Spend 60 hours in Super Mario Odyssey and you'll see why it's one of the best games Nintendo has ever made

For decades, Nintendo's biggest driving philosophy has revolved around one key word – fun. The company has long been influenced by the design sensibilities of Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto, who once said in an interview, "I never look for what people want and then try to make that game design. I always try to create new experiences that are fun to play."

The Switch has perhaps embraced that ideal more than nearly any Nintendo console to date, with the company's trademark series flourishing in new and unexpected ways. But no game captures that core ideal of Nintendo's "fun to play" more than Super Mario Odyssey – a road-tripping platformer that plasters a smile on your face from start to finish. It's an encapsulation of the pure ingenuity and creativity Mario has become known for, and eight years later, it's not just one of the best Switch games, but one of the best games Nintendo has ever made.

Star sandbox

Some of the best Mario games have an extremely unified theme or setting – think the island paradise of Delfino in Super Mario Sunshine, or the enchanting paintings of Super Mario 64. Odyssey doesn't have as cohesive a setting or theme, but instead uses a continent-hopping story in pursuit of something much bigger.

Odyssey is the inverse of your typical 3D Mario, which builds the world and platforming experience around a central mechanic. For example, everything about the world of Mario Sunshine is built to be solved with the FLUDD – both platforming and puzzles.

Odyssey instead pushes Mario into a sandbox experience, where strong core controls and mechanics allow for a variety of ways to advance through the game – and the unique gimmicks of each zone area are then layered on top. This means that Odyssey constantly has a sense of bright-eyed wonder, introducing wild new ideas that allow for a deeper level of fun through variety.

But it all starts with those core foundations, and how integrally the addition of Cappy changed the way you approach a Mario game. You can still do all the jumps, spins, and wahoos Mario is known for – but Cappy gives you a fascinating extra layer. Cappy integrally changes the way you platform and move through the world of Mario. You can throw Cappy and use him as a platform to bypass normal jumps, he can bring back coins and items back like a boomerang, or even hit objects.

This provides a wealth of new ways to move Mario – you can skip over entire platforming sections by simply using Cappy, and that throw mechanic is tremendously useful for the game's focus on exploration. The core gameplay of Odyssey already feels fantastic to use, but it becomes even richer when you layer in the Capture mechanic, which lets Mario transform into a variety of objects and enemies.

There's a real sense of discovery in Capture, as each area brings some kind of new twist that makes you once again rethink how you interact with the world. You turn into a Bullet Bill and suddenly gain the power of flight, but need to be careful not to crash. Turning into a tank lets Mario fire off rockets, suddenly turning into a miniature vehicular combat game. Or you can even turn into a slab of meat to attract a giant bird to pick you up.

There are 52 total transformations across the game, each an amusing wrinkle to the core formula. You never feel like you're doing the same thing in Odyssey, even though it's all platforming – and that's the beauty of the game's emphasis on sheer fun. It's always fun, all the time.

Cappy caper

On its own, all these new mechanics and changes create a more robust Mario experience, but they're also in support of Odyssey's most ingenious change – making it about the journey and not just the destination. It's a markedly different experience that doesn't want you to get to the end of the level as quickly as possible, but rather take your time reveling in the unique structure of each area, poke around for dozens of secrets, and thoughtfully use both Mario's abilities and Cappy's transformations.

As you collect moons, you're encouraged to experiment and explore, and that slower pace really allowed Nintendo to get creative with puzzles and environments. It's genuinely remarkable how different each and every area feels, and how often the game throws curveballs at you – like the sections where you turn into a wall painting that plays like a 2D Mario game. There's a sense of variety here that no other Nintendo platformer comes close to, and the cherry on top is the presentation of Odyssey itself.

As Mario and Cappy fly between areas they look at travel brochures, giving the entire game a vacation vibe that's infectious. Odyssey builds your expectations by hinting at what you're going to see next, then fully delivers with distinct zones, new Cappy captures, and a plethora of secrets to uncover.

Outwardly, Odyssey may not seem like the most innovative game on the Switch. But the more you delve into its mechanics and complexities, the more it becomes clear how massive a step forward it truly was for Mario. It still looks and sounds like a Mario game, but encourages freedom in a way no other entry ever has – and more than anything, embraces that core ideal of fun. It's a game that doesn't want the player to get bored, or complacent, but constantly engaged and wondering what's right around the next corner. And it succeeds.

Everything in Odyssey is there for a reason, every detail and gimmick meticulously thought out to capitalize on the strong platforming base. And even after 60 hours, it's hard to not keep wanting even more.

Look ahead with our roundups of all of the exciting upcoming Switch games and upcoming Switch 2 games.