The return of Super Mario should be the greatest achievement in Nintendo’s incredible comeback.
In recent years many people were questioning Nintendo’s ability to compete with Sony and Microsoft in the console market. But things are looking much brighter at the moment.
"It seems to have brought back Nintendo’s mojo,” says Tom Phillips, news editor at Eurogamer. "You look at where Nintendo are now compared to 12 months ago, it’s really night and day. They really turned things around.”
Nintendo’s new console - The Switch got off to an amazing start when it came out in March. It sold almost three million units in the first month, making it the company’s fastest-selling console. The first big release - Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild - is now considered to be one of the best games created, with several million copies sold.
The Switch surpassed the company’s early expectations, so now the ambition is grander. The Wii sold more than 100 million units in its eight-year life. Can that be repeated?
“I’m not going to lie to you, the Wii is something that we’re looking at,” said Nicolas Wegnez, general manager for Nintendo in the UK, told the BBC. "We would really love to go back to that growing path of really making many more people smile playing Nintendo products.”
And to help in that aim, Nintendo will once again return to its biggest star.
Super Mario Odyssey - whose October release date was announced on Tuesday - includes the chubby plumber's first jump into the “real” world as he spends some time in what resembles a real city, modelled on New York.
You’re free to roam around and do tasks on your own - press on with the main story, or distract yourself with other missions. It’s just like Grand Theft Auto, but you’re helping people instead of shooting them in the face.
There’s a new gameplay mechanic that makes use of the Switch’s dual-motion controllers; a flick of the wrists flings Mario’s new hat - called Cappy - in any given direction as a way of defeating enemies or interacting with objects.
It’s impossible to get a real feel for the quality of a game in a noisy convention centre, so I’ll leave those more qualified than me to offer the true verdict of the game when it is released.
