Super Mario Odyssey’s Power Moon Problem

It's really evident that every SMO Kingdom is intended to be a sandbox playground that encourages you to playfully explore the environment and interact with it, the Power Moons are only an excuse to keep players engaged, and the very low mandatory requirements for progression combined with the almost overwhelming availability of them is designed to just let people play how much time they want and then move on when they're not having fun in that world anymore.

It's not meant to be 100%'d, and whoever tries to do that is basically ruining the game for themself.

I still like the old "every Star is really important and meaningful" Mario formula more, but i still think it's a really interesting and mostly well executed take on open worlds and collectables by Nintendo.

The moons are a way for the player to decide their own difficulty by going for smaller or bigger challenges to get them, so it's generally ok that's some are easy and there's way more than you need.

There's always ways to refine the balance in a sequel though.

Determining the moon's value as their need for going on to the next stage is a rather arbitrary factor, since I feel like the low requirement to move on is intentional. Not only does it allow lesser experienced players a chance to progress, but it also allows a more open and freeform pace for playing. It doesn't take much to collect the minimum, but the low minimum allows you to continue on at your own pace. Once you hit the minimum, you can continue playing in the world as much as you like.

In my playthrough, there were worlds where I stayed to collect every moon I could see and worlds where I just felt like moving on once I hit the minimum. Forcing the player to stay to collect the vast majority of collectibles a la Jak and Daxter just to hit a higher number threshold so that they "matter" could make the game feel like a slog at a lot of points. You move on when you've tired of that world for the day, and come back later. It gives the player and ability to move on and return because they want to, not just because they have to.

And even then, by his own example, nearly 40% of the collectibles in Jak and Daxter are worthless for progression anyway, except for those looking for 100% completion. And I think that works in the same way for Odyssey, the only people going for 100% are gonna be those who feel that 100% is it's own reward. But there's no reason to force all players to attain a high level of completion in order to make them all worth it. The whole idea that "The game is objectively telling you're wasting your time once you keeping collecting past the minimum, no matter how much fun you're having" is strange, since the game doesn't force you or bug you to move on beyond a notice that you have collected what you need to move on if you wish. But if you want to stay because you're enjoying yourself, the game doesn't stop you, because that's the whole point, not the requirement threshold.

Hmmm... I primarily disagree with this sentiment. I do feel that "some" of the 800+ power moons were a bit simplistic, but the vast majority of them felt really rewarding! I found myself picking up my Switch between phone calls at work because I knew I could get at least a Moon or two within a quick 5-minute break.

My only real complaint after getting 100% is that I wish coins were easier to come by, or that the Odyssey just topped out at 800+ (I forget the # now) rather than there being a reward for buying the other 100+. The same goes for costumes really. I spent a good hour or two just grinding the one secret area for coins...

If you look at moons as a way to advance in the game then - yes - there are way too many and the requirements are pitiful enough they lack any "objective" value. Of course, that comes with the caveat you're a seasoned gamer that wants to be challenged to progress. If, however, you're new to games, or a child, or physically limited etc., the abundance of moons allows you to make progress without frustration and feel a sense of accomplishment you might otherwise not get. In this respect, the abundant supply of moons is a brilliant design decision because it lowers the bar of entry for those who might typically be disuaded from playing games.

But what about those that do require a challenge? Well, some moons are gated behind platforming, some behind secret areas, and some are just plain obscure (you know the ones I'm talking about...). And while - yes - they may not be necessary to progress to the next level and complete the game, when has racing through a Mario game to completion on first play through ever been part of the draw? Rather, the value of these moons resides in the journey to acquire them. Perhaps you've spotted something a miss, or know there's one here somewhere marked with an x (thanks Toad) but I'll be damned if it actually exists!!! (you know the ones I'm talking about...). It is, after all, Super Mario Odyssey. Not, Super Mario Save the Princess goodbye.

I would even go so far as to say the example given in the video is a poor one. There is something beautifully intuitive about see rock - kick rock, and you're rewarded with a satisfying clink of a coin and deep rumble in the controller. 1 coin is fuck all, but I'm going to kick those rocks because it's titilating. But what's this, a rock that doesn't break? Kick, Kick, Kick - Moon! And thus I surrender my preconceptions and investigate everything, however mundane, because there are moons to be found in the most inconspicuous of places and I'm an explorer and will find them all, even the ones that are miles away (you know the ones I'm talking about....)

TL:DR Something something it's about the journey and not the destination. Nintendo should be applauded for creating a game that sets the bar low enough for neophytes, and rewards more experienced players with the many many joys of the game itself, not some arbitrary goal.

I kinda agree, but Odyssey is "saved" by being so much fun to play (compared to Jak which felt like a chore). But I agree that there are way too many "free" moons, and not enough required moons.

It's my GOTY 17 and I 100%ed it, but yeah, I feel like there were too many moons personally.

It became a bit labourious so I just wound up YouTubing about a quarter of them.

After watching the Game Maker's Toolkit on feedback loops, getting moons at regular intervals helps keep the game engaging. Honestly what is there to really gain from taking the rock moon out? I was kicking rocks, stumbled upon a glowing one and was rewarded for my curiosity.

"Feels like a complete waste of time" or "Objectively wasting your time if you grab more moons than required" is only true if you don't have fun actually playing the game.
So my take on that video's theme is that while Odyssey focuses on giving enjoyable gameplay for gameplay sake, it does't give as much in pride in accomplishment of goals. It is a "you find your own fun" game like Zelda in some ways, disincentivising completion unless you are genuinely curious about the content rather than for the reward, where the challenge (Shrine/puzzle) itself is the reward for exploration.

That means that easy moons aren't disappointing because they make the moon worthless, but because the challenge itself was not interesting (challenge = content).

I've finished the game, but will return to 100% it. I'm not exactly looking forward to getting all the moons, they feel like work rather than fun.

But it's a great game so I want to 100% it.

Like it or not, the game was designed for all ages. They mixed it up just fine

TriangularDuck said:

I disagree. Power Moons are a great way to reward the "can I do that?" moments that are 3D Adventure Mario at its best, without feeling hollow and unrewarding like Sunshine's Blue Coins.

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Agreed - reward/incentive for creative gameplay and exploration

Like Shrines and Korok seeds, this is a way to engage the mobile game market. This allows for quick pick up and play that could last for a long time, cementing the function of the Switch. I wrote a script for a video on this, and watching this video has helped push me to think about possibly actually probably getting around to making the video...

I agree.

I love Odyssey, but it feels very much like an instant gratification game. Your given moons for just walking in a direction.

The ones that present challenge aren't nearly long enough, so the fun's over pretty quick, and there's too many repeats in each kingdom.

I cant get immersed in a challenge in Odyssey like in previous Marios. Its just not there. I normally have TV on in the background while I mindlessly collect them.

All I know is the post-game mushroom kingdom really made me want a True Mario 64 sequel, or a Mario 64 HD remake on Switch.

If every single "kick the rock" moon and "ground pound the random spot" moon (other than the Hint Art) were deleted from the game without replacing them with anything, I think the game would be better for it.

It wouldn't make much of a difference. There's 880 moons in the game, and at absolute max there's no more than 80 of these utterly worthless moons, which still leaves you with 800 moons minimum. But I do genuinely think it would increase the subjective value of each individual moon if the totally worthless ones didn't exist. I always felt cheated whenever I got a ground pound moon (unlike every other moon in the game) and it slightly hurt my enjoyment.

I think the huge amount of moons where great, there was always something to strive for and it made exploration really fun.

Vaelic said:

Like it or not, the game was designed for all ages. They mixed it up just fine

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Think I was 4 years old when I beat Super Mario Bros, the first game I ever played, without reading the manual or any outside aid whatsoever.

I love the way Odyssey does collectibles. It dovetails perfectly with the hybrid nature of the Switch. Sure, I played through Odyssey like any other game, but now I can pick it up for 5 minutes before work, on my break, before heading out, in bed, while taking a dump, and probably achieve something. It's so great to drop in and out of. You're playing it wrong.

I prefer more challenging level design rather than collecting items. Still a fun game, though.

Some tightening up probably could have been done (the rock kicking, trace walking, and picture match moons are pretty ehhhh), but I loved the near-constant sense of progression. As a seasoned platformer fan I was totally fine with secret-based moons being valued the same as those awarded for dexterity tests. In some cases the secrets are even more difficult to uncover, testing a totally different skill set. The sheer number of them might discourage going for 100% to some extent, though. I stopped around 810 I think, but felt completely satisfied. Hardcore completionists may not respond as favorably.

I totally agree, and it really reduced my enjoyment of the game. Had they handled collectibles better, it may have been one of my favourite Marios and favourite games of all time. As it was, it was a great game but it fell well short of that standard and I was quite bored in multiple spots by the end.

ObstrucT said:

I prefer more challenging level design rather than collecting items. Still a fun game, though.

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Yea me too. I enjoyed super mario odyssey more than any mario other than 3, but I'm also not a huge fan of the franchise as it is. So the game is a lot of fun in spite of a large portion of it being based on an uninteresting collectible. If nintendo can take this world based setup and make the objectives more varied, interesting, and fun to discover I could definitely see myself really digging it. Still Odyssey did enough that I'm interested in where they go from here, for the first time in franchise history

Hearing the first sentiment, I'd go further than calling the Moon situation it a simple mark on the game and would say it drags it down considerably (while still being a fairly positive time overall).

With the hint toad existing the moons were never terrible per se (except a treasure made from coins, fuck that), and to be honest the desire to collect them all meant that moons you had more trouble with were just as, or even more valuable than the ones you picked up easily.

I agree, but my main problem with the game was that it focused too much on capturing. I just want straight up 3D platforming with Marios 20+ moveset, not gimmick platforming with some captured things 1 or 2 moveset.

Jo-TM said:

Think I was 4 years old when I beat Super Mario Bros, the first game I ever played, without reading the manual or any outside aid whatsoever.

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2D Mario is quite a bit simpler and easier to pick up on than 3D Mario. Back then, and even now.

As a child, I beat Super Mario Bros. as well, Super Mario Bros 3, too. It still took me two years to beat Super Mario 64, a game that tasked me with mastering controls and movement that are by nature more complex than in 2D Mario. Nintendo has compromised difficulty for the sake of accessibility in every single 3D Mario game since 64 (besides maybe Galaxy 2) for that reason - they're acknowledging the fact that there will be players who aren't spectacular at 3D platforming, and it's a bigger ask to expect them to master a 3D platforming system than it is to expect them to master a system where you move left, right, and you jump. That's the entire reason why 3D Land and World were designed the way they were - to acclimate players to 3D movement and platforming by surrounding it with familiar and intuitive elements from the 2D games.

Sounds like the creator of the video is really "reaching" here. Yes it's cool to think about games and write about them, but you can try to convince yourself that any aspect of a game is irksome if you try hard enough. I also find it fascinating that contrarianism reads it's head most when these widely adored games get released. You don't see posts like this about Ghost Recon Wildlands, for instance.

The way Mario Odyssey rewards players for experimenting with the environment with moons adds tremendously to the playful, child-like wonder it inspires — part of its intentional design. Rewarding the player for a variety of activities creates accolades in surprising places and heightens player engagement and encourages continued play.

Jo-TM said:

Think I was 4 years old when I beat Super Mario Bros, the first game I ever played, without reading the manual or any outside aid whatsoever.

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And I never got past world 2, kids have different levels of skill too.

When the act of searching and finding moons has been as fun for me as it was, I'm inclined to disagree. I loved that the game was constantly challenging my curiosity. And yeah, as mentioned the "beatable by all ages" factor comes in as well.

I agree. That's why I finished the game and have absolutely no desire to play more even knowing that the best, more challenging stuff is yet to come. Maybe I'll come back someday.

If the amount of moons that were simple challenges were made into more elaborate or strenuous challenges that some people want. Nintendo will have potentially alienated a large portion of their user base. Thevporportion of easy to harder moons in the game is fine and its important with the amount of moons in the game that there is a ratio. People need to stop thinking they know better than Nintendo on how to make a Mario game.

DeathPeak said:

Seriously, I don't understand the complaint of some moons being too easy. How is this not the perfect game for experienced parents and their kids to play together?

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Exactly this. I've been playing this game with my 2 year old son and he LOVES it every time we find a moon.
The fact that it is "the same thing" really seals the deal in that there are not 5 different types of things to collect that all do different things.
Compared to something like BOTW where you find so much stuff it is much more rewarding experience to play with him.

Of course not everyone is playing as a family but I find it awesome that the design allows for it.

At some point I think you just have to respect that Mario games are being made to serve dual audiences of both hardcore fans and very small children, and the power moons seem to be the best balance between those audiences possible. Children can blow through the game with just the ultra-easy ones, while more serious players still benefit from the way the ubiquitous moons encourage exploration, while they still have plenty of opportunity to find the few hundred moons with more meat to them.

There is nothing fun about standing there buying 150 moons. There is also nothing fun about talking to Toad over and over again to get the individual achievement moons. I didn't play Jack and Daxter, but I did play Mario 64 and that game was nearly perfect for its time. Going for 100% in 64 felt like a challenge, not a chore - a balance that they failed to recreate with Odyssey imo.

Ottaro said:

The frequent power moons enable Odyssey to be perfectly suitable for portable play in the same way the shrines did for zelda botw. It's easy to pick up for your five minutes on the bus and feel like youve made progress.

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This is actually my least favorite aspect of the Switch console where some games are being designed to be delivered to you in bite sized chunks.

My only issue with Mario Odyssey is exactly what OP is talking about too many power moons kinda devalues them for me, I thought the stars and shines had more of a special/important feel to them when they were found in games like Mario 64, Galaxy 1 & 2 and Sunshine. Although I did love Odyssey it felt like it had too much content added as filler, almost half of the moons could've just not been there at all because there was no skill involved in obtaining them.

Looking at Zelda and Mario, it's obviously Nintendo's new strategy to entice the mobile gamer generation. Long-form challenges are considered poison, having hundreds upon hundreds of tiny, bordering on worthless challenges to keep the endorphine flowing is what the mobile gamer craves.

RandomDudeSTL said:

There is nothing fun about standing there buying 150 moons. There is also nothing fun about talking to Toad over and over again to get the individual achievement moons. I didn't play Jack and Daxter, but I did play Mario 64 and that game was nearly perfect for its time. Going for 100% in 64 felt like a challenge, not a chore - a balance that they failed to recreate with Odyssey imo.

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64 had its own fair of chores. At least 1/3 of the stars required you tracing your steps until a certain point, so you ended up traversing through the same level 3 or 4 times.

Solid points but yeah, can't totally agree. To me, "trash moons" never really felt like trash. They're a little reward for you get for exploration, even if the action you do to obtain it is kinda banal. I agree that there're too many moons, you could probably shave about 200 and have a bit of a sharper experience 100%ing experience, but I actually don't think you're supposed to 100% it unless you want to do that for the sake of it, evidenced by the rewards for doing so not being very appealing. It's kinda weird, because 100%ing other 3d Marios was mostly fun all the way though (though blue coins suck, as do the green stars and some trickster commets) so it puts you in a different mindset.

But I honestly think Odyssey wants players to get to the 500 mark, do that last stage and be done with it; the game is really, really well balanced around that, so imo you kinda need that extra 200 or 300 moons to give players some choice in their objectives because tracking each and every moon down does become a chore when you only have a few left on the list.

Power moons only become less valueable to player if you're willingly trying to 100% the game.
It's a great collectible, putting less wouldn't make the game better for the majority of players

AaronB said:

I agree with the video. There is no such thing as rewarding the "can I do that?" moments when some of those moments are simply ground-pounding a meaningless sparkly area that is right in front of you. There is no sense of discovery or reward to that. You simply ran 5ft and saw a sparkly area on the ground, so you ground-pounded it for a Power Moon.

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These types of moons are there for people who don't want to 100 percent, aren't good at games, just want progression, etc.

If you are a completionist, yeah, it can be a little annoying to run across a dozen or more easy moons exactly the same but in each level.

I just started a replay of Super Mario Galaxy today after having finished Odyssey a few weeks ago. Haven't played the Galaxy games in years, though I remember thinking 2 was better.

First thing I'll say is that my suspicion seems correct - Mario controls tighter in Galaxy but the camera in Odyssey is a miracle.

On topic, I greatly miss the Power Moons and Purple Coins now. The yellow coins and starbits both feels unexciting and only the latter is required to progress and is obtained in an unending flow.

Without Power Moons exploration feels worthless. Most of the extra challenges and out of the way areas reward either a 1-up, which is totally worthless in a game where lives are perfunctory, or a heap of starbits. Woohoo.

The amount of satisfaction gained from following your intuition is Odyssey and being rewarded with a Power Moon or Purple Coins can not be overstated.

HotHamBoy said:

I just started a replay of Super Mario Galaxy today after having finished Odyssey a few weeks ago. Haven't played the Galaxy games in years, though I remember thinking 2 was better.

First thing I'll say is that my suspicion seems correct - Mario controls tighter in Galaxy but the camera in Odyssey is a miracle.

On topic, I greatly miss the Power Moons and Purple Coins now. The yellow coins and starbits both feels unexciting and only the latter is required to progress and is obtained in an unending flow.

Without Power Moons exploration feels worthless. Most of the extra challenges and out of the way areas reward either a 1-up, which is totally worthless in a game where lives are perfunctory, or a heap of starbits. Woohoo.

The amount of satisfaction gained from following your intuition is Odyssey and being rewarded with a Power Moon or Purple Coins can not be overstated.

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This is an interesting perspective. I LOVED Galaxy (as I did Odyssey), but I haven't gone bane to the former for more than a few minutes since Odyssey. I'm not sure I'll be as affected as you were since exploration (intentionally) has far less emphasis, but you're absolutely right about the collectibles. Coins are (ironically) completely worthless and the Star Bits nearly so too, minus the very occasional Star Bit gate, which are issues that Odyssey truly did address. Some would argue it introduced its own issues, but I, like you, thought the Power Moons sufficiently served their purpose to facilitate and encourage exploration.

Definitely one of the issues I had with the game. Especially since most of the main game wasn't too hard to begin with.

So I guess "Why power moons in Odyssey suck" is gonna be a weekly thread now, linking to some Youtube video?

The moon structure was fine, there's a shitload of them to broaden the accessibility, and so that you feel there's something to be discovered around every corner. I never once felt it was a "chore". It's been so fun to randomly go to a world, collect some missing moons, then randomly to another one. And I'm still not done yet.

there's a couple of really easy and lame ones but for the most part they all feel earned.

I'm comfortably in the 'love power moons' camp, and don't believe that their quantity devalues them. There are still plenty of challenges in the later parts of the game, and moons should be equally obtainable to skilled and non-skilled players. Even obtaining 4-5 in quick succession feels exhilarating. The game is practically a speed-runners dream.

In fact, just the other day I started up and new file and was able to view the credits within four or so hours. Great single sitting game with enough variety in collectibles so that you should never feel bored. This is definitely a game for instant gratification, with necessary depth for completionists.

DrEvil said:

All I know is the post-game mushroom kingdom really made me want a True Mario 64 sequel, or a Mario 64 HD remake on Switch.

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What are you looking for in a Mario 64 sequel that Odyssey didn't provide?

I agree, ground pounding a spot to get a moon is not satisying. A large percent of the moons in this game arent fun and are a waste of time. Marios moveset in this is amazing and hardly any moons utilize it. I enjoyed playing it, but now afterwards i realize i like the last 4 mario games better. This one just doesnt have enough substance for me