They might be hidden around corners, butt-stomped out of the ground, or fetched from a panoply of clever 2D, 8-bit style action sequences that involve Mario transforming into his pixelated self. While some are at the end of longer, more complex challenges, the vast majority are fairly easily obtainable with a few minutes’ or seconds’ work. These are handed out like Halloween candy in a rich neighbourhood. Not counting a handful of smaller secret locations, there are over 10 full-fledged worlds packed with dozens of Moons each. You can’t leave a world until you’ve chased the Koopa king’s minions out of it, even if you’ve collected a bunch of miscellaneous Moons. In addition to that, you’re also chasing Bowser around the world, since he - sigh - has kidnapped Princess Peach again, the one part of this game that feels stubbornly stuck in the past. Moons power the titular Odyssey, a hat-shaped spaceship, so you need to get a minimum amount of them loaded onto the ship to have enough juice to fly to the next part of the world. In Odyssey, there’s no end: Once you enter a level, you can scoop up Moons to your heart’s content. Previous games would always throw you back to the game’s hub world after you snagged one of these tokens, which represented the end of a challenge. It’s a simpler choice: You don’t get booted out of a level every time you collect a Power Moon, Odyssey‘s version of Stars or Shines. What changes the feel of the game so dramatically is not the fact that you can throw your hat and possess a man’s brain. It’s not a slavish recreation of the old Marios, but a fresh take that feels unlike any other game in the series. Odyssey, to be released Friday on Nintendo Switch, fits the bill perfectly. These are brilliant games, but they were begging for a modern interpretation. Super Mario Sunshine, assuming you still have a GameCube, starts off strong but devolves into a frustrating Blue Coin hunt. Mario 64 is great fun, of course, but it’s also old enough to drink and feeling every year of it. It’s not easy to go back and play Mario’s previous free-roaming adventures. With Super Mario Odyssey, that changes once more, and it’s a glorious thing. But for quite some time now - no matter how 3D the graphics may have been - Mario’s adventures have reverted back to running on a straight line. In 1996, broke Nintendo’s mascot from the shackles of having to run in a straight line, letting the player choose their own path.
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