The 15 most delightful things I learned from playing the crazy new 'Super Mario' game for the Switch

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June 17, 2017 3:24 PM

"Super Mario Odyssey" looks like the most inventive, most unique "Super Mario" game in years. Get your hat-throwing arm ready!

Yes, that's Mario playing guitar while a skeleton with maracas dances alongside him.

A delightful new "Super Mario" game is in the works, and it's got a fun new twist.

In the upcoming"Super Mario Odyssey," Mario's hat is alive, and it's accompanying him on a bizarre new journey.

I was lucky enough to play "Super Mario Odyssey" at the annual E3 video game trade show in Los Angeles, California this week. In addition to playing the game, I found out a ton of details about it.

Here's the best stuff I learned!

1. "Super Mario Odyssey" is a 3D, open-world game. It's the first such sandbox-style Mario title since 2002's "Super Mario Sunshine," which was made for the Nintendo GameCube

2. The main gimmick in "Super Mario Odyssey" is Mario's hat. It's named "Cappy," and it's alive!

3. Mario can do several things with Cappy. He can throw it as a weapon to hurt enemies. He can use it to help him jump higher...

4. And he can use Cappy to straight up take over stuff, from inanimate objects to enemies!

5. Being able to take over enemies means you can do stuff you've never been able to do in a Mario game before — like fly around as a Bullet Bill!

6. "Super Mario Odyssey" feels like the culmination of the past 30 years of Mario games.

7. There are adorable outfits for Mario to don, and they give him different abilities.

8. The game's plot revolves around Princess Peach being forced to marry Bowser — that jerk!

9. While Bowser is certainly up to no good, the game's main enemies are the devious wedding planners.

10. There are incredible, throwback moments in the game where you slip into pixelated 2D scenes.

11. The objective of the game is to explore the different areas and capture moons, which are hidden everywhere. It's not clear how many are in each area of the game, but Nintendo reps indicated it was quite a few.

12. You can see night and day versions of each area.

13. Cappy is actually a ghost inhabiting a hat. Here he is in his natural form.

14. You can also play as this dinosaur.

15. You can play the game entirely by yourself in single-player mode, or you can play with a friend in co-op mode.

"Super Mario Odyssey" is scheduled to launch on October 27 for the Nintendo Switch. Check out the latest trailer right here. It's full of madness:

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