SUPER MARIO ODYSSEY (Nintendo, 2017)
The forced wedding is stopped; the bunny wedding planners are crushed; Bowser is, like The Joker after battle after battle, unconscious, somewhere; Cappy and Mario are, at present, hunting for Princess Peach who has once again gone missing from the just-unlocked Mushroom Kingdom – though it seems of her own volition this time; and my first completion of a MARIO game in over 30 years (SUPER MARIO WORLD is still the best) is in the bag.
Why that long? Other than ignoring most of the post MARIO WORLD games on the SNES – CASTLEVANIA and LINK TO THE PAST were my jams – I had a seizure while playing MARIO 64 on the Nintendo 64 (right combo of lights and images at the right time, I guess) and, rightly or wrongly (seems to be the latter) avoided the series out of fear of it happening again until the gateway drug of MARIO KART 8 and the desire to end my niece's reign of terror (read: beating me every race) but the longer version of that particular saga – the seizure, not my niece's reign of MARIO KART terror – is another story for another time.
But ODYSSEY itself.
One of the things that's been asked in the accolades for TEARS OF THE KINGDOM is how did Nintendo make that game – as in "how did they fit all of that and do all of that in a system that came out in 2017?": the answer's simple: Nintendo knows how to make great games without requiring a bevy of onerous cutscenes and/or shallow open worlds with no point beyond window-dressing – narrative or otherwise. They focus solely on simple stories (rescue the Princess / save the kingdom / stop the aliens) delivered in strange, surreal celebrations of the medium – the "flatland" 2D, pixel sidescrolling sections in ODYSSEY being the most wonderful celebration of video games and video game history in recent memory; I cheered every time I got to stuff myself into a pipe and go 8-bit – with an unfiltered creativity and passion devoid of irony and apology; they are and remain the Disney-under-Walt / early Pixar of games.
While I did miss the block-smashing power-up mushrooms – how long have they been gone? – and, though I loved Cappy and his Black-Lodge / Man From Another Place speaking style, found myself rescuing him from that bird only to shut him up (and get on with the game) there's not a lot I can add other than ODYSSEY is pure, unfiltered fun and that I question your humanity if you don't find yourself charmed by it more than once a gaming session. A must-play.
THE LEGEND OF ZELDA: BREATH OF THE WILD (Nintendo, 2017)
Being among the first games I purchased when I bought a Switch Lite last summer in order to train to defeat my niece at MARIO KART and being the game that led me to a.) immediately go buy the OLED Switch so I could behold this thing on the big screen and b.) give the Lite to my wife and get her hooked on video games for the first time (ANIMAL CROSSING and LUIGI'S MANSION 3 being her particular jams), finishing – or at least finishing the story (much to my dismay, you can't go back into the game and play around after the main story's end – will remember for TOTK) – BOTW has been a long time coming and I already miss it terribly (in spite of taking six months off because the totally open nature of it wasn't a good fit for my weary brain at that point; couldn't do ELDEN RING either).
A few quick observations:
Goron Town is my favorite of the Hylian 'burgs.
I'm proud that I remained alive even though my cooking skills weren't up to snuff and yielded many inedible one-heart concoctions in an effort to make elixirs which I never figured out how to make.
I loathe destructible weapons and major tests of strength.
On that, my reflexes are nowhere near as good as they used to be in my nascent gamings and as such, I fail miserably at blocking and parrying.
The levels in the snow are achingly beautiful. Games are art.
I want a sand seal.
SHIELD SURFING IS GREAT (if I can remember the button combo to get to it)
While this is indisputably one of the greatest games ever made, my favorite Zelda game remains, after more than 30 years, A LINK TO THE PAST.
Not sure what else I can add that hasn't already been said about this triumph but I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the (INSERT ELEMENT)blight Ganon fights: perhaps it's that I'm a classically trained gamer (read: NES on Christmas '85 or '86) but there's something about a Nintendo boss fight that's more thrilling than any other company's boss fight, a hardfought success that elicits a string of profanities both in that success and in the seemingly interminable heartbreaks that precede it.
And now, a break for the more contained METROID PRIME REMASTERED (and I really need to finish METROID DREAD) and perhaps something else (I do need to actually play ELDEN RING) then, depending on how long my willpower holds out, it's back to Hyrule to lose all of my powers and weapons for TEARS OF THE KINGDOM to gain them back amid a slower exploration and more complete completion. For now, though, I’ll bask in the unmitigated triumph of this work of art.
a major test of willpower
Given that I a.) only freed the final divine beast in BOTW last night (Goron City is my favorite of the divine 'burgs and Link's cut-scene jump into the volcano was a moment of pure badassery) and have yet to go all Master-Sword-wielding-Hylian on Calamity Ganon and b.) like to mix things up in my gaming (and should probably finally get around to ELDEN RING, though I had to stop because it was so similar to BOTW) TOTK will remain shrink-wrapped until I'm ready to partake.
