You can toss Mario’s hat to collect coins, attack enemies, and activate objects like an electronic zip line. It’s not just a new character, complete with huge expressive eyes, but a new tool. But new in Odyssey is his sentient hat Cappy. Mario still has his traditional jumping and climbing abilities. The core of the experience feels largely familiar. I earned my first moon by leaping into a game of jump rope and successfully making a handful of hops. Some stages feature pixelated warp pipes that turn the game into an old-school side-scrolling experience, complete with a moon at the end. You can bounce on cars like they’re trampolines, climb your way up lampposts, and slide down glass buildings. Super Mario Odyssey designers want you to engage with the world and discover how it reacts.
Many can be earned through experimentation. Other moons can be earned by completing tiny objectives or larger missions. Some are obvious, glowing temptingly on top of skyscrapers or tucked away in back alleys. (Nintendo says there are significantly more moons to find in Odyssey than the “stars” and “shines” in previous games.) In this case, they’re objects called power moons, and you need to gather a certain number of them to move on to the next big area. Much like in its predecessors, one of the big goals of Odyssey is to collect things. The area I played - New Donk City - is a New York-style urban cityscape, complete with tall buildings, yellow taxis, green parks, and properly proportioned humans who look bizarre standing next to the squat, cartoonish Mario. Super Mario Odyssey review: an absolute delight