unnecessary, and the game’s abrupt dive into its conclusion may surprise those hoping to explore Possum Springs a little more before reaching the end credits. I’ll add that some less-than-subtle political undertones do present themselves towards the end of the game, something I was a little taken aback by, even as someone who happens to agree with the game’s politics. It’s really the only time I think Night in the Woods becomes slightly overbearing in its message, and I hope that it doesn’t alienate anyone who’s otherwise fully immersed in the compelling world and its narrative, because I think in a lot of other ways the game’s characters and many of its themes are so universal. Mae’s journey, her and her friends’ imperfections and all, is something truly worth experiencing. It’s one that ends maybe a little bit too soon, and a part of me wishes it had gone for an M-rating instead of Teen, just so that the themes it bravely chooses to tackle could have been presented even just a little bit more fully. But what it offers is something that I think could stay in my mind for years to come. Definitely a worthwhile download for those who enjoy artsy games and great stories.

4/5

Note; this review is based on the Nintendo Switch version.