Super Mario Odyssey / Tropes E to M

You can view the main page HERE!

Tropes A-D HERE!

Tropes N-Z HERE!

---

E

• Early-Bird Cameo: A meta example. The game was one of many then-unannounced titles shown in the Nintendo Switch's reveal trailer, with a woman playing through Tostarena, two months before the game got its official reveal. The two-player mode is also hinted at in this trailer, with that mode not being revealed until eight months later.
• Earth Drift: Donkey Kong has now been retconned into taking place in New Donk City rather than Brooklyn on Earth.
• Easter Egg:
  • Every kingdom has a hidden Pixel Cat Mario and Pixel Cat Peach sticker located somewhere. Hitting them with your cap will cause them to dispense coins and a Heart, respectively. There's also a Pixel Rosalina sticker located in both Rabbit Ridge and Culmina Crater.
  • In Toastarena, you can throw Cappy at round cacti, and they will dispense coins when they hit the ground and burst. If you knock a cactus into another cactus, a chain reaction will occur where the cactus you hit will launch the next cactus upon making contact, and so forth. When you do a chain this way, the second cactus onward will start playing the Red Coin sound effect from previous Mario games, and upon breaking four cacti in a chain, the last one will play the relevant fanfare.
  • Bowser's dialogue during the confrontation at the wedding will change depending on what Mario is wearing. For example, Bowser will attempt to bribe Mario to go away if he's wearing the Wario outfit.
  • Bouncing on the Odyssey's globe repeatedly will play a music box version of either the Cascade Kingdom's theme, or "Jump Up, Super Star!", depending on if you're in one of the Kingdoms before the Metro Kingdom, or if you're in the Metro Kingdom onward.
  • If you use the Photo Mode to zoom in on Hint Toad's brochure, you'll find that it's one for Super Mario 64's Bob-omb Battlefield. Zooming in on the newspapers in New Donk City will show one of the T-rexes that appear in the game, and on the New Donkers' laptops, you can see some kind of article discussing the Moon Rock in the Sand Kingdom.
  • The version 1.2.0 added another one: if you ground pound the spot marked by some new Hint Art shared by Nintendo on their social networks, you'll find a hidden 8-Bit Luigi or Captain Toad which gives you 200 coins.
  • Certain Moons are barred by NPCs who won't let Mario into the rooms they oversee until he's dressed to fit the area, which is usually solved by buying the area's primary or only exclusive outfit with the region's purple coins. However, for some of these objectives, some other costumes will also work, but they're less intuitive due to being so expensive, and only one of them being available before the postgame. However, you can enter the rooms for fun any time if you're dressed right, so these are likely just as nods to curious players and not expected to be players' first solutions.
    • In the Sand Kingdom, you're supposed to buy and wear a sombrero and poncho to enter a party room, but you can also buy the extremely expensive skeleton outfit in the postgame to fit the skeletal Tostarenans' dress code.
    • In the Lake Kingdom, you're meant to get the full swim costume to enter the shop display, but the boxer shorts, the most expensive outfit before the postgame, also qualify as swimwear and will get you in.
    • The Sunshine outfit in the postgame can be used as an alternative to the resort outfit in the Seaside Kingdom due to it being Mario's vacation wear from Super Mario Sunshine.
  • If you jab a metal box with a Pokio's beak over a hundred times, it will actually break. However, this is tedious and it's not very practical, as it's never the only or intended way to break them. As such, it's just a little secret for curious players.
  • In the Goomba version of Picture Match, putting Mario's eyes and moustache on the Goomba face will have the overseeing Toad remark that it looks like Mario capturing a Goomba, but you'll still get failed for it.
  • In Bowser's Kingdom, the torches actually light up in sync to the music. Watch them and listen to when the music flares up, and the flames flare up at the same time.
• Equippable Ally: Much like in Galaxy, Mario gets a new companion inhabiting his hat that gives him a new ability. This time, it's the hat ghost Cappy, allowing him to do all sorts of crazy things with his hat.
• Ermine Cape Effect: Peach averts this during her post-game vacation, as she wears various weather-appropriate outfits in the various kingdoms (including a swimsuit for the Lake and Seaside Kingdoms). None of these outfits even include her trademark crown. She changes back into her standard dress once she becomes a static NPC, but her outfit is randomly chosen from her classic outfit and her travel ones each time the game is loaded afterward.
• Eternal Engine: There are plenty of machines to be found in the Wooded Kingdom, as well as in the energy plant of Metro Kingdom. In both worlds, Mario can find and possess a tank enemy known as Sherm, which is capable of shooting projectiles to attack other enemies and destroy certain walls, and in the latter level this is used to defeat the boss Mechawiggler to restore peace in New Donk City.
• Everything Is an Instrument: The Peronza Plaza music in the Luncheon Kingdom, as this behind the scenes video shows, uses the sounds of knives hitting a cutting board and a ladle hitting a metal pot lid as the sole percussion, to go along with the locale's Level Ate theming.
• Exposed to the Elements: Mario can run around Shiveria in the Boxer Shorts and impress one of the locals enough to get a Power Moon.
• Expository Theme Tune: Rather than describing the plot, "Jump Up, Super Star!" describes the gameplay of Odyssey, from jumping, collecting coins, and other typical Mario elements to the exploration and freedom available to the player. Mixes with Thematic Theme Tune, as the lyrics encourage the listener to get out and explore their own world.
• Extra Eyes: The Mechawiggler has five red eyes that glow.
• Eye Cam: When Cappy does his first Capture on a frog, we get a view through Mario's eyes as he's opening them before realizing what just happened.
• Eye-Dentity Giveaway: Among the other changes enemies receive when Mario takes over them (his hat and mustache), most enemies will also inherit his blue eyes, either by gaining more detail to have irises or by their colored eyes changing to blue. Even Lava Bubbles, who gain no color and little detail when Mario captures them, still have smaller, friendlier dot eyes when Mario's face replaces theirs.

F

• Fairytale Wedding Dress: The Lochlady Dress, which Bowser steals from the Lake Kingdom for Peach to wear at the wedding. It's shown after the escape sequence following the final boss fight that the dress comes with appropriately-colored high heels thanks to camera angle as Peach uses her slow-descent ability.
• Fake Longevity: The only way to get the maximum moon count of 999 is to grind up an extra 11,900 coins to spend at Crazy Cap to make it happen, as there are only 880 actual moons in the game. Fortunately, coins are easy to hoard over the course of the game, especially after the Balloon World update, and by the time you can buy multiple moons from Crazy Cap, you'll have than likely have amassed enough coins to get a headstart.
• Falling Damage: Unlike 64 and Sunshine, you can hit the ground from any height and Mario will be fine, although he will be briefly staggered by a high enough fall when he lands. It's a good thing, too, as the levels can get rather vertical, and Mario has only three hit points by default.
• Family-Friendly Firearms: One of the Capturable enemy types is the Sherm, which is a tank that could almost pass off for a real one (almost; they still have headlamp eyes). So, of course, they fire fancy, firework-like shells with rainbow-colored trails, that look silly even by the standards of a franchise where cannon shells tend to have googly eyes and arms.
• Family-Unfriendly Death: Cookatiel suffers this after being defeated, falling into the pot of Stupendous Stew and boiling alive in it, complete with sizzling sounds and bubbles surfacing from where it fell in before finally exploding in it.
• Fantastic Fireworks: After defeating the RoboBrood, the mecha blows up, propelling it high up into the air before exploding in big fireworks representing all four Broodals cringing in pain.
• Fantasy Counterpart Culture: Most of the game's settings are based on real-life locations:
  • The Cap Kingdom is based on London. It's a densely foggy town, its inhabitants are famous for travelling the world, the backdrop of the level is blocky Victorian architecture, and the top hat is a signature of the town.
  • According to Kenta Motokura, the Sand Kingdom was inspired by his own trip to Mexico. This is showcased by the town with sombrero-wearing, sugar skull-headed residents and the Mayincatec pyramid with its boss Knucklotec.
  • Lake Lamode seems to be an amalgam of France (its name is based on à la mode, the country is known for fashion, and the Lochladies speak vaguely French-sounding gibberish) and Greece (the overall architectural style and segmented island-like topography).
  • Though there's no hint of it in the final game, the Steam Gardens were originally named Kogwald, which would make the Wooded Kingdom based on German forests ("wald" means "forest" in German). This would be supported by the kingdom's advanced technology; it's German engineering.
  • While the lack of civilization doesn't make it clear, Forgotten Isle is based on the jungles of Southeast Asia, according to Rikuto Yoshida in the official artbook of the game. Its music makes this a bit more apparent, as it's based on gamelan, a traditional Indonesian form of music.
  • New Donk City is pretty transparently based on New York City in the United States of America, with its high rise buildings and large population of suited businessmen and women.
  • Shiveria seems mostly inspired by Scandinavia (with large harp seals wearing traditional knitwear and living in Scandinavian-style wood housing), with a little bit of Russia (as one of its souvenirs is a set of nesting dolls) as well as Antarctica (due to the presence of penguins and the glaciers surrounding the area).
  • The Seaside Kingdom is based on the French Riviera, with snails wearing berets as the main characters and a huge champagne flute as the main landscape feature. Adding on to the theme, the boss fought here has a French name, and so do a few of the missions (Bonjour, Dorrie! and Merci, Dorrie!).
  • The Luncheon Kingdom is based on Italy, most obvious in that it's famous for its cuisine and is volcanically active. Once you unlock Peronza Plaza the connection is even clearer, with a soundtrack proudly featuring the mandelin and accordion (among other things), ancient Roman architecture, and cans of tomatoes lying around in addition to living tomato enemies. Its original Japanese name - Borubōno - is even a pun combining "volcano" with "buono", Italian for "good."
  • Bowser's Kingdom is a painstakingly accurate Japanese castle, with 3 concentric walls (accurately called "maru" in the Japanese version), yagura towers, arrow holes, and even a traditional Japanese garden with a tea house where the level's Crazy Cap is located. Mario can obtain accurate samurai armor and Japanese festival clothing by spending traditional Japanese ryō, the 2D platforming section is a traditional set of Japanese screens, some of the sound effects are replaced by a samisen, the enemies wear traditional Japanese jingasa and sandogasa hats, and you can capture jizo statues common throughout Japan. The main keep is guarded by thunder and wind guardian statues found at Japanese temples and shrines, there are two large shrine buildings visible in the castle, and the entire level is filled with waving Japanese battle flags and festival banners.

• Finishing Stomp: At the beginning of the story, Mario and Bowser fight on the latter's airship above Peach's Castle, with the Koopa King coming out on top by throwing his hat like a boomerang and landing a hit on the plumber, sending him flying and causing him to lose his hat in the process. It lands in front of Bowser's feet, who stomps on it before gloating about his impending marriage to Peach and letting it glide away to be shredded to bits by the ship's propellers as he flies off to make his preparations.

• Flying Flightless Bird: Each level has different small birds roaming them; they fly away as Mario approaches. The birds in Shiveria are tiny penguins, which fly just as well as the others.
• Flying Saucer:
  • A big, daisy-like UFO named Torkdrift appears as a boss in Steam Gardens, where he is found vacuuming all the flowers from the secret flower fields.
  • Much, much smaller flying saucers appear in both the Moon Kingdom and the Mushroom Kingdom, acting like the various birds from other regions. Close inspection reveals that they are miniature Torkdrifts, with a single white flower inside of them.
  • Also, when the Broodals get hit, they retreat into their hats, making them look like miniature flying saucers. Fitting, since they actually come from the Moon.
  • In several Kingdoms, there are also mini-bosses called Yoofoes, which Mario can fight by stacking Goombas high enough to stomp on top of them.
• Flying Seafood Special: Brigadier Mollusque-Lanceur III, the gigantic octopus boss fought in Bubblaine, hovers above the water during the fight between him and Mario.
• Floating Platforms: While some platforms are contextual, others hang mid-air. Floating platforms are most prominent in abstract areas.
• A Foggy Day in London Town: Bonneton in the Cap Kingdom seems to be based on London, and it's just as foggy as its real-life counterpart.
• Follow the Money: In addition to the traditional yellow coins, each kingdom (except the Cloud Kingdom, Ruined Kingdom, Dark Side, and Darker Side) has 50 or 100 purple coins that act as local currency. They're different in each world: the Metro Kingdom has purple pennies, the Sand Kingdom uses coins modeled after the Inverted Pyramid, the Luncheon Kingdom has tomatoes, the Wooded Kingdom uses mechanical nuts, and so on.
• Foreshadowing:
  • Within the Sand Kingdom, the ancient architecture contains carvings everywhere of a face and some fists amid jewels and Jaxis. It turns out that face and the fists are the three pieces of Knucklotec, the guardian and boss of the ancient kingdom.
  • The finale taking place on the moon is heavily hinted at throughout the game:
    • The moon is very prominent in cutscenes and on the world map, and the main collectibles are moons.
    • The moon is always visible in the sky of every kingdom not set on the moon, even in locations set during the day.
    • Looking at the Power Moon counter in each world will also let you know how many moons you have left to collect there.
    • In any cutscene where Bowser's airship is present, the last shot of the airship is it heading in the direction of the moon in the sky. Ditto for any travel eastward made by Mario.
    • The song "Jump Up, Super Star!" features the line, "Oh we can zoom all the way to the moon / From this great wide wacky world", though it may be hard to notice as the song is first heard in-game during a coin-heavy 2D section.
    • In Japanese folklore, the image of a rabbit can be seen on the moon's surface, instead of the face that Western audiences see; the miniboss squad are a group of rabbits, who are revealed to be from the moon.
  • Mario and Bowser vying for Peach's hand was foreshadowed by the poses of the Wedding amiibo, and the corresponding official art◊.
  • At various points during the Broodals' battles, they'll weaponize their hats, and once the hats start spinning, they take on a distinct resemblance to flying saucers. Fitting, as the Broodals are from the Moon.
  • The very first Power Moon you get is encased in a structure that has weird silver squares poking out of it. Those are moon rocks.
• French Accordion: While the Seaside Kingdom is refreshingly subtle in its French references, based on the French Riviera instead of Paris, its bossa nova music manages to slip in an accordion part near the end of the loop.
• Frothy Mugs of Water: Try Frothy Ocean of Water, as the Seaside Kingdom has an ocean of "fizzy water" that the boss creature is trying to suck up. Given the cork-popping symbolism of the cannon fountains, and the wedding themes of all the other stolen items, this is family-friendly champagne.
• Frying Pan of Doom: In the Luncheon Kingdom, Hammer Bros. throw pans at Mario.
• Funny Robot: The Steam Gardeners, who talk about flowers and silly stuff in Robo Speak.
  "We are programmed to grow flowers. The flowers are programmed to grow."
  "The Steam Gardens are objectively superior to other regions! Wooo."
• Furry Confusion: The Dark Side is home to normal rabbits and the Broodals, who are Funny Animal rabbits.

G

• Game-Breaking Bug: If you capture a stack of Goombas and touch a Life-Up Heart at the same time, most of the game will freeze, allowing Mario to run around without getting hit or respawning, but because objects' interactivity is disabled by the freeze, progress is barred, and falling off the level means falling forever with no death to reset things. (No, you cannot open up the menu in this state.)
• Gameplay and Story Integration: It's noted that the Crazy Cap in Bowser's Kingdom doesn't get a lot of customers. Sure enough in the postgame unlike the other Kingdoms, no tourists are seen wandering around aside from Peach.
• Gateless Ghetto: New Donk City is a sprawling metropolis... of about seven or eight blocks at best, surrounded by Bottomless Pits. More of the city is visible in the distance, past the pits, but the only part you're allowed to visit is a tiny group of buildings situated on top of a huge concrete block in the middle of what appears to be a harbor.
• Genre Throwback: While the previous "course-clear" style 3D Mario games (Super Mario 3D Land, Super Mario 3D World, and the Super Mario Galaxy duology) were driven by linear level design meant to mirror the 2D classics, this game features bigger, more open worlds akin to Super Mario 64 and Super Mario Sunshine. ^note The Super Mario Galaxy games did have a few open-ended levels, but those were the exception rather than the rule.
• Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: The Ruined Dragon. How did Bowser know where to find it and why did it agree to help him interfere with Mario? It shows up for one battle and then immediately vacates the story (though you can visit it again during the post-game). It also has a completely different aesthetic from the rest of the game, adding to its feeling of being out of place.
• Girls Stare at Scenery, Boys Stare at Girls: During the post-game, you can find two Bubblainian tourists, one male and one female, in the Lake Kingdom. The female one is commenting on the beautiful scenery, while the male says that he only has eyestalks for the female.
• Global Airship: The eponymous Odyssey, after being repaired in Cascade Kingdom, allows Mario and Cappy to travel from kingdom to kingdom to chase Bowser and foil his plan to forcefully marry Princess Peach. They do need to gather Power Moons to fuel the vehicle, but as they do so the balloon-like orb on top of it will gradually fill up. By the end of the game, when they have enough Power Moons to unlock the Brutal Bonus Level, the orb is massive.
• Global Currency Exception: Each world's Crazy Cap shop has a counter that uses the standard golden coins, and another that only accepts the purple coins specific to each world.
• Go Fetch: You can play this with the Shiba Inu pups, using Cappy in lieu of a ball or Frisbee.
• Golden Ending: The Darker Side features a surprise ending sequence when you finally reach the end of the course, where, as you ascend the skyscraper, Cappy reflects on the adventures he and Mario had together. As you climb the pillar to the top, a music box rendition of Cascade Kingdom starts playing, and keeps slowing down the higher you go until you collect the Multi Moon. It really emphasizes this being the "Long Journey's End."
• The Goomba: Micro-Goombas take on the role of the first, easiest-to-deal-with enemy; they're also too small to be Captured. Actual Goombas are a Capture target, as are Paragoombas.
• Goomba Springboard: At the ending, Mario jumps on Bowser to reach the Odyssey in the sky.
• Gorgeous Garment Generation: Before taking off for the Moon Kingdom, Cappy changes Mario's clothes into a white tuxedo. If you didn't have the amiibo to get it early, this is when you obtain Mario's wedding outfit.
• Grand Theft Me: By throwing Cappy, Mario can Capture things to temporarily hijack them. He can do this on frogs, Goombas, Koopas, Cheep Cheeps, the RC car-controlling citizens of New Donk City^note every single other New Donker has a hat, and even a T. rex. Even inanimate objects aren't immune: trees, binoculars, taxis, enemy tanks, and manhole covers can come under his control. And Bowser himself, when he loses the only protection he has and is unconscious but needed to break the group out of the caverns they're trapped in.
• Green Hill Zone:
  • Cascade Kingdom mixes this with Prehistoria as, on top of being a grassy hill with waterfalls, it houses two dinosaurs (one outdoors in the Fossil Falls and the other in a cave); it is actually the second world visited in the game. In comparison, Cap Kingdom (the true first world) is more of a tutorial area and a Gray Hill Zone (mixed with Big Boo's Haunt).
  • At the very end, the game features Mushroom Kingdom, featuring Peach's Castle from Super Mario 64, accessible after Bowser is defeated for the last time.
• Grimy Water: Poison water can be found in at least one sub-area of most kingdoms, in isolated "lakes" in the Sand Kingdom, in moats in Bowser's Kingdom, and utterly surrounding the Lost Kingdom. Per tradition, falling into it is instantly fatal.
• Groin Attack: It's how you take down old-school Donkey Kong during the final 8-bit segment in the New Donk City festival. And Bowser, for that matter; due to the height difference, when you put on his boxing glove hat, it essentially results in Mario punching Bowser in the balls.
• Guide Dang It!:
  • There is no way to get hints for the local currency locations without the Bowser amiibo. If you don't have one, better hope you like poking your nose into every single nook and cranny looking for those last few coins.
  • The Hint Art Moons. Barring those that feature Poochy, which are screenshots of actual overworld locations (and not even those are very helpful sometimes), some of the Hint Art can be very obtuse, ranging from hard-to-read illusions to spot-the-difference puzzles (the difference marking the spot, of course). Hint Art Moons also count as a different Kingdom's Moon than the one they're found in, meaning that using Uncle amiibo or Hint Toad won't do you any good. The "bonus" Hint Art images released online and through the Switch's news feature are even tougher, but they just grant coin rewards and aren't needed for getting a hundred percent completion.
  • A handful of Captures don't tell you all the possible moves you can execute, or that there are alternate ways of executing others. Some examples of the former include the game never stating that you can spin as a Pokio by shaking the Joy-Con, which functions as a Double Jump when jumping normally, a sweeping attack when your beak is extended on the ground, and as a high-jump when your nose is embedded in a wall, or explaining that both Cheep Cheeps can do a dashing spin by pressing the dive and surface buttons at the same time. For an example of the latter, when you're a Spark Pylon (the electricity wires), you can pick up coins and collectibles around the wires by pressing any button in addition to shaking the controller. Some of these cases can be found out by experimenting, but it isn't always easy to guess.
  • There is a Power Moon found in Steam Gardens's Deep Woods that involves Capturing a Coin Coffer, then finding a sapling and spitting 700 coins at it (granted, the sapling is surrounded by a few coins lying in the brook, and uncollectable coins never appear anywhere else). Even if you've stumbled onto every step but the last, it takes a particularly persistent and stubborn player to keep at it for that long, especially since there's no visible progress after about one-fifth of the way through. Also, just entering the Deep Woods requires jumping off the edge of the level in the landing area, which would kill Mario in any other kingdom.
  • In various kingdoms, to get a specific Power Moon, you need to use binoculars to look in the sky at the flying ships in the background. But one of those ships is actually a taxi (or, in the postgame, the Sphynx) and you have to stare at it for a few seconds. You would not even think of doing that the first time you're in the kingdom.
  • The Power Moon On The Eastern Pillar is a bit tricky, and if you try all the Bullet Bills in the Sand Kingdom, their time limits don't get them close enough to break the block the Moon is hidden in. What you're supposed to do is to capture a Bullet Bill, wait a bit so it shoots another, lure it to one of the pillars to the right of the ruins (on the map), jump out of the original Bill, capture the second Bill before it explodes, and go as fast as you can to break the block and get the moon.

H

• Hailfire Peaks: Many of the levels were designed with this kind of contrast in mind.
  • The Cap Kingdom, the first level of the game, is a unique combination of Green Hill Zone and Big Boo's Haunt. It's essentially your typical first Mario level, but painted black. It works because the resident ghosts are friendly, and the spookiness stops at its colors and residents.
  • The Cascade Kingdom is a grassy plain with lots of dinosaurs, both living and dead.
  • The Sand Kingdom is (obviously) a desert area with heavy Mayincatec influences and several masses of ice.
  • The Wooded Kingdom is a large forest filled with vaguely military-looking machinery.
  • The Lost Kingdom is a tropical jungle surrounded by poisonous swamp water, though these two settings are frequently combined in video games.
  • The Snow Kingdom is a snow-and-ice world, but has a racetrack that dominates the playable area by land size and is the central trait of Shiverian culture.
  • The Luncheon Kingdom seems to be a Level Ate, but all the food-based objects are heavily stylized and polygonal, and the place has an active volcano that erupts bright pink lava.
  • The Moon Kingdom and the Darker Side of the Moon are Space Zone combined with Lethal Lava Land in the underground areas.
  • The Dark Side of the Moon is a combination of Space Zone and Level Ate, with giant stone vegetables.
• Hair-Raising Hare: The Broodals, a group of fancy-dressed but mean-looking rabbits who serve as Bowser's personal wedding planners.
• Hair Reboot: After the Final Boss, when Bowser flies into a wall and his tuxedo explodes off of him, his hair, which had previously been coiffed for the wedding, goes back to his usual mohawk.
• Hands Looking Wrong: The first time Mario uses Cappy's possession powers on a frog, the player is shown a 1st person cutscene of Mario looking down at the ground and realising his hands have turned into a frog's front feet.
• Hat of Power: Mario's Cap was just really spiffy before, but now it has eyes, courtesy of its inhabitant, Cappy. He gives the hat the utility of functioning like a boomerang weapon, and as an object that Mario can throw, then jump on, to use as a springboard. And of course, Mario can Capture things using his hat, too.
• Heart Container: The gold-crowned hearts extend Mario's life meter from 3 to 6 hit points, but losing the extra health will revert the maximum to the standard 3. Fortunately, the hearts allow the effect to be carried over across levels.
• Hearts Are Health: Rather unusually for the series, there are heart items to heal you instead of hit points being restored by a coin each, and there are also Life-Up Hearts which add three temporary hit points like the Galaxy Life Mushrooms. This is likely because the amount of coins in the game is greater, more comparable to the 2D Mario formula, and as such, they'd make healing too easy. Checkpoint flags (when first activated), Moons, and returns to the Odyssey will also heal Mario.
• He Cleans Up Nicely:
  • Bowser cuts a rather striking figure in his white wedding outfit◊. The in-game description for Mario's version of said outfit even states that Bowser cleans up nicely for a fire-breathing monster covered in spikes, while Bowser himself will compliment you on your choice of clothing before the final fight.
  • Mario's no slouch either◊, Cappy even comments on how dapper the white tuxedo makes Mario look.
  • And, of course, Princess Peach looks stunning in a white wedding dress. It helps that this dress isn't just a Palette Swap of her normal gown like in Super Paper Mario.
• Helpful Mook: The usually antagonistic Koopa Troopa and Lakitu enemies actually appear as friendly NPCs. The former often gives Mario challenges, including Koopa the Quick-type races, while Lakitus can be captured to fish up hidden items. Other NPCs in the area also don't react in fear if Mario approaches while capturing a Lakitu as they would when he captures other mooks near them. While hostile Koopas are still present in the game, it is only in the form of their 8-bit counterparts in wall platforming segments.
• Herding Mission: In the Sand, Wooded, and Mushroom Kingdoms, there are a Tostarenan, a Steam Gardener, and a Toad whose sheep have wandered away from them. Mario can find them and return them to their owners for Power Moons.
• Heroes Love Dogs: More like "Dogs Love Heroes". The Shiba Inu that shows up in some of the kingdoms will follow Mario around after it unearths a treasure, play fetch with Cappy, and curl up to sleep next to Mario if he nods off.
• High-Altitude Battle:
  • The rematch with Brigadier Mollusque-Lanceur III has the starting platform with a single Gushen, a Glass Tower replica you can't climb, and nothing else. The fight is in the sky during a rainstorm (so you don't run out of water), with that starting platform as the only place to rest.
  • The initial battle with Bowser in the Cloud Kingdom is this in its entirety, though you're on a flat arena and can't see the ground through the clouds.
• Holy Pipe Organ: The church where Bowser plans to marry Peach has some reverent organ music playing inside. But once you confront Bowser, there is a cutscene just before fighting him where the organ switches to playing more sinister music as Bowser sends Mario down a trapdoor in the church's floor to the battlefield.
• Homing Projectile: If you shake the Joy-Con while Cappy is in flight, Cappy will home in on the nearest valid target, be it a collectible or enemy. You can use this to compensate for bad aim or squeeze a little extra distance out of your throws.
• Humongous Mecha: One boss battle involves Mario fighting a giant robotic Wiggler by Capturing a tank enemy to attack it. Another boss battle involves a gigantic wooden robot which is piloted by all the Broodals together, and it must be defeated by knocking bombs at its legs and climbing the fallen machine to attack the cockpits that the Broodals are in.

I

• Idiosyncratic Wipe:
  • The scene change transition is an Iris Out with Mario's hat, twirling like he's throwing it away from the screen.
  • The wipe when you skip the cutscenes is crescent-shaped, much like the Power Moons.
• Idle Animation:
  • Mario once again eventually falls asleep and dreams about pasta if you stand still for long enough. Leave him long enough after that and a bird (type varying by location) will land on his nose.
  • On his bed in the Odyssey, he will go to sleep more quickly, and if left idle on any kind of chair, he will sit down on it. Mario can also doze off momentarily on one of the chairs in the ship, but he wakes himself up after a while, unlike when on the bed. During this, Cappy will float around admiring any decorations you’ve placed inside the ship as well.
  • Mario will shiver and try to warm his hands in a cold enough area, while he'll wipe sweat off his brow and fan himself in a hot enough area. Though if he's wearing an appropriate outfit, such as the jacket while it's cold, or the boxers while it's hot, he'll go back to his regular idle animation.
  • If Mario's standing next to Source Music, such as a radio, or the live band in New Donk City, he'll begin dancing to it.
• I Fell for Hours: Some areas are really tall, even into account that most of the stages seem like islands suspended in the sky like in Super Mario 64. Since Mario doesn't take fall damage in Odyssey, one can take a plunge from such places (such as the top floor of New Donk City Hall or the Moon Kingdom Wedding Hall) and wait a good few seconds before hitting the ground.
• Ill-Fated Flowerbed: The Steam Gardens feature a secret flower field that is very dear to the Steam Gardeners' robotic hearts. Unfortunately, the field has been found by Torkdrift, a daisy-like UFO that vacuums up all of its flowers. Mario manages to destroy the monstrosity, but not before it managed to destroy most of the parterre. You can return to restore the field and get a Power Moon, though.
• Improvised Platform: An unusual case. Magmatoes are Luncheon Kingdom enemies which melt into a pool of lava when hit, making them a hazard... to anything except a Captured Lava Bubble, which can swim in their puddles to cross solid ground that would vaporize the Lava Bubble otherwise.
• In a Single Bound:
  • In this game, Mario can use springy poles to launch his way up and across the New Donk City skyscrapers, and can land safely after leaping from them to street-level.
  • A skilled player can make Mario pull off insanely long distance leaps in this game; it's possible to bypass most sections where you have to Capture a creature to progress by pulling off said insane jumps, and many platforming challenges can likewise be made much easier with skilled enough jumps.

• Inevitable Tournament: Downplayed. In the Snow Kingdom, there is a race mentioned by all the Shiverians and how much they look forward to it. And of course, Mario can participate in it. However, while it's necessary to restore peace in the kingdom, it isn't strictly necessary to beat the game.
• Inexplicable Treasure Chests: Many unopened treasure chests are located in caves, atop of pillars and other weird locations. These can contain things like coins or even moons.
• In Medias Res: The game starts with Mario fighting Bowser aboard his airship.
• Insert Song: It ultimately turns out that "Jump Up, Super Star!" isn't the main theme some people thought it was.^note Not only that, but a slightly different version of the song (i.e., from the single version) plays in-game. It plays when Mario gets the band back together, and then goes though the Donkey Kong-inspired Retraux section during the festival. There's also one other one that plays when Mario captures Bowser, and he and Princess Peach make their escape from the underground lair under the wedding hall. To be exact, it plays in the last area when Mario has to destroy the four columns.
• Insistent Terminology:
  • Bowser is largely referred to as a monster by other characters.
  • The Mushroom Kingdom's collectibles are still called Power Moons, despite the fact that they're in the form of Power Stars.
• Interface Spoiler: A minor one, but looking at the Moon lists reveals all the potential moons that the world has, including ones that can only be found in the post-game.
• An Interior Designer Is You: You can buy souvenirs from the various kingdoms to customize the interior of the Odyssey, though they all have predetermined spots, so the customization is limited to what you buy, since you cannot decide where the items will be placed or remove them after they're bought.
• Interspecies Romance:
  • If you revisit the final level after beating Bowser, two guys, a snail-like Bubblainian and a fork-like Volbonan, can be seen competing for the affections of a female New Donker, who, like all other New Donkers, looks like a realistic human. Her body language indicates that she's rather flattered.
  • In the Moon's chapel after beating Bowser, a skeleton-like Tostarenan and a mermaid-like Lochlady discuss the posibility of getting married in the chapel.
• Intrepid Merchant: Subverted. The Crazy Cap location in Bowser's Kingdom doesn't get a lot of customers due to being located in a very unsafe location filled with dangerous enemies and the entirety of the Kingdom is floating, meaning that you'd need the ability to use a Spark Pylon to even reach the shop.
• Invincibility Power-Up: Starmen are notably absent, but scanning a Mario amiibo achieves a similar effect by granting you a brief period of invincibility.
• Invisibility Cloak: The Invisibility Hat that Mario gets by collecting the Multi Moon in Cumina Crater.
• Invisible Wall: Surrounds the Cap Kingdom and Seaside Kingdom, to prevent Paragoombas and Cheep Cheeps/Gushens from flying/swimming (respectively) out into the distance forever.
• Irony: The song "Jump Up, Super Star" features "1-Up Girl" and "1-Up Boy" as lyrics, though this is the first main-series game without a lives system.

J-L

• Jiggle Physics:
  • Oddly, the game features this for, of all things, Mario's nose.
  • Mario's hats are also affected, bouncing slightly off his head with every step, practically flying off as he runs, and even exposing the hair underneath as it bounces.
  • The typical application of the trope is found here, too, with Madame Broode's chest and stomach. It's not sexy.
• Jungle Japes: The Lost Kingdom is a tropical island jungle with a lot of interesting plants.
• Kabuki Sounds: Stairface Ogres utter a kabuki-like "Yoooooo" when they're defeated.
• Kaizo Trap: Inverted. The final battle begins with Bowser already attacking you, so if you don't move or counter quickly, you'll take damage as soon as it starts. The cutscene right before the boss battle ends with Bowser initiating this attack, making it a small case of Gameplay and Story Integration.
• Kick the Dog: After Mario's hat is knocked off, Bowser crushes it with his foot. Funnily enough, though, it rebounds right back with no visible damage after he steps off; it's not until it is left to fly into the airship propellers that it gets destroyed.
• King Mook: Mollusque-Lanceur, the boss of the Sea Kingdom, is an adult specimen of the Gushen (and by extension the Astro-Lanceur).
• Kung Fu-Proof Mook:
  • The Piranha Plant, of all enemies, can counter Capturing because it can just eat Mario's hat when he tries to throw it. It is possible to Capture it if you feed it a rock first.
  • Trapeetles are also immune to Capturing. Not only can they grab Cappy from any direction, they will then throw Cappy back at Mario as an explosive projectile. Cappy is not harmed, but this move can easily catch you off guard if you're not prepared for it.
• Last Episode Theme Reprise: "Jump Up, Super Star!" gets an encore performance right before the Brutal Bonus Level.
• Last Lousy Point:
  • Because they are scattered widely across kingdoms, chasing down purple coins in each of them can get to be a hassle as they start to dwindle in number.
  • If you're trying to fill out the Capture list, Piranha Plants can be tricky to get because they normally eat Cappy when he's thrown at them. The only way to Capture them is to feed them a rock, then throw Cappy at them.
  • One music track can be very hard to track down if you're not the type to mess around throwing Cappy at things: "Honeylune Ridge: Escape (Japanese)" is obtained in the post-game by throwing Cappy at any radio that normally plays the Crazy Cap theme. Prior to the post-game, hitting said radios will instead play a clip of Bowser kidnapping Peach.
  • Talkatoo and Hint Toad exist to make exploration easier, as they give free hints to those who interact with them. Talkatoo gives the name of a random unobtained Moon (which can be pretty on-the-nose at times), while Hint Toad will mark a Moon location on the map for the price of 50 coins.
• Later-Installment Weirdness:
  • 1-up lives and Game Overs are completely done away with for the first time in the core games, instead having Mario lose 10 coins upon death.
  • None of the typical Mario power-ups, such as Mushrooms or Starmen, are ever seen in the game; the only recurring items that appear are Coins.
  • Though Starmen no longer appear, temporary invincibility is still possible through scanning any Mario amiibo^note This includes Mario, Smash Mario, 8-bit Mario (classic or modern), Gold or Silver Mario, and of course, Wedding Mario..
  • While the game does use the exploration-based gameplay of 64 and Sunshine, the game does not boot players out of the level after collecting a Power Moon, making it more similar to collectathons like Banjo-Kazooie. Also in that vein, there are no selectable story missions for each moon — instead, the area's plot advances permanently upon collecting certain primary objective moons. This also means that one cannot redo certain major objectives or refight certain bosses, until the rematches in the post-game, including the Dark Side for the Broodals and the Moon Kingdom on re-visit for Bowser.
• Lava Is Boiling Kool-Aid: The lava in this game looks pretty normal, with the exception of the strange solid-pink lava in the Luncheon Kingdom, which may literally be boiling Kool-Aid.
• Lazy Dragon: The Ruined Dragon in the post-game. He hangs off the tower where Mario first fought him and complains of tiredness. (Said tiredness may also explain his Tactical Suicide during the boss fight.)
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall:
  • The theme song as a whole, along with uses some clever wordplay to reference everything from Odyssey's relationship to past 3D Mario installments, staples of the franchise such as coins and mushrooms, and even the dedication and skill of long-time Mario fans themselves.
  • The brochure for New Donk City mentions that the NDC Festival's schedule is subject to frequent changes, since the player can choose to replay the festival any time they like.
  • The fossils in the rocks of the Cascade Kingdom are classic 8-bit enemy sprites, and there are costumes which re-create Mario's 64 model and the 3D form of his 8-bit sprite — one Toad even has nostalgia for Mario looking as he did in 64, implying that the changes in the series' art style are in some way part of the universe's history.
• Leaning Tower of Mooks: Mario can can encounter Goombas standing on top of one another, and can also Invoke this trope by capturing a Goomba and making it jump on another one. That Goomba can them jump on another one, and so on, and so forth, to make a tower of Goombas.
• Leap of Faith: One Moon in New Donk City, appropriately titled "Leap of Faith", involves attempting to get a scooter into a parking spot situated on top of a roof. The thing is, there is no way to get to the rooftop from ground level^note outside of performing a certain glitch. You are thus required to go to the very top of City Hall, where you can find a scooter, and drive straight off. Thankfully, you can control your aerial momentum so you can aim for the rooftop in question.
• Leitmotif:
  • Captain Toad's theme tune plays every time he appears.
  • The melody from Fossil Falls is recurring: examples include the map selection screen, getting a Life-Up Heart, or activating a switch. It's also featured in the second Bowser battle, the moon cave escape sequence, and the credits.
  • Bowser and his minions have a distinct motif that's heard throughout the game. It is most prominently heard during the first fight with Bowser and when you enter the Metro Kingdom.
• Lethal Lava Land:
  • Mount Volbono of the Luncheon Kingdom erupts bright pink lava, which the whole level is surrounded by.
  • Additionally, there is the Lava Crater inside the Moon Kingdom, which is a more traditional lava-filled corridor.
  • Lava is present outside the intended levels as well. In the Seaside Kingdom, Mollusque-Lanceur fills the hot springs with lava and generates lava on his head, and a couple of sublevel challenge areas are surrounded by lava.
• Level Ate: The Luncheon Kingdom is made of heavily stylized food, has living utensils as NPCs, and features pan-tossing Hammer Bros. There's even a giant bird dressed in chef attire named Cookatiel menacing the place by cluelessly taking over the cooking.
• Level in the Clouds: The Cloud Kingdom is located in the cloudy skies above another kingdom. It is here where Mario fights Bowser for the first time in the game, as well as the first level where certain cloud platforms can be activated by hitting their "null" forms with Cappy.
• Life Meter: While the graphics are different, this game's life meter is functionally identical to the Galaxy games', with just three hit points, but a power-up^note the Galaxy games had Life Mushrooms, and Odyssey has Life-Up Hearts which will add three for as long as the player can keep them.
• Lightning Bruiser: The Captured version of Bowser is as fast as Mario, can jump as high as Mario, is strong enough to destroy giant, stone blocks with a single swipe, and starts with doubled HP.
• Limited Wardrobe: A significant aversion, for, unusually for a mainline Mario platformer, not only can Mario can dress up in different outfits, but Peach will do so as well when she tours the different kingdoms in the post-game.
• Living Dinosaurs: The Cascade Kingdom is known for having these. More Tyrannosaurus can be found in the Wooded Kingdom and the Metro Kingdom, though only the Wooded and Cascade Kingdom ones can be Captured.
• Living Statue: The Moe-Eyes are walking moai statues with sunglasses. If Mario captures one, he can toggle its sunglasses to see invisible platforms.
• Load-Bearing Boss: After the final fight with Bowser in the Moon Kingdom, the interior of the moon begins to collapse, prompting an Escape Sequence. Justified by Bowser hitting and shattering a background pillar when Mario delivers the final punch to knock him out of the arena, which, if it were load-bearing, would in turn destabilize the cavern.
• Lone Wolf Boss: Some of the bosses, such as Knucklotec and Cookatiel, don't work with Bowser. The former only fights Mario because he mistakes him for the thieves, and Cookatiel is a random stupid bird who probably doesn't even know that she's a menace to the stew she's taken over.
• Long Song, Short Scene:
  • It's very easy to miss hearing the 8-bit version of "Mollusque-Lanceur Battle" at the only opportunity to hear it, as it only plays when Mario is in an 8-bit area that he has no reason to be in at the time (since, well, an octopus is rampaging around Bubblaine). Fortunately, the song appears in the sound test after beating Mollusque-Lanceur regardless of whether it played or not.
  • If you're really good at the game, you won't get to hear much of the second Insert Song that plays when Mario (who has captured Bowser at this point) has to claw his way through the four columns as he and Princess Peach make their escape from the underground lair under the wedding hall.
• Lost in a Crowd: One area in New Donk City features a Mobstacle Course that makes Mario run through a crowd to get to a timed Power Moon. In the postgame, one of the new Power Moon challenges is to find the single New Donker in that crowd who is wearing a Bonneter instead of a normal hat.
• Lost Technology:
  • The Steam Gardens are an ancient, high-tech greenhouse tended by watering can robots. These robots are advanced enough to have sentience and free will (think WALL•E but better-spoken). According to the kingdom's Crazy Cap brochure, nobody knows who built the gardens, but they took off centuries ago, leaving the self-sustaining gardens behind.
  • Knucklotec, the boss of the Sand Kingdom, seems to be partly robotic — capturing its fists causes them to reveal rocket boosters.
• The Lost Woods: The Wooded Kingdom is a typical forest area, but with a lot of machinery thrown in as well. The semi-hidden Deep Woods area beneath the Steam Gardens is far more natural in appearance.
• Lunacy: Instead of Power Stars or Shine Sprites, the main collectibles in Odyssey are Power Moons. The Mushroom Kingdom has 64-style Power Stars, but they're still called "moons", theorized by Cappy to be a different shape for the same object.

M

• MacGuffin: Most of the Kingdoms that Bowser passes through have something he wants to steal to furnish his wedding with.
  • He kidnapped Cappy's sister Tiara from the Cap Kingdom to serve as Peach's tiara/wedding veil.
  • He stole the Binding Band from the Sand Kingdom's pyramid to act as Peach's wedding ring.
  • He stole the Lochlady Dress from the Lake Kingdom to be Peach's wedding dress.
  • The Wooden Kingdom's Soirée Bouquet field was picked to be Peach's bouquet, though Bowser added some Piranha Plants to it.
  • Bowser tried to siphon electricity from the Metro Kingdom for an unspecified purpose.
  • The prize for the Snow Kingdom's big race, the Frost-Frosted Cake, was stolen to be Bowser's wedding cake.
  • Much of the Seaside Kingdom's Sparkle Water was drained so that Bowser could use it to make a toast at his reception.
  • A large amount of Stupendous Stew was stolen from the Luncheon Kingdom to be served at the wedding.
  • And, of course, he stole Peach herself from the Mushroom Kingdom.
• Mad Bomber: Hariet, one of the Broodals, attacks by throwing bombs, and has an ability where she flies around while dropping bombs, laughing crazily in the process.
• The Many Deaths of You: Since there is no Game Over in this game, and Death Is a Slap on the Wrist, there are many different ways to off poor Mario in this game, and different animations to boot. Getting hit by a Bullet Bill or falling into lava, in particular, gives Mario an Ash Face as he falls off the screen.
• Marathon Level: This is a large part of the difficulty behind Darker Side of the Moon. It's 14 sections without checkpoints, with many being about the length of a full Power Moon mission elsewhere in the game.
• Mayincatec: The primary theme of the Sand Kingdom, in the first departure from Mario deserts' ubiquitous Egyptian theming. Here, the most Egyptian feature is a Sphynx, but the rest is based on Mesoamerican history, with the pyramid being a step pyramid common to Mayan, Aztec, and other societies, and the boss being based on Olmec statues. There's also a more modern-day Mexican town, a cowboy outfit bought there and moai creatures, further distancing the theme from Egypt.
• Meaningful Name: Tostarena, the village in Sand Kingdom. The first syllable comes from "tostado" (Spanish for "toasted" or "burnt" in some cases), referring to the kingdom's toasty, arid climate (after both its bosses have been defeated) & "arena" is Spanish for "sand", as in the landscape.
• Mecha-Mooks: The game features the Sherm, a tank enemy that shoots explosives at Mario. They can be captured with the help of Cappy (and doing so is necessary to defeat Mechawiggler).
• Mechanical Monster: Mechawiggler is a large robotic specimen of Wiggler which is terrorizing New Donk City and its people, and is capable of attacking with energy spheres as well as warping from one spot to another with portals.
• Meet Your Early-Installment Weirdness:
  • The prevalence of 8-bit areas means that enemies get to be seen in slightly dated designs; Mario also has his old sprite, but it's recolored to match his modern look (and also changes to show most of the outfits he can wear). In the 8-bit segment of Honeylune Ridge's finale, Peach and Mario-as-Bowser keep their Super Mario Bros. looks unchanged.
  • The Mushroom Kingdom's purple coin outfit is the Mario 64 hat and suit. Wearing them gives Mario an updated version of his 64 look — an update that keeps its blockiness, lack of mouth, blank stare, and fingerless hands, all combining to make him look incredibly weird next to the game's Scenery Porn. Wearing the outfit also opens up a bonus area in Mushroom Kingdom that recreates the fountain area in Peach's Castle, complete with the perpetually-frontward tree sprites (opening Snapshot Mode lets you break their illusion and see them at an angle). Metal Mario also appears as an unlockable outfit.
• Mercy Mode: Failing enough times in certain sections of the game will eventually trigger a Crazy Cap employee to appear nearby, offering items such as Life-Up Hearts for coins. Also, the Assist Mode acts as an optional one, wherein Mario will have 3 extra health points, is saved by a bubble if he falls off of a level, has arrows that tell him where certain plot-centric objectives are, and regains lost health if left idle for a few seconds. That last one makes getting through certain levels much easier.
• Metropolis Level: New Donk City is a Skyscraper City based off of metropolitan New York City, where Mario must navigate a vertical maze of stairways, construction frameworks, skyscraper exteriors, precipitous drops and hanging girders, all while dodging enemies such as giant flies and Goombas in hard hats. Besides the realistically proportioned New Donker humans, it's generally played as cartoonishly silly as any other level theme in the series: the entire level is surrounded with a Bottomless Pit with roads that just drive off into nothingness, the side "island" is actually just a really tall skyscraper below the main area's foundation, and a ton of NPCs are actively engaging in blatant Artificial Atmospheric Actions, like two people in the park spinning a jump rope around by themselves with nobody jumping over it, or the endless crowd of people leaving one storefront and flowing into another in a singular direction, which you find by walking into a much smaller building.
• The Mind Is a Plaything of the Body: Subtly used. At times, it almost seems like Mario's compelled to act like whatever he's inhabiting when he first inhabits it.
• Mini-Boss: The Broodals, which are fought halfway through the Kingdoms' corresponding story arcs, in a fashion similar to the minibosses from the 2D games. In the penultimate level, they realize they're individually no match for Mario, so they join forces as they pilot the Robobrood to face him in a full-fledged boss battle.
• Minsky Pickup: One of these begins the theme used in Koopa Freerunning and Luigi's Balloon World.
• Missed Him by That Much: Banktoad mentions that he and the other members of the Toad Brigade haven't found out where Captain Toad went when Mario finds him on the summit of Forgotten Isle. If you went to the cave the Captain was hiding out in before climbing the mountain, it invokes this trope.
• Mister Muffykins: Madame Broode's Chain Chomp pet is named Chain Chompikins, and has a higher-pitched yap than most Chomps.
• Mobstacle Course: One Timed Mission involves Mario running through (or jumping over, if you prefer) a large crowd of New Donkers to get to a Power Moon.
• Money for Nothing: The only things coins are used for are Life-Up Hearts, outfits, and Power Moons. Outfits and Power Moons only need to be bought once and Life-Up Hearts can be found for free in the open world. Because collecting coins are no longer used for earning extra lives, it's easy to wind up with hundreds, even thousands of coins with little to spend on.
• Money Sink: Once you hit the post-game, Crazy Cap really opens up with its stock. Not only is the purchase limit on Power Moons removed, allowing you to buy as many Power Moons as your wallet allows, but earning more Power Moons progressively adds more and more outfits and hats to buy, including the amiibo outfits and a Skeleton outfit that costs a whopping 9999 Coins! Several outfits were also added post-launch, with many of them going for a thousand coins or more.
• Mood Whiplash:
  • Not so much one that suddenly makes the game dark out of nowhere but traveling to the Metro Kingdom is a bit jarring at first. The people there are proportioned like real people, the vehicles are conventional cars, and the building designs have none of the whimsy the series is known for, being very brick-and-mortar city skyscrapers. This is contrasted against locales such as the Sand Kingdom with its cartoonish Dia de Muertos-like skeleton citizens and stylized Mexican-esque dwellings. The robot centipede that takes over the New Donk City Hall is also grimly cold and mechanical in design as opposed to the less sci-fi robots you might see elsewhere. The place is also initially raining, at night, and infested with mosquito-like enemies called Urban Stingbies.
  • Within the Snow Kingdom, you start in a dark blizzard with no visibility that does a great job at masking the tiny size of the area and making the player feel lost and unwelcome, but then you end up falling into the cheery, cozy underground town and meet its adorable NPC inhabitants and the tone has completely changed.
  • For a more traditional example, after exploring the cold but cuddly Snow Kingdom, the relaxing Seaside Kingdom, and the cheery, goofy Luncheon Kingdom, you're then attacked by a terrifying dragon, and end up in the Ruined Kingdom, which is dark, moody, and very creepy.
  • There's also the Deep Woods, deep in the cheery, lively Wooded Kingdom. o get there, you have to jump off the undulating cliff next to the Odyssey, which wouldn't at all come to mind.
• Moon Rabbit: The Broodals apparently hail from the Dark Side of the moon, more specifically Rabbit Ridge. Rabbit Ridge is also filled with bunnies wearing top hats.
• Moral Myopia: Bowser has transgressed against every civilized Kingdom on the planet by terrorizing the locals and stealing something from them as part of the necessary preparations for his wedding. Then he "invites" some special guests from each of the Kingdoms to bear witness to the marital union between him and Princess Peach and acts like there's nothing wrong about it. All the while obstructing and condemning Mario for being the "bad guy" who has to go out of his way to ruin all of his hard work.
• Morphic Resonance: Anything captured by Mario will feature his red hat, mustache, and blue eyes. Including a dinosaur.
• Motifs:
  • As Tanooki tails were to 3D Land and cats were to 3D World, hats are to this game. Many NPCs wear them, the Crazy Cap store appears in many of the worlds, and Mario's airship, the Odyssey, is even shaped like a top hat. And of course, Mario and Peach's hats are possessed by spirits named Cappy and Tiara, respectively.
  • The moon. Mario collects moons instead of stars, the moon is visible in every stage, the Broodals are a gang of rabbits who hail from the moon, "Jump Up, Super Star!" mentions you can zoom all the way to the moon, and there's also the pun of a wedding honeymoon. And the final kingdom? Moon Kingdom.
• Mundane Fantastic: The Moon Kingdom in spades. It's a popular tourist location which also warranted a brochure from Crazy Cap and equally popular for hosting weddings, and the kicker is that it's perfectly accessible by taxi (but doing so would require a lot of fuel to be replenished) and wearing a space suit or at least a helmet is optional.
• Mundane Utility: Some Power Moons require you to use Captured enemies for basic tasks, like using a Fire Bro to light a campfire or warming up stew pots by hopping in as a Lava Bubble.
• Musical Nod:
  • If you go into the deepest level of the pause menu and back^note activate the menu, go to Options, then Controls, you'll notice that the selection jingles form the melody of "Rosalina in the Observatory". In addition, pausing and then quickly unpausing will form the classic 1-Up jingle, which is otherwise absent due to this game's lack of Video-Game Lives.
  • The bassline in the bridge of "Jump Up, Super Star!", the game's main theme, is a variation on the music for the first level from Donkey Kong (AKA 25m). The "item get" sound is also worked into the bridge during the version played in "A Traditional Festival!".
  • Similarly, the bridge for "Break Free (Lead the Way)" is Bowser's Leitmotif from Super Mario 64, and the version that plays over the final cutscene also contains 25m in the second bridge.
  • Various radios in New Donk City play piano versions of the ''Super Mario World'' overworld theme.
  • Uniquely, a song from Super Mario Maker is prominently referenced; cutscenes involving Bowser's airship use an orchestrated version of that game's opening riffs for the Super Mario Bros. airship theme.
  • The music during the second half of Bowser's Kingdom is an orchestrated remix of Bowser's boss fight theme from Super Mario Bros. 3.
  • Bonus rooms have mostly original music. However, the exceptions are NPC minigame challenges like Slots (Super Mario Bros. 3 minigame theme), the RC Car challenge (which uses Super Mario Kart's Mario Circuit theme), and those accessed through beanstalks (cue the Super Mario World bonus room theme).
  • In the Mushroom Kingdom, the victory theme that plays for getting Power Moons is swapped out for a new arrangement of Super Mario 64's Power Star theme. Peach's Castle also uses an orchestrated arrangement of "Inside the Castle Walls" from the same game.
  • The racing theme that plays during the Koopa Freerunning and Shiverian races sounds remarkably similar to "Full of Vigor" from Mario Party 4.
• My Nayme Is: "Hariet" is usually spelled with two R's, but has just one to aid the rabbit pun ("hare").
• Mythology Gag:
  • Various preceding works in the franchise, such as The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!, Super Mario Adventures, and The Great Mission to Save Princess Peach! had Bowser trying to marry Peach by force.
  • The Big Applesauce-ness of New Donk City recalls the original backstory of Mario and Luigi coming from Brooklyn and ending up stranded in the Mushroom Kingdom by Warp Pipe. Mario has finally come home!
  • A few of Mario's outfits are taken from the 2016 Club Nintendo calendar◊:
    • The Swim Goggles and Swimwear come from June.
    • The Painter Outfit comes from September, with extra inspiration from Mario Paint. The accompanying cap, however, comes from Mario Artist.
    • The Samurai Helmet and Armor come from May.
    • The Hakama comes from January.
    • The Santa Hat and Outfit come from December.
  • The Mario 64 and Metal Mario clothes change Mario to his low-poly model from his early 3D days.
  • New Donk City has some graffiti of original DK and Pauline's old "Lady"◊ design. Upon closer inspection of the text◊ underneath it, "New Donk City" was scratched out to say "New Donk Cranky".
  • The ambiguous plaque from Super Mario 64 rumored to say "L is real 2401" is back and just as blurry as before.
  • The women running the jumprope minigame prompt Mario to "Jump, man!", with "Jumpman" being an earlier concept name.
  • Mario's dancing animation has him swinging his arms from side to side; in other words, doing "The Mario". Additionally, Pauline's number is about "doing the Odyessy".
  • Bowser's Kingdom's main export is Hanafuda cards, referencing Nintendo's own origins as a Hanafuda card manufacturer.
  • A side area in New Donk City has Mario escape from a Tyrannosaurus in a New York-esque city, much like in the live-action movie.^note The Super Mario World cartoon also features the Mario brothers running into dinosaurs on occasion, justifying the location being called "Dinosaur Land". No explanation is given as to why a T-Rex is running around in an area inspired by New York City.
  • One of Pauline's animations during the festival has her turning to the side and kicking her legs in a weird manner... which is actually a recreation of her animation from the original Donkey Kong.
  • When the player reaches a certain rank in Balloon World, Luigi will have three balloons, colored blue, red, and yellow. Combined with his green hat, it altogether resembles the buttons on a Super Famicom/European/Australian SNES controller turned sideways◊.