The mechanical mastery on display here is breathtaking, with so many distractions to discover, and there's a joyful abandon which carries through every kingdom you visit. It really shouldn't work, but New Donk City's human inhabitants are able to co-exist with the anthropomorphic cutlery of the Luncheon Kingdom and the big-eyed cute characters of the Mushroom Kingdom clan thanks solely to the developers' impeccable execution. Cappy's capture abilities keep things fresh in a game which blends all sorts of ideas and art styles into an improbably coherent, compelling whole. Super Mario Odyssey was a return for the 'sandbox' style players had been pining for since 1996, and it delivered everything you could want and more. There's an argument to be made that Mario 64 never got a 'true' sequel until this game: Sunshine's FLUDD muddied the waters with its feature set the Galaxy games cleverly eschewed large open playgrounds for impeccably crafted planetoids designed around specific gameplay elements 3D Land and 3D World were deliberately constrained with linear design to attract players of 2D Mario into the third dimension.
