One of the games that I've been fascinated by recently is Super Mario Odyssey. Yeah, I know, I'm a late adopter and I'm playing a game aimed at a target audience half my age.

But as a game designer I'm drawn to the fact Super Mario Odyssey has constant examples of some of the best design executions in any modern game.

Super Mario Odyssey trailer courtesy of Nintendo

I'm not even far enough into the game that I feel I can write a review, but I've been having a good time just playing Super Mario Odyssey and everything about it screams polish and design.

Yesterday I talked about the priorities required to make good rules from a game design, and one of them is to be consistent and coherent.

Super Mario Odyssey is a great example of this because it's got the ability to replace Mario with a bunch of different characters (for very short periods of time), and new gimmicks in every level.

Wait, what?

One of the things that makes Super Mario Odyssey such a good example of having consistent and coherent rules is the fact that it pushes you into a thousand different design spaces and manages to do so with grace and perfect technical execution.

If you want to break down the core "rules" of the game, there are really just five or so:

1. You want to move around your environment to collect items.
2. Bumping into an enemy hurts you.
3. Jumping onto an enemy generally hurts them.
4. You can throw your hat onto many characters to take them over.
5. Lose too much life or fall in the wrong spot and you have to restart from a checkpoint.

This creates a very simple, action-driven design. Each character has some slightly different variation. Mario, being the main character, has the most complex set of actions, with wall-jumps, special types of jumps, rolling, stomping, and so forth. However, as a player you can also throw Mario's hat to temporarily take over another character

Almost everything you put your hat on has only a couple commands to execute, and they're typically easily observed by watching the character that you'd put a hat onto. You can execute these commands in an interesting and novel way–you don't expect the goombas to start climbing on top of each other to reach hidden areas–but the logic of what each character can do is incredibly consistent.

The Power of a Good Tutorial

Super Mario Odyssey is clearly designed for literally anyone to play it, with its relatively limited punishment for failure (but not low difficulty), and the fact that it has simple on-screen hints for 90% of actions when you jump into a new character. Should this be insufficient, there's also a whole menu for reviewing the possible moves for Mario and other characters.

Say what you will about these often being unnecessary, they're also tremendous at making the game comprehensible.

Dynamic Worlds

Every world in Super Mario Odyssey is not only visually unique, but tends to feature its own design paradigms. The forest level, for instance, is incredibly vertical, with almost every path having a couple branches leading up or down.

Other levels include a water level, literally just a city, desert levels, and a whole cadre of secret/side-levels that contain their own rules, including mazes and dedicated platforming puzzles.

Every world has its own mechanics and characters to encounter, but there are common conceits like finding moons and having boss fights that follow a fairly structured setup.

What makes Super Mario Odyssey Consistent?

Super Mario Odyssey has a universal focus on one main character (technically Mario and Cappy, his semi-autonomous hat), and while the player can control others almost any environment can be navigated by Mario.

There's also a common shared objective set in every level (find moons, explore, beat the boss, collect coins), and these objectives are shared between all the different characters the players can control.

Consistency also comes from the use of clever control design. The Joy Cons are often bashed for their somewhat anemic thumbsticks and their small, hard buttons, but I actually think that they work really well. Motion controls and a relatively small number of inputs make the whole game flow relatively easily, and since shaking the controller tends to be a sort of "do my most interesting thing but bigger this time" it really allows players to make easy use of the characters.

Likewise, while the camera and other interfaces occasionally change (for instance, the 2d 8-bit sequences), the general concepts surrounding them are always fundamentally similar rather than different.

What makes Super Mario Odyssey Coherent?

I've already mentioned the streamlined controls, but they're a high point. While it's possible to have failed inputs (something I experience often when I want Mario to do a long jump but time my button presses wrong), the whole game operates in a limited, but fully utilized, control layout that allows players to have high levels of control as they change between characters, who logically behave as you would expect them to.

The fundamental universal operations are the same except when they differ, and each character gets only one exception (for instance, you may be able to fly, or pass over a gap by stretching out, or fire a projectile) to the rule. This is usually balanced out by a restriction in another way (e.g. tanks that can't jump).

You also have a very clear visual design utilizing bright colors that leads players toward elements that are important. Backgrounds are gray or lightly colored, while important characters or objects have very strong saturated colors.

Important concepts are communicated through repetition, which makes players much more likely to have everything they need to go forward in the story (and, better yet, Nintendo allows players to skip much of the dialogue and cut-scenes if they become repetitive).

Another important element of coherence is that Super Mario Odyssey never diverges from one gameplay loop to another; all of the mechanics are fully operational in the same world-space, and while some may take precedence (for instance, a platforming puzzle may abstract the long-term goal of collecting moons), the others all linger in the background. As opposed to a design that switches between different perspectives (e.g. JRPG formats with a battle mode and an overworld mode), this universal focus on following one character gives a very streamlined experience, even if that character moves into different situations that provide alternate affective valances.

Wrapping Up

The universal wisdom of the Mario games is that they provide a very clear and directed experience. To compare this to Mario's arch-rival, Sonic, one of the places where Sega consistently goes wrong is bundling in other experiences with Sonic; even if executed well this creates an incoherent game.

Instead, Super Mario Odyssey takes one formula and provides it with countless small alterations, sometimes at such a rate that it appears nearly impossible not to be confused by what's going on. However, all of the game's action is drawn through one very clear channel between the player and the game, and this creates an experience that can be difficult without being punishing and can be simple fun without being shallow.