The Cast Showoff: Kate Higgins was trained under jazz musician Bob Richardson. Rather appropriate for the singing voice of Pauline, who sings the rather jazzy "Jump Up, Super Star."
Cut Song: "The Broodal's Airship" and "Meeting Cappy" were not included in the Music List. All the "cutscene songs" were excluded as well, though this was understandable, since the Music List seemed to be only meant for loopable in-game songs.
With Sonic Forces, fittingly enough. Both were released in the fourth quarter of the year (within a week of each other, even: Odyssey was released on October 27 worldwide, and Forces was released on November 7 in the US and November 9 overseas), and both aimed to take their respective series in a bold new direction. Odyssey ended up being much-better received than Forces in the long run.
Also with A Hat in Time, being another classic-styled 3D Collectathon platformer released in the same month, with its console version launching first on rival systems.
In a rematch of the battle between Super Mario 3D World and Knack — which surprisingly resulted in Knack upsetting the odds and just barely outselling 3D World for a scant few months in the UK, albeit with the worldwide sales of the latter game (5.75 million) ultimately demolishing those of the former (1 million+) in the long run despite being on Nintendo's worst selling home console — this game was released a month or so after Knack II. This time, the result of the duel wasn't even close, with some estimates putting this game at selling twenty times the lifetime sales of Knack II in its opening weekend alone.
The rabbits Mario must catch for certain power moons use one of Kamek's audio clips from New Super Mario Bros. Wii when caught.
The sound that plays when skimming through text serves the exact same function as it does in Splatoon.
Killer App: Naturally. The game sold 2 million copies during its first weekend, and ended up selling over 9 million copies in just two months. Meaning that over 60% of all Switch owners have the game.
Prop Recycling: It's not hard to tell that the stone vegetables on the Dark Side of the moon reuse models from the polygonal food in the Luncheon Kingdom.
Spoiled by the Merchandise: The boxes for the amiibo figures of Mario, Peach and Bowser (in wedding outfits) ended up giving away the existence of the Lake Kingdom, Snow Kingdom, and Mushroom Kingdom, thanks to the giant world map behind the figures.
Tie-In Cereal: Kellogg's released Super Mario Cereal in December 2017 as part of a deal with Nintendo to promote Odyssey. The cereal featured marshmallows in the shape of Super Mushrooms, 1-Up Mushrooms, and Question-Mark Blocks, and initially featured an NFC amiibo chip in the box that could be scanned in Odyssey and various other games to obtain power-ups and other small benefits. The latter feature led to intact boxes being widely scalped, especially after Kellogg's started selling boxes without the chip a few months later.
What Could Have Been: The book The Art of Super Mario Odyssey reveals concept art for several unused elements in the game. These include, but are not limited to...
Different outfits for Mario.
New Donk City not based on the Donkey Kong series but rather generally Mario-themed.
The New Donk City citizens were originally going to be cartoonish like Mario before the designers decided to make them look uncannily realistic. The designers also considered making the look 8-bit like in the original Donkey Kong. After the realistic design was chosen, there was a scrapped concept that the citizens would chase after Mario for looking different.
Humans from previous Mario games were planned to appear in New Donk City, such Professor E. Gadd, and Rosalina, who was going to be playing acoustic guitar.
Bowser's top hat was originally supposed to be an evil Bonneter as a foil to Cappy, in turn giving Bowser the capture ability to use against Mario. In this concept, the final boss of the game would be Bowser capturing Peach, turning the two into a fusion named "Koopeach".note This was made way before the Bowsette meme popped up after the September 2018 Nintendo Direct.
An alternate design for Glydon had him dress like a super hero. Another design was a nervous flying squirrel rather than a laid back flying lizard.
A drawing from the artbook showcases prototype Broodals based on existing Mario species, who likely would've been used had the rabbit angle not come about. Other variations included an all-female group acting as bridesmaids, a version where the Broodals were birds instead of rabbits, a version where the Broodals were Koopaling-like creatures with a circus theme, and an ancient tribe of regular enemies.
Working Title: The "Steam Gardens" area was originally known as Kogwald. The rename was likely made to better match the locale, since cogs are mostly absent from its steam-based machinery.
Assorted Trivia
This is the first mainline Super Mario game to get a higher rating than usual in most regions:
It got a rating above E by the ESRB - E10+, to be precise.
In Japan, it's the first mainline Super Mario game to get a B rating (for ages 12 and up).
In Europe, it's the first mainline Super Mario game (excluding re-releases) to get a rating higher than PEGI 3, PEGI 7 to be exact.note The Wii U re-releases of Super Mario 64 DS and New Super Mario Bros. shifted from PEGI 3 to PEGI 12, due to changed views on gambling minigames.
This is the first mainline Super Mario game in years since Super Mario Sunshine to feature actual voice acted dialogue, although in most cases it's gibberish with hints of the character's names thrown in, similar to many video games of The '90s. Mario and Peach are arguably the only ones with noticeable actual words besides Pauline and the announcer in the New Donk City festival event.
, Charles Martinet listed Super Mario Odyssey as one of his favorite Mario games, praising it as a "tribute" to the past and future of his character.