Super Mario Odyssey

Eight years later, I still get the Super Mario Odyssey bop “Jump Up, Super Star” stuck in my head from time to time. Every Mario game has to find some way to make the series’ winning run-and-jump formula fresh and exciting, and Odyssey’s big mechanical change was pretty transformative. Giving Mario’s hat eyes and letting you throw it on objects to take control of them adds a completely new dimension to a Mario level. There are over 50 different objects Mario can control, and half the fun of Odyssey is testing the limits of what the game will let you do. I was surprised when I was able to possess random objects like cars, as well as enemies I’d only ever fought over years of playing these games. Those magical moments are sprinkled throughout Super Mario Odyssey, reinvigorating a series that you might think would start running out of gas at this point, and it all culminates in an amazing finale that pays off in an incredible way on both Odyssey’s core mechanic and Mario’s long-time rivalry with the Koopa king.