Assist Mode

Assist Mode is a mode in Super Mario Odyssey that makes the core gameplay easier in various ways. Its most prominent feature is placing Mario in a bubble and carrying him back to safety if he touches a death area, lava or poison. Due to this bubble feature, Assist Mode is often used to perform certain difficult tricks in isolation in order to reduce the time needed to reattempt the trick.

Changes

Assist Mode makes the following changes to the gameplay:

• A logo with the words "Assist Mode" is added to the HUD in the bottom-right corner of the screen.
• Visual arrows will appear within the world to guide the player to the next objective. Sometimes, if the player is too far away from the arrow path, a guiding arrow will appear above Mario's head instead.
• Mario has six health points by default, rather than three. Collecting a Life-Up Heart will increase this to nine.
• If Mario stands still for a brief period of time, his health will begin recharging.
• If Mario touches a death area, lava or poison with at least two health remaining, he will be placed into a bubble and carried back to the last safe spot he touched on land, at the cost of one health point.
• Mario does not have an oxygen meter while underwater, and therefore cannot drown.
• Mario grabs ledges from further away horizontally. This often leads to Mario grabbing ledges that he just walked off of.
• Taking Notes challenges have their timers extended by 300 frames (5 seconds), and Timer Challenges have their timers extended by 298 frames.
• While jetting water as a Gushen, 0.13% of the Gushen's total water capacity will be used per frame, rather than 0.2%.
• Bound Bowl opponents move at a slower rate.
• Within the Jaxi Driving level in Sand Kingdom, the Jaxi will respawn at the beginning of the level if it falls into the void, or if Mario is placed into a bubble.
• When attempting to enter Koopa Freerunning or Luigi's Balloon World, the Koopa or Luigi will inform the player that Assist Mode does not work during the minigame. Assist Mode will be temporarily disabled during the minigame.
• In specific locations, the camera will automatically focus on certain objects.
• In two specific locations, Mario's movement will be locked to a certain plane. One such location is above the quicksand pillars in the Tostarena Ruins, and the other is on the path to the Rango fight above the Water Plaza in the Lake Kingdom (this location only takes effect before Rango has been defeated).