As an "old-school Zelda" player, I had a hard time with Breath of the Wild. No clear direction, Ganon/Ganondorf was some spooky doofus haunting Castle Hyrule and a shallow open world, filled with activities I couldn´t care less.

Tears of the Kingdom on the opposite caught my attention with it´s very fast trailer. A dark tone, more insights into the lore of LoZ and a certain kind of resemblance to older titles like Majoras Mask or Ocarina of Time regarding atmosphere. After four years, we finally got our hands on the game and it was... well, basically Breath of the Wild, but in its final form. And that is great, because I could experience, what many people felt when they played BOTW. The massive scale of secrets, side quests and interactions in general with the environment were truly astounding. While its predecessor held himself back with physics shenanigans, TOTKgrants the player a giant sandbox and a similiar approach for different playstyles like Super Mario Odyssey: You could technically beat every dungeon without building a vehicle or contraption, but that was boring to me. I always looked for possibilities to solve a puzzle in a way I never thought the developers would think of. Yet it worked everytime, because most of the time, your imagination is the only limit. I literally completed the fire temple using three different types of vehicles and never had to stick to the intended way, which involved driving with minecarts. And this is a kind of freedom, that got lost during decades of gaming. This game respects your time and your creativity and will never punish you for it, because it´s YOUR journey and not some guidelined western AAA adventure game, where you are merely an observer, who just happens to push the correct buttons.

I hope the team behind Zelda will transport a similiar feeling with their upcoming title. I´m eager to get sucked in again in a world, that won´t restrict me in my playstyle!

Super Mario 64 was for me the entry point to platformers in general and is still one of the best in his genre. Year after year, I tried many games, that wanted to catch a glimpse of it´s superior level design or the insanely accurate movement, yet none of them reached this height.

At first, I thought: "Well, Odyssey is just more of the same", when I saw trailers and gameplay of a friend of mine. After finally being able to buy a Nintendo Switch, I decided to give it a shot, as it was heavily discounted at that time. So I started my adventure, again with Mario´s Daily Quest to save Princess Peach. Well, story is never a selling point of a Mario game. After clearing the first two worlds, it still couldn´t satisfy my hunger for a superb 3D platformer. The first euphoria entered my body when I finally reached New Donk City, a level that is, in the end, a giant love letter to the legacy of our beloved plumber. But it also granted me the insight I missed from the start of the game: How good the platforming feels is ultimately determined by my own playstyle. I didn´t use many movement abilities, because they seemed to be obsolete for the most part, but that´s because of accessibility for kids. They don´t expect from a six year old to do back-to-back Cappy Jumps, combined with a ground slam. But using these newfound options opened a world full of possibilities for my journey onward. Now every nook and cranny was observed, using every tool the game offers me and finally accepting the bloated number of moons not as inconvenience, but more like a test of skill, be it of miniscule difficulty or simple nerve-wrecking. Reaching this conclusion made the ongoing playthrough to a similiar magic experience I had with Super Mario 64, and maybe even dethroning it.

All in all, Super Mario Odyssey is an absolute must buy for the Switch, whether for your toddler or for yourself, even if you are an adolescent. Collecting every moon can be quite challenging and even after it´s done, you´re left with the intrinsic motivation to improve your usage of Mario´s movement, leading to subsequent playthroughs with the goal to be as fast as possible.