Well, right now I can definitely say I am hooked on Super Mario Odyssey. I have over 350 moons thus far and have yet to even “beat” the game in the traditional manner. I think it’s safe to say that I love this game. There may have been a few moments where I felt that it went a bit overboard on the collectables and a few of the moons suck (Fuck 100 Jump ropes and 100 volleys!), but I’ve been finding this game’s expansive worlds and the amount of creative mechanics to be highly engaging.

And there’s the music. The first song that one thinks of when they think Super Mario Odyssey is likely “Jump Up! Super Star!” but there is one track that I think is better. Super Mario Galaxy is a tough act to follow in a lot of ways but music wise it is especially difficult to follow up. Personally I still think the Galaxy titles had better music than Odyssey but the latter is still no slouch. It figures that my favorite track is one that sounds like it was leftover from Galaxy.

I think it goes without saying that this is a brilliantly arranged piece. Many have often claimed that this is Super Mario Odyssey’s equivalent of “Gusty Garden Galaxy,” but i feel it’s more apt to compare it to “Good Egg Galaxy” given that both tracks are sweeping, majestic, and exist to build up the start of a grand adventure. “Fossil Falls” really captures the majestic atmosphere of the Cascade Kingdom and I often just run  around the stage just to hear the music even though I already collected every moon currently available.

The first thing to note is just how spectacular the recording quality is. The technological advances between the release of Galaxy and Odyssey is really apparent when you listen to their soundtracks back to back. That’s not to say the sound quality of Mario Galaxy was bad by any means but is rather a testament to how above and beyond they went with on Super Mario Odyssey’s ost.

As for the song itself, well I knew it just sounds like I’m slacking on the creativity when I say this, but are you listening to it? It’s just so grand, majestic, awe inspiring, adventurous, and blissful. Not a single moment in this track sounds off. The instrumentation is perfect and everything fits perfectly. One part that I especially like is the accordion used in the brief soft portion before the high point of the song. It really adds a nice touch to it. I really don’t know what else to say about it so I may cut this description short, but thankfully Mario Odyssey has copied NieR Automata in the department of having chiptune versions of its tracks that are way too advanced to actually be 8-bit, so I can post that.

These faux 8 bit renditions play in 8 bit side scrolling sections that control like Super Mario Bros 1 and that actually look 8-bit with the exception of Mario’s sprite which uses too many colors. Unfortunately I don’t know much to say about this one other than that it’s a pretty cool conversation, and it could possibly work in an NES game if it were not for the fact that you can still hear the main track in the background which it harmonizes beautifully with. Anyway yup, I think that’s about it. See ya’ll next week.

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