I'm not really into platformers, but lately, there's been amazing games coming out that as a future game designer I can't ignore.
In Odyssey, Mario's movement kit is extremely fluent and traversing all the maps is fun and smooth. With the use of his hat, you can extend all your movements further by using it as an extension of your jump combo or using it to take control of enemies and object around the word. But where Odyssey truly excels is the level design. Their levels were explicitly created for traversal with the hat in mind. And once you start to master his movements, you can reach places you dint even think possible, and it opens up a whole new way of reaching places. And mostly you'll be rewarded for it.
In Odyssey, you collect Moons instead of Stars. And they are littered everywhere on the map. One of the biggest problems with open world games is trying to entice the player to explore the world. In Odyssey, you get rewarded with Moons by thinking outside the box and exploring places you usually wouldn't have explored. If you see a place, no matter how tall the building or how far the platform, there's often a way to get there. It also feels like the designers knew where the player is more likely to go and added a bunch of hidden objects all around the place. Once you start picking up that there are things around every corner, you naturally begin to explore every inch of the area.
Another problem open-world games have is that every place starts to become repetitive. Once the player has seen something once, it isn't that amazing the next time. Odyssey takes care of this problem, making each level have a completely different design. No two-level are alike.
Another great thing is that exploration isn't forced on the player. You need to collect a few Moons to progress to a new world. Normally you will go and try to find the boss each kingdom has. By the time you reach the boss, you mostly have enough Moons to leave. You don't even need to fight the boss. You can collect enough moons and leave the level if you want. I found myself staying and exploring most of the time because the levels were so fun to traverse.
I never seen a game where the level design and movement were so fluent and fun that you can have levels without enemies and still have a blast. One of the levels called "New Donk City" has zero enemies and I think it was my favorite one.
Also, the polish in this game is amazing. When it's cold, Mario shivers. When you run, you see the dust on every step. When you faceplant into a cactus, you see a few needles from it sticking out his noise and get gets swollen. They stay there even in cutscenes. It makes the world seem to have weight and effect. It makes it feel alive and real.
Summary: Ok. What did I learn from Mario Odyssey? I learned that it's ok to reward the player — a lot. When designing a map that is quite large, you must give incentives for exploration. If you want your players to try new things with your mechanics, don't make death so punishable. In Odyssey, you take no fall damage, and death only takes 10 coins from you which you can quickly get back. This takes away the player's fear of mistakes allowing them to explore and try new things without being punished. When introducing a new mechanic, lead by a visual example instead of text. In Odyssey, you can possess different enemies. Each enemy does a basic thing like throw fire ball, glide, stretch. You can easily see what you can do with an enemy by merely watching them act instead of being told. If they don't understand what to do without a block of text, then you did bad design. Finally, polish goes a long way. Adding some effect to the player makes a massive difference in how the world around you feels.
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