Super Mario Odyssey was always going to be the game I bought the Switch for. It’s fun platforming action, diverse worlds and stroke-of-genius capture mechanic hooked me from the start. I got the Odyssey-Switch console and the game holds a treasured spot in the memory of my console.

The game starts with Mario losing a battle against Bowser and falling into the Cap Kingdom. A ghostly hat named Cappy merges with the shredded remains of Mario’s hat. This allows Mario to throw his hat at enemies to capture (PUNS!) them and utilize their powers. You can possess a variety of creatures throughout the game, keeping the game feeling fresh, but not overwhelming.

Apart from the core conceit, the game makes a number of improvements on the Mario formula. Mario’s movement options have remained largely unchanged from Super Mario 64, which came out 22 years ago. Mario can now roll for faster travel around the larger open worlds. For even longer distances, Mario can travel between checkpoints from the world map. And even the power stars have been replaced with moons.

But one of the biggest changes has been the removal of the lives system. Lives were an artifact of Mario’s arcade games, which only allowed you a certain amount of attempts before forcing the player to put another quarter in the machine. As the series progressed, the penalty for game overs became less and less trying, until they became almost meaningless and a discouragement. This game does away with all of that, and takes only 10 coins from the total.

The game was designed with surprise in mind, and every twist was both thrilling, unexpected, yet feels natural in the flow of the game. Doing away with the standard Mario green fields, you are taken to a black-and-white kingdom populated by ghostly hats, a desert frozen over by a vengeful head, a mechanical garden grown by a bunch of robots, an island surrounded by purple lava, a New York City-esque metropolis, and more throughout your time through the game.

Though the graphics aren’t usually the highest priority for me when it comes to games, this game looks consistently amazing. It’s always fun activating the photo mode and snapping a picture of the latest sight. The soundtrack is similarly spectacular, with its variety matching the variety of the worlds they help to bring to life.

After the game is beaten, you unlock the free DLC of Balloon World. You can hide a balloon in the kingdom, and search for other people’s balloons. In this way, you can spend a lot more time on the game even after the last moon is collected.

All in all, this is a great game I would recommend to anyone at all, even if they aren’t interested in Mario or platformers. It’s a magnificent game to experience alone, or with a second player as Cappy. This is my favorite game of all time, and one of the best reasons to pick up a Nintendo Switch.