Nintendo reveals Super Mario Odyssey for Switch, will release this holiday season

Mario's 3D Nintendo Switch adventure hearkens back to his Super Mario 64 roots, but takes place in contemporary environments.

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Nintendo announced Super Mario Odyssey as an exclusive for its Nintendo Switch console/handheld system. No Nintendo platform is complete without at least one game featuring the company's world-famous mascot.

Super Mario Odyssey marks a return to sprawling, sandbox environments. Mario's new 3D adventure will be his first since 2002's Super Mario Sunshine. Playing as Mario, players will run and jump their way across a blend of environments. Some of these environments with be real-world-themed such as cityscapes. For example, the debut trailer showed Mario hopping on taxicabs like trampolines. Some worlds Mario visits will be fantastical, like the pastel colored world we say during the reveal.

Mario's cap is more than decorative this time around. It's sentient, and players will be able to fling it at enemies and blocks. The cap's full role in Super Mario Odyssey isn't known yet, but it was built up to be a big deal during the reveal livestream.

Nintendo aims to release Super Mario Odyssey during the holiday 2017 season for $59.99.

Long Reads Editor

David L. Craddock writes fiction, nonfiction, and grocery lists. He is the author of the Stay Awhile and Listen series, and the Gairden Chronicles series of fantasy novels for young adults. Outside of writing, he enjoys playing Mario, Zelda, and Dark Souls games, and will be happy to discuss at length the myriad reasons why Dark Souls 2 is the best in the series. Follow him online at davidlcraddock.com and @davidlcraddock.

From The Chatty
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    January 12, 2017 8:38 PM

    David Craddock posted a new article, Nintendo reveals Super Mario Odyssey for Switch, will release later this year

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      January 12, 2017 10:10 PM

      I hope it runs this high of frame rate when playing.

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        January 12, 2017 10:37 PM

        I don't think any recent Mario game has ever been less than 60FPS.

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      January 12, 2017 10:35 PM

      Holy amazeballs!

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        January 13, 2017 11:10 AM

        TMWTB I just got a pretty significant ad-based attack on this article :(

        I already clicked off, so I can't do screenshots or anything, but after a little bit (was reading, dont' know how long- 30s?) the page redirected to a page that had a big chrome picture and said there was an urgent chrome update. Just to be sure, I looked for updates via the browser and it is up to date.

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      January 13, 2017 12:22 AM

      Looks like Super Mario Parkour

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      January 13, 2017 2:19 AM

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      January 13, 2017 2:41 AM

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      January 13, 2017 4:15 AM

      I don't like the look of it at all. It reminds me more of Sonic Adventures than Mario. Honestly I'm having Dreamcast flashbacks with this whole launch.

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      January 13, 2017 4:24 AM

      I am pretty sure I will be aiming to get this for my kids for Christmas 2017, launch price (CAD) is too expensive for me to digest, and I think we can still get some decent usage out of the Wii U.

      Did they mention details about backwards compatability?

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        January 13, 2017 7:10 AM

        Nothing was stated and it's almost certainly not going to be given the hardware differences and the cartridge format.

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          January 13, 2017 7:11 AM

          Boooo we have so many Wii U and Wii games :(

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            January 13, 2017 7:17 AM

            Just going to have to keep that Wii U around.

            I do really hope that some of the controllers are forward compatible, they're all blutooth so they could be, just these new peripherals seem really expensive so I won't have a set for a while.

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      January 13, 2017 5:35 AM

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        January 13, 2017 5:36 AM

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          January 13, 2017 5:53 AM

          This. Nintendo needed to deliver either a Mario or Zelda: BotW at launch. They got one. The other will be out soon enoug.

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            January 13, 2017 5:57 AM

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              January 13, 2017 6:00 AM

              I think they're aiming for a steadier release this go-round. Miyamoto said one reason for Wii U's software drought was that Nintendo's internal teams underestimated the time involved in developing HD games. They have a handle on that, clearly; Wii U's first-party games are gorgeous.

              Also, I'm guessing remixes like Mario Kart 8 Deluxe are stopgaps designed to buy Nintendo's devs time while they work on new iterations. You gotta figure Mario Kart 9, for instance, is in development; it's not ready, so they'll make money hand over fist on MK8D (which looks awesome) in the meantime.

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              January 13, 2017 7:13 AM

              Well we know Pikmin 4 was being worked on for the Wii U, that's likely been moved over to the Switch and will show up early 2018. I would love to see them bring back F-Zero and maybe another Kid Icarus game too. Smash is certainly in development but not announced. This e3 is going to be really interesting.

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              January 13, 2017 11:02 AM

              Has it been confirmed that devs previously working on handhelds are now all combined so games will be coming out faster? I feel like that's not going to happen at all and they will release a new DS.

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                January 13, 2017 11:08 AM

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                  January 13, 2017 11:15 AM

                  I mean we're already half way there since they've announced a new Fire Emblem and SMT after having several previous entries be 3DS only.

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                    January 13, 2017 11:20 AM

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                      January 13, 2017 11:22 AM

                      Perhaps, there was so little in that tease it's hard to tell much of anything about the game.

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                        January 13, 2017 11:28 AM

                        It's definitely going to be in the same vein. Though FE has a lot more characters, so I can't help thinking it'll be more like the standard Dynasty/Samurai Warriors titles and hopefully have a fuckton of characters.

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                          January 13, 2017 11:32 AM

                          Was there a translated title for the game that's giving this vibe off? Or has more news come out? Because nothing about the teaser in the presentation last night gave off "Dynasty Warriors" to me.

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                            January 13, 2017 12:17 PM

                            Well, it's the same developers as make all the Warriors games, and it has Warriors in the name. I don't see what else it would be.

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                              January 13, 2017 12:27 PM

                              Ah ok I didn’t realize it was the same developers. That's a bummer, maybe in the future they'll be putting an actual FE title on the switch.

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                January 13, 2017 11:09 AM

                The hardware teams merged a long time ago in a restructuring. They've stated they're keeping the 3DS around, but my guess is that's just through this year, maybe a bit into 2018. Most games coming forward from Nintendo will be split between th Switch (90% or so of the games) and mobile (the remainder).

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                  January 13, 2017 11:22 AM

                  yeah their 3DS talk is the same that any platform owner gives about the old platform as the new approaches. It's not just suddenly dying, it's got a big install base, it'll keep getting support for awhile but its future is clear now.

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          January 13, 2017 5:59 AM

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            January 13, 2017 6:01 AM

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            January 13, 2017 6:02 AM

            Haha. It's not a terrible idea. In an ideal world we'd get Mario Odyssey and Zelda at launch. Consider, though, that Nintendo EAD has traditionally worked on Mario and Zelda. EAD is Nintendo's A-team. They likely don't juggle multiple projects until such a time as one is nearing completion and more resources can be channeled into the next.

            Furthermore, Nintendo's long been in a "damned if they do, damned if they don't" situation on this subject. If Mario and Zelda were both at launch, people would bitch and moan that there's nothing coming down the pipe, or... who even knows, man. Haters gonna hate. They'll find something to grouse about.

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            January 13, 2017 9:58 AM

            It's actually a bad idea.

            They're going to sell out of all their switches at launch, so dropping their two biggest games of the year at that point doesn't make sense. Probably the average person will pick up the system and two games, probably zelda and 1 other. Those people will most likely buy Mario as well later in the year. If both zelda and mario were available at launch they would cannibalize the sales of all the other titles available at launch.

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              January 13, 2017 10:09 AM

              ^This, I'm getting probably Zelda and Bomberman at launch (assuming bomberman is at launch) and will probably pick up Ultra SF2 and maybe something else later that month.

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                January 13, 2017 11:21 AM

                The nintendo website lists Bomberman's release date as March 3rd :)

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                  January 13, 2017 11:21 AM

                  That being said - I can't find anywhere to actually buy it

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                    January 13, 2017 12:23 PM

                    Bomberman's totally going to be a download, I can't believe it would be more than a couple of GiB.

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        January 13, 2017 6:04 AM

        You won't be able to find a Switch till later in the year!

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        January 13, 2017 11:11 AM

        Lol, never change, dude.

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        January 13, 2017 11:22 AM

        Seriously, it's just one line of code!

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          January 13, 2017 11:26 AM

          Find and replace "Wii u" with "switch"

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