Headscratchers / Super Mario Odyssey

Headscratchers for Super Mario Odyssey.

• Why does Cappy have the appearance of Mario's hat when Mario captures something or throws him onto something? Shouldn't Cappy still have the appearance of whatever cap Mario is wearing when he does so?
  • Watsonian explanation: Maybe Cappy is so focused on capturing something or spinning around something that he can't maintain his alternative form and reverts to Mario's hat? Doylist explanation: Mario's bright red cap stands out in most environments, while some of the purchasable hats will sometimes blend in. The devs just didn't want the player to lose track of Cappy.
    • But if this explanation were true, wouldn’t Cappy revert to white top hat, and not Mario’s cap?
  • Adding to the Doylist explanation, the hats are different shapes and sizes which would result in Hitbox Dissonance.
    • The most Doylist-est of explanations is that making capture/pulling-pegs-out-of-the-ground/etc. animations for every possible cap in the game would take too much time, so they developers opted for the time-saving route.
  • I thought it was obvious that Cappy possessed Mario's cap. He is, after all, a spirit-like being.
• The Crazy Cap flyer for Shiveria states that the Frost-Frosted Cake is very popular at weddings, but it also says that they're only given out as grand prizes for the Bound Bowl Grand Prix. How could they be a staple of weddings if only Shiverian champions can obtain them? Do the champions just give them out (or sell them) to people organizing weddings? Does someone who wants a Frost-Frosted Cake at their wedding search for a Shiverian champion, before he or she starts eating it, and offer a price?
  • On the right side of the flyer it says they'll need to convince a champion to give them their cake.
• On the same subject, this cake is offered as the prize for winning the Bound Bowl Grand Prix at A-rank, but the elder mentions that they cannot offer it due to its theft and instead offers three Power Moons. But when you enter the S-rank Bound Bowl, the prize is a single Power Moon. Why does the lower-level competition offer significantly better prizes than the higher-level one?
  • They presumably gave you a big reward as compensation for not being able to claim the famous tourist attraction reward that one would most likely be racing to get.
  • ^ Pretty sure OP was asking why the cake would be the prize fir the lower cup, instead of the grand prize that only the best of the best can get.
  • One possibility is that a single Power Moon is the standard prize for winning a Bound Bowl race, regardless of rank, and when a Frost-Frosted Cake is made, the next race's prize will be that cake, again, regardless of rank. This time happens to be a time when the next race is a lower-ranked one. The reason the competitors aren't tougher in the lower-ranked one, my guess, is that Frost-Frosted Cakes are not a big deal in Shiveria as they are probably pretty common, and the racers would rather have Power Moons.
• Why doesn't Pauline ever recognize Mario, considering he once saved her from a rampaging gorilla? It seems pretty clear that Donkey Kong is canon, considering the festival.
  • Because she hasn't seen him in 30 years?
  • Pauline does recognize Mario, it's just that he showed up at a bad time and she was focused more on the state of the city. Pauline does have a questionnaire with Mario where she mentions being "kidnapped by a giant ape," then asking Mario if he remembered that. She also mentions dropping her purse "on that terrible day" and not finding the time to buy a new one.
• If New Donk City is the City That Never Leaps, is Mario being transgressive by leaping around all over the place?
  • Nah. After all, the city itself never leaps.
  • It's quite obviously both metaphorical, and literal in the sense that Mario is the only human seen leaping in the air.
• Once Bonneters travel around to other kingdoms, some of them can be found disguised as various citizens' hats. Would this give those citizens the ability to capture other beings without them realizing it?
  • Possibly, though they probably wouldn't be as good at it as Cappy — and even he has problems with some of the larger targets. Still, it would require the Bonneter to be willing in the first place, since without them there's no Cap in Cap-ture.
  • Maybe they can only capture if they form a partnership with someone. Both Cappy AND Mario are capturing creatures and objects.
• Why don't Peach and Tiara ever try to escape? Peach isn't tied up, so she should be able to jump off of Bowser's airship and sneak away while Bowser is busy fighting Mario in the Cloud Kingdom. Heck, she could even jump off of Bowser's airship in the opening cutscene - if she believes the fall might kill her, it probably killed Mario too, which means there's no one to rescue her and she might as well commit suicide anyway. The lack of escape attempts makes even less sense for Tiara. She's a ghost creature who can float, so why doesn't she just float away?
  • Kamek and his magikoopas. Junior. The Koopalings. Lakitus. Para-Koopas and the Flying Mook version that most other shock troops have. With the number of beings capable of flight and/or magic that were likely on or escorting the airship, any attempt by Peach to pull a Parasol Parachute into the open sky would've likely ended in her getting snatched again mid-flight, at which point she would get stuffed in a cage til the ceremony. Bowser often gives Peach a lot more leeway than he should, given her occasional bouts of plucky meddling, but Paper Mario showed that he's willing to get rough with her if he has to.
  • If an unseen army of Mooks was on or escorting the airship, why didn't Bowser use them to intimidate Peach? Why didn't he have them attack Mario?
    • It seems to me that the idea of these hypothetical off-screen fliers is that they were intimidating Peach, and that's why she and Tiara didn't try to escape. As for not attacking Mario, Pride is a pretty consistent trait of Bowser.
    • If Bowser was using his armies to intimidate Peach, why not at least have a few Mooks monitor her to remind her she's constantly being watched? And how come the armies are so far away that even the player never sees them either? A Doylist explanation would probably be "so that the player won't expect to fight them", but what in-universe reason would Bowser have to keep them so far away? More Pride, maybe?
    • Also, the fact that Bowser seems to harbor genuine, if slightly off affection for Peach, and doesn't want to directly intimidate her, so much as simply keep her from getting away. Also, Bowser seems to be of the opinion that Peach is, at the very least, somewhat interested in him, and would come around eventually
  • You're misunderstanding Mario, Bowser and Peach's relationship if you think Peach was that concerned about being rescued, or that she might rather die than stay captured. They do this stuff all the time, Peach is totally used to it.
• How come Bowser hasn't sent the Ruined Dragon after Mario in any of the previous titles? After all, the Ruined Kingdom is LITERALLY the closest kingdom to Bowser's Castle.
  • The most likely answer is that he'd only recently found it. Just because the Ruined Kingdom is right next door to his kingdom doesn't necessarily mean he's always known about the Dragon. The thing was probably curled up in a cave among all the scorched earth for who knows how long.
• How does the Odyssey leave or enter the Steam Gardens? The dome doesn't have any obvious holes in it, so how does the Odyssey not crash through it every time it enters or leaves?
  • Most likely answer is that it can automatically open and close if a ship gets close enough.
• What was the purpose of the Mechawiggler exactly? It seems to be sucking up energy from New Donk City, so would that mean that Bowser was planning to use the energy of the power moons to power the wedding on the moon.
  • My best guess was that it was created and deployed into New Donk City to provide Mario trouble and to stall him. It's draining the city of power, so Mario, with his Chronic Hero Syndrome, would have to go rescue the New Donkers. Mario had just caught up to Bowser and almost wrecked his plans, so it'd be reasonable for Bowser to throw some mayhem behind him to gain a lead. If so, then it worked because Mario would not catch up to Bowser again until Bowser's Castle, and that's only because Bowser knew Mario was coming and let him catch up.
  • Spitballing, but considering everything Bowser stole in Odessey was to furnish the wedding, maybe he wanted the electricity to power something. Maybe lights and music equipment for the dance?
• Why is Bowser's kingdom suddenly Japanese ruins in the sky? It's never looked like that in other games. Also, why is Bowsers kingdom across the globe from the Mushroom Kingdom? With a long-running dispute and rivalry among the two lands, I always thought they were much closer.
  • I'm thinking either A. Nintendo wanted to try something different, B. They wanted to come up with a Japan-inspired world, but couldn't figure out where to put it, or C. Bowser is basically a Kappa, which is a Japanese mythical creature.
  • this is Bowser's kingdom, not Bowser's castle. the kingdom is his home, and all the volcano-ey lava filled castles are just there and he sets up there.
  • Japan's modern-day self-obsession aside, this is likely one of his many MANY fortresses. Bowser's Castle is his seat of power, Neo Bowser City is his capital, and this is one of his many fortresses and outposts. Most likely it is a local base of operations similar to his Disco-esque castle in the Valley of Bowser or his amusement park in the Sprixie Kingdom. He likes to experiment a little! It's also in the sky, which provides a closer launching point to the Moon Kingdom.
• The Lochladies seem to live in some crumbling ruins. Why would they, a people known for artistic design, live in such a dilapidated environment? Were those structures theirs in the first place? Were they built by some predecessor civilization and the Lochladies moved in later? Do Lochladies even reside in those ruins, or do they just hang around there (and built a Crazy Cap branch into it)?
  • Maybe they like the vintage look of the crumbling ruins.
  • The staircase is later restored, so it could be assumed that they were just destroyed in the attack.
• How did the taxi driver drive all the way to the Moon Kingdom?
  • If you look at the sky of New Donk City while using the Captured Binoculars, you will find flying cars, with sails attached to them. Maybe it had enough Moon Power to fly there, much like the Odyssey.
• In the post-game, one of the costumes is Peach's wedding dress. Wasn't her dress actually the Lochlady Dress from the Lake Kingdom, since that's what Bowser sent the Broodals to get from there? It's possible that the costume you get is a copy of the dress, but the Lochladies in the kingdom treated the dress as if it was irreplaceable, so them making a copy doesn't seem too plausible.
  • The description literally calls it a replica. "A replica of Peach's wedding dress (though it did have to be altered a bit for Mario's measurements)" It's existence is also largely due to Rule of Funny. That said, if the Lochlady dress is well known enough, it's totally possible that there are copies of it made by other people, that's something that happens all the time in the real world. The Lochladies would likely turn their nose up at any copy of it because, well, they're copies, not the real thing at all.
• Throughout the game we see Bowser's clawed footprints leading Mario around the path he took to get everything he needed for his wedding. How were these footprints made when he's wearing shoes for most of the game?
  • They probably pinch his toes and he has to take them off when he's not in actively-looking-spiffy mode. Alternatively: look at said shoes. They appear to be made out of bear traps. Maybe they spring open and have some other interesting function we didn't get to see.
  • Maybe he doesn't want to get his fancy shoes dirty when running around in sand or snow or whatever, and took them off while running around. Plus, Bowser doesn't wear shoes. So because he wants to be formal for the wedding, he's probably trying to wear them as little as possible.
• This may be a case of Gameplay and Story Segregation or MST3K Mantra, but it bears asking: how did Bowser get his wedding guests (all of whom are there against their will) to the Moon Kingdom? Even if he had the Broodals snatch up an NPC or two from each realm, that doesn't explain Mayor Pauline's presence—you can find her in the Metro Kingdom right up until the final world (and the citizens surely would have noticed Bowser coming back again...). Did Bowser go and collect everyone while Mario was fighting Madame Brood and navigating the lava caverns?
  • Maybe Kamek and the magikoopas teleported them all to the chapel?
  • Remember Super Mario Galaxy? Because Bowser's ships can fly into space, they're able to go to the moon. There's tons of other ways that they can get to the moon as well such as by warp pipes or teleportation, but "flying ships" is probably the simplest and easiest explanation.
• During the first few minutes of the game, as you approach Top Hat Tower in the Cap Kingdom, you can see posters for Bowser and Peach's wedding. In the posters, Peach appears to be wearing the Lochlady Dress. However, the Cap Kingdom is the game's first kingdom, and Rango mentions that the Broodals already got the Lochlady Dress before his boss fight in the Lake Kingdom, meaning that the Broodals stole the Lochlady Dress. In the Cap Kingdom, where you see the Bowser & Peach wedding posters for the first time, the Broodals are at the top of Top Hat Tower, meaning they haven't stolen the dress yet. How did Bowser get the photo of Peach in the Lochlady Dress before he actually stole it?
  • It's never specified when the Broodals took each Kingdom's particular treasure—just that they "already got" it. The only one we see them steal is the Binding Band; all of the others could have been taken long before Mario got there. Bowser probably realized that Mario would chase him, and sent the Broodals to each location to taunt the plumber for being too slow to stop him. Alternatively, Bowser started by getting Peach the Lochlady Dress, which inspired him to start swiping the priceless items from other Kingdoms.
  • It's a poster so it is unclear if it is based on a photo or a painting it may have been manipulated. Since you visit the Cap Kingdom soon after Peach is kidnapped, and it is already full of posters they were probably made even before Peach was kidnaped. Alternatively, he could have used a replica dress as description of the Bridal Dress item tells us exist, before stealing the real thing later.
• I'm unsure of the sequence of events in regards to the very start of the game. When explaining to Mario about Bowser kidnapping Tiara, Cappy flashes back to when Bowser put her on Peach's head. It's dark in the sky and there's smoke and fire around them, implying that this was as Bowser was attacking Bonneton. However, Peach was already with him at that time, yet the opening cutscene with Mario losing against Bowser, which clearly happens after this flashback, takes place right next to Peach's Castle and Peach clearly has Tiara on her head. Bowser must have kidnapped Peach, went to the Cap Kingdom, stole Tiara, and then went back to the Mushroom Kingdom. Why the second visit? If he wanted Mario out of the way, why not do it on his first visit? He'd have the element of surprise.
  • Perhaps calling the location "the skies above the Mushroom Kingdom" was a misleading choice on the part of the writers. After all Mario doesn't seem to be flung such a distance that he'd end up in another nation if they really were right above the Mushroom Kingdom at the time. Perhaps they were actually somewhere inbetween, where Mario somehow caught up to Bowser (who by then had gotten Tiara and was leaving the Cap Kingdom) and had the fight.
    • They're clearly right next to Peach's Castle in the opening and not somewhere between the Mushroom and Cap Kingdoms. "The skies above the Mushroom Kingdom" apparently means "10 feet above the Mushroom Kingdom".
    • I mean, in the intro, they WERE in the skies...
  • The scene could be telling the story in Broad Strokes. It isn't literally what happened, but it does explain the details of the main story so players can understand what's happening.
• After you defeat Bowser in the Moon Kingdom, and citizens from around the globe begin visiting, how come only the New Donker woman and the dog need to wear helmets? Everybody else is breathing fine, heck, even the New Donker man (the one bringing the Tostarenan tourist on a world tour) doesn't wear one when him and the Tostarenan come to the moon?
  • Clearly since everyone can breath in space in the Mario-verse, space helmets are nothing more than a fashion statement. What you should be asking is how and why such things were developed in the first place if everyone can breathe in space.
  • The citizens are wearing hats from the different Crazy Cap stores. That woman (and her dog) decided on a space helmet, much like some of the Luncheon Kingdom forks wear snorkles or the Shiverian yetis wear sombreros.
  • Another question: How is it Mario can breath perfectly fine in space, but not underwater?
    • Physics be damned in the Mario universe. But if this troper had to guess? The "Power of The Stars" helps everyone to breathe in space. Obviously, unless you wanted to really nitpick at the logic, water does not apply this.
• Why do New Donkers operate the souvenir shop in Bowser's Kingdom rather than Koopas? Koopas have been associated with Bowser since Super Mario Bros. and they already exist in game as friendly NPCs.
  • Perhaps they are too interested in Koopa Freerunning to run the shop. Also, i believe that the New Donkers that are there are there to check up on the Bowser's Kingdom branch, so perhaps they are helping out as it's too dangerous to leave at the minute, what with Bowser menacing around the world
• WHY can the Odyssey be only repaired with Power Moons acquired in the locale where it crash-landed after it gets shot-down? You would think that those tens and hundreds of Power Moons you've collected from the other Kingdoms would mean something well enough to address this problem... but NOPE, they're apparently worthless for repairing.
  • This troper viewed it as a kind of jump start, like a jump start for a car.
  • The Power Moons you've collected have already contributed to the purpose of powering up the Odyssey for travel, so you need new ones for the purpose of repair.
• Why weren't Bowser Jr. and the koopalings at Bowser's wedding? Shouldn't they be celebrating their dad getting married and Peach being their new mom?
  • Only Bowser Jr. is canonically Bowser's son, but it still doesn't explain why the Koopalings aren't there besides the fact that they simply haven't been in any of the 3D games so far.
  • Another possibility is that every attempt to keep Bowser and Peach together have failed, so they just kind of figure it's yet another lost cause the moment Mario gets involved (and they'd be right).
  • In previous games, they've done this before.. They're probably off being a Hero of Another Story again. Maybe they're on Isle Delfino, and that's why it's blanked out on the map.
  • Plus, would any of them actually attend if they had any say in the matter? Weddings are a snoozefest, especially to a child.
  • Speaking of which, what about Kamek? It’s been established that he’s the one who raised Bowser since he was a baby, which makes him the closest thing Bowser has to a father. Also, he’s often portrayed as Bowser’s right-hand man, which logically means that he must be closer to Bowser than most of his other minions. So, why wasn’t he invited?”
• How are the non-Broodal bosses associated with Bowser? Torkdrift, for example, is stealing flowers, but it's not stated to be for the wedding, and if so, it would be the only theft you actually prevent in the game. Cookatiel might be associated with Bowser since he obviously didn't have any trouble from her in taking the stew, so maybe she and Mollosque-Lanceur were deployed to continue messing with the kingdom's resources after Bowser got what he needed? What's going on?
  • On replaying, it is mentioned that Torkdrift was working for Bowser, so that's something.
  • Bowser may have hired these guys just to delay Mario. He IS distractible with helping people and fighting bad guys you know.
• When Mario wins against a boss, are they destroyed or simply defeated? The Broodals just flat-out explode when you defeat them yet they come back for later fights just fine.
  • You answered your own question. Enemies "Poofing" in Mario games does not translate to an actual death.
    • It's probably just them teleporting or is an actual visual identifier of them reviving like Mario does. After all, rabbits in Mario games can teleport with the same "poof, stars and confetti" effect. In the level with the female goomba, she escapes by poofing into nothing. Then, when Mario leaves, she teleports back in through a purple portal or something. It seems like the rabbits are just teleporting and coming back when Mario isn't around.
• How is Bowser so sure that he can marry Peach without creating another Chaos Heart and dooming the multiverse again?
  • He isn't sure, because he doesn't know about it. It was Paper Bowser (and Peach) who went through that, not main Bowser. Paper Jam revealed that each Mario series is set in its own world.
  • I suspect there is a ritual involved with the Chaos Heart and the marriage was only part of the summoning. Since none of the prep work is being done here, there's no cause for concern.
• At the end of the game, you're supposed to escape the moon's underground caverns by capturing Bowser and then come across a power line and capture a Lil Sparky. How can Mario capture two things at once?
  • No one ever said Mario couldn't. When Mario Captures someone or something, Cappy is still present on their heads. Nothing says that Mario, when Capturing someone or something else, can't throw Cappy in that state for a multi-level Capture. It's just that Mario doesn't do so until that point. And to be fair, many characters and objects Mario captures lack hands and arms or otherwise lack the dexterity to pick up a cap and throw it. Bowser is one of the few entities who can.
  • Alternatively, this is just a thing Cappy can do, but, it was likely a one-off thing, because, as seen with the T-Rex, capturing big things takes a lot of energy. Bowser is pretty big. So, to add a second capture on top of that probably took even more . So, it was a case of desperate times calling for desperate measures.
• So, uh...people seem to be pretty casual about eating stew that a giant bird vomited into, don't they?
  • Yup. Just like in Animal Crossing.
• Why are certain characters, like the T-Rex and the New Donkers, portrayed photo realistically? When there's a jarring change in design aesthetics like that there's usually an in-story reason, like if Mario had been transported to the real world or something. But there's no evidence of that, New Donk city is vastly different to New York City.
  • There's no evidence that the "real world" exists in the canon of the Mario games. Mario is likely from New Donk city, and it even fits in with the timeline. Also, one of the main themes for Odyssey is "contrast", so perhaps the photo-realistic aspects of the game were done for that reason.
• Assuming Daisy is canon in Odyssey, where is Sarasaland?
  • Maybe because there's nothing there for the wedding.
• Any reason why the Sprixie Kingdom isn't in this game? Is it just non-canon to the Odyssey series? A separate world?
  • Perhaps Bowser just never visited it (because there was nothing wedding-related there), so Mario has no reason to visit it either.
  • Also, planets are really, really big, and there's clearly a huge portion of Mario's World that isn't explored in the game. Just because it doesn't appear on screen doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
    • Really? Maybe I'll need to take a closer look because to be fair, on the world map there aren't any non-natural colours, and the Sprixie Kingdom is somewhat of a colourful Sugar Bowl. Then again, while Isle Delfino is on the map, it isn't coloured (likely because it's being saved for a DLC or is just an easter egg).
    • OP here, but on the world map there are indeed several colourful/non-natural islands that can be seen from the world map. The Forgotten Isles are one of them in particular.
    • The only entrance is through an underground clear pipe that goes through a pink void, so it's probably another world. That, and the fact that the Mushroom Kingdom was at night in the 3D World intro while the Sprixie Kingdom is in daytime.
• Why is Metro Kingdom a "Kingdom" when it is plainly ruled by the mayor?
  • Pauline is the mayor of New Donk City, not the entire Metro Kingdom, there's probably someone else above her that rules it.
  • In the Mario universe, it is canon that "Kingdoms" are synonymous to "countries". And as said above, Pauline can be considered the ruler of New Donk City.
• New Donk City's festival apparently happens every year. Is Mario's presence there required each time? The way it's set up it seems to completely revolve around him.
  • Most likely, each time Pauline just invites him over.
  • It's specifically noted that he's being celebrated as the guest of honor this year for his help in restoring New Donk City's power supply, which is why the whole festival is about his original adventure with Pauline and Donkey Kong. Presumably in other years there are other honored guests or features (much like real-world cities will have different themes for their own yearly festivals—the area's unique arts and music, a famous historical event, a particular person who was born there, etc.).