Both Mario Odyssey and SMB Wonder are only innovative in a vacuum where Mario is the only platformer franchise. Which for a lot of people I imagine is the extent of their knowledge about platformers.
The things people call "innovative" about Mario Odyssey are just half Kirby and half Banjo-Kazooie. Yeah Odyssey's biggest maps are way bigger than Banjo-Kazooie, but SMO runs on hardware that can emulate the N64, and it still has quite a few maps on the smaller side
SMB Wonder... I don't actually know what people call "innovative" about SMB Wonder, but I've seen people call it "innovative." It's the best 2D Mario made in the 21st century and it has a pretty cool gimmick. What's innovative about this?
I think Odyssey sucks but I need to give Wonder credit for at least being engaging with its zaniness even if it isn't truly "innovative". Games need more whimsy.
I like all three of those games, but calling SMO "half Kirby and half Banjo-Kazooie" is incoherent to me. Bigger maps don't make your game more fun, go too big and all you've managed to do it make it more tedious to get from point A to point B. Also, kirby's power ups don't work the same way SMO's do - almost every SMO powerup changes the way you interact with the game world, whereas a kirby powerup just gives you new ways to dispatch enemies (which was already trivially easy).
SM Wonder is good but not quite at the high bar achieved by Donkey Kong: Tropical Freeze or Rayman: Legends
Both Mario Odyssey and SMB Wonder are only innovative in a vacuum where Mario is the only platformer franchise. Which for a lot of people I imagine is the extent of their knowledge about platformers.
The things people call "innovative" about Mario Odyssey are just half Kirby and half Banjo-Kazooie. Yeah Odyssey's biggest maps are way bigger than Banjo-Kazooie, but SMO runs on hardware that can emulate the N64, and it still has quite a few maps on the smaller side
SMB Wonder... I don't actually know what people call "innovative" about SMB Wonder, but I've seen people call it "innovative." It's the best 2D Mario made in the 21st century and it has a pretty cool gimmick. What's innovative about this?
I think Odyssey sucks but I need to give Wonder credit for at least being engaging with its zaniness even if it isn't truly "innovative". Games need more whimsy.
I like all three of those games, but calling SMO "half Kirby and half Banjo-Kazooie" is incoherent to me. Bigger maps don't make your game more fun, go too big and all you've managed to do it make it more tedious to get from point A to point B. Also, kirby's power ups don't work the same way SMO's do - almost every SMO powerup changes the way you interact with the game world, whereas a kirby powerup just gives you new ways to dispatch enemies (which was already trivially easy).
SM Wonder is good but not quite at the high bar achieved by Donkey Kong: Tropical Freeze or Rayman: Legends