Dropping Mario into a “normal” environment like New Donk City in Super Mario Odyssey had Miyamoto “worried”

By Shabana Arif

Super Mario Odyssey’s New Donk City “worried” Miyamoto, Mario is short and stumpy, and NPCs don’t react to him “jumping up and down all over the place.”

Super Mario Odyssey is the first Mario game heading for the Switch and there’s a lot of elements that are new for the series, like Cappy’s possession of innocent NPCs.

New Donk City is particularly interesting given that it’s a ‘normal’ place filled with normal-sized people and things, and into their midst wanders stubby old Mario, swinging on lampposts, jumping on people’s heads, and generally being a bloody nuisance.

“I was worried about how players would react to being in a world where Mario is this tall and normal people are a little bit taller,” Shigeru Miyamoto told IGN.

“Or the fact that people don’t get mad at Mario when he’s jumping up and down all over the place.

“But with all that said, I think I realized that the character Pauline has already existed, and the idea of this game taking place in the city worked out really well. And so we ran with it.”

I’d love to think Miyamoto has seen the Super Mario Odyssey trailer remade in GTA 4, and his comments have come after ruminating on that for a while.

The game is looking pretty slick so far, running at 60fps docked and undocked on the Switch.

You can try your best to terrorise the citizens of New Donk City when Super Mario Odyssey releases on October 27 for Nintendo Switch.