Ikr? xD
I was a little bit worried about the decision of Nintendo inserting Mario in some more "real world reality" for it proved in the past (I'm looking at you, Sonic) to be a huge failure. Though, a friend of mine told me something that made much sense. In the Previous Sonic's game, they builded a realistic town, and put Sonic into that (what made the game looks like a GTA mod), but in Odyssey, they builded the world around the Mario's thematics, with Mario like elements all around, so the game didn't look strange at all. It was designed to embrace Mario.