20 Most Intense Video Game Moments Of The Decade
19. Super Mario Odyssey - Playing As Bowser
Mario is not a game you might immediately think of as intense. Deceptively difficult, certainly, and the harder levels can definitely get your heart racing, but from a narrative standpoint it's usually fairly tame. Bowser takes Princess Peach. Mario gets her back.
Super Mario Odyssey, for all it's the most ambitious Mario in years and came with heaps of whimsical, colourful worlds to explore, wasn't too different. Bowser took Peach. Mario got her back. Narratively it follows simple beats, guiding you from world to world, allowing you to experience everything on offer.
The final sequence though flipped the switch quite dramatically.
Mario's companion Cappy allows him to take control of Bowser, and using the turtle monster's considerably larger frame, you need to escape from a collapsing moon cave and dive back down to earth.
The whole level plays out at breakneck speed, asking you to weave, dodge and drive past columns and falling rocks. It makes a big change from the relatively relaxed paced exploration the rest of the game offered you, and is perfect for the finale.
It's perhaps a more cuddly intensity than a lot of the others here, but it's an intensity nonetheless.