While Mario is certainly serious business, the game itself doesn’t seem to take itself seriously. Whether by design or not, Super Mario Odyssey appears to shake off the immense pressure that comes with following up on a successful franchise by emphasizing an element of fun and frivolity throughout its adventure. How do you improve on a formula that’s been polished, optimized and finely tuned over the years? If I were tasked with overseeing the latest mainline Mario game, I wouldn’t be surprised if I ended up petrified with fear as I wouldn’t want to be known as the guy who broke Mario. It’s like being tasked to reinvent the wheel. But when you think about it, creating a new Mario game can be akin to a thankless job. Does Nintendo still have what it takes to make a fresh Mario game with a new crop of young game designers? Does Mario still have clout with a new generation? And will the Super Mario franchise continue its streak of releasing definitive mainline games that do well critically, financially and artistically?īeing handed the keys to arguably the most successful video game franchise in history in terms of longevity might sound like a dream come true. and Super Mario 3D World are more akin to appetizers), there’s a lot that’s hanging on the line with Super Mario Odyssey. With Nintendo essentially opting to skip the Wii U by not giving it a proper mainline title (Super Mario Maker, New Super Mario Bros. games would not only be consistently lauded as such but would do so across multiple console generations.Īs the Switch pushes Nintendo as the comeback kid of this generation, we find ourselves once again graced with another mainline Mario title. Franchises would be lucky to come up with two or even three entries that were considered genre-defining. would prove to be the video-game equivalent of a sure thing. In the coming decades, the mainline iterations of Super Mario Bros. opened my eyes to a new world of video gaming that went beyond the Atari games I was used to playing. Featuring a mustachioed protagonist who punched bricks, stomped foes and ate mushrooms to grow big and hurl fire, Super Mario Bros.
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