Super Mario Odyssey’s interdimensional travel is one of its best visual tricks

I got to play around 40 minutes of Super Mario Odyssey at E3 (the Electronic Entertainment Expo) trade event in Los Angeles last week, and while it was a blast overall, the best part is that each moment is often bursting with surprises.

As always, Nintendo has put an excruciating amount of effort into tiny details for its upcoming Switch platformer, which is due out on October 27. My favorite example of that is the transition from the 2D retro platforming mechanic back into the 3D space of the game. Throughout the worlds of Super Mario Odyssey, Mario can take special, pixellated warp pipes that paste him to a wall as his blocky sprite from Super Mario Bros. for the original Nintendo. During these sections, you can run and jump on goombas just like in the 8-bit games. But when Mario jumps out of the these sections back into the polygonal environment, the game morphs Mario from 2D back into 3D seamlessly.