Super Mario Odyssey’s Story and Ending Summary (Spoiler Warning)
Super Mario Odyssey doesn’t exactly feature the gaming world’s most complicated and in-depth story and ending, but that doesn’t mean it’s not still fun to follow! Let’s break down what happened. Obvious spoilers are obvious, so don’t keep reading if you don’t want anything ruined for you.
Super Mario Odyssey begins with Princess Peach being kidnapped by Bowser (yet again). This time though, he’s planning a wedding and forcing Peach to be his bride. Mario isn’t going to have any of that, so he goes chasing after them, but unfortunately Bowser gets away.
Mario finds himself in a mysterious Hat Kingdom, filled with sentient hats. One of the hats, Cappy, is particularly interested in helping Mario because Bowser also kidnapped Tiara, another fellow Cap Kingdom denizen. So, using an old ship powered by Moons (SMO’s version of Stars) they team up to travel the world in pursuit of Bowser.
Throughout their journey, they figure out Bowser’s pattern. He is going to kingdoms so he can steal precious artifacts to enhance his wedding. Such as a beautiful dress from the Lake Kingdom, or a cake from the Snow Kingdom. Say what you want about Bowser, but at least he isn’t sparing any expenses to throw the most extravagant wedding ever. Not only is traveling the world to gather all these supplies, he’s having the wedding on the freaking Moon Kingdom of all places! He is aided in this by the Broodals, a group of wedding planning Rabbits that try to slow Mario down. They of course, ultimately fail because if anyone is ever going to defeat Mario it’s not going to be the Broodals of all enemies that get the job done.
After getting enough Moons from across all of the kingdoms and fixing Bowser’s mess in each along the way, Mario finally confronts Bowser in the Moon Kingdom. In dramatic fashion he crashes the wedding ceremony as Bowser is trying to put on an extremely over sized ring on Peach’s finger. It’s a trap though and Mario falls through a false floor and into a battle with Bowser himself.
Mario of course defeats Bowser after an epic battle, but after beating him, everything starts to fall apart. The only way to save everyone is for Mario to use Cappy to control Bowser, so he can use his strength to carve a way out of the crumbling area where they are. Mario pulls it off and gets everyone outside, but there’s one more struggle between Bowser and Mario, this time for Princess Peach’s hand in marriage. Peach frustrated from the whole ordeal and done with everyone’s crap at this point, turns them both down as they both try to shove flowers in her face. Mario is still cool at least, and he is at least invited back aboard the Odyssey to escape and return home back to the Mushroom Kingdom safe and sound.
After the credits roll, you can visit the Mushroom Kingdom and experience the game’s post game content. Mario learns that Peach has left the kingdom, and the Toads are worried. But Peach turns out to be just fine. She has returned to the Hat Kingdom in order to begin her journey anew, and see all of the places she visited with Bowser on her own terms. Mario, is teased with the ability to visit a secret kingdom if he can fully power the Odyssey with the power of ALL the Moons. So begins his quest to revisit all of these worlds and collect all of the Moons that were left behind, along with new ones revealed through the power of Moon Rocks that appear in Kingdoms after beating the game.
If you’re interested in what to do after beating Super Mario Odyssey, you can check out our short guide on the topic here.
