Masem’s Gaming Blog

After the rather disappointing Super Mario Sunshine, word of a new true Mario title for the Wii got a lot of people excited about it, particularly once the theme of Mario-in-space was established. Now that that game is here as Super Mario Galaxy, its amazing how much this game has exceeded expectations – not only making up for what felt lacking in Sunshine, but perhaps even going beyond some of the best Mario titles already out there like Super Mario 64 or Super Mario Bros. 3. It is amazing how well all the elements of the game, not only in gameplay but in presentation and difficulty, are pulled together to make one of the best video game titles to date.

Review Helpfulness: (1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
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Story: B-

This time around, Mario is on his way to the castle to celebrate with the Princess the arrival of a comet that passes by every 100 years. However, before he can get there, Bowser attacks, lifting the castle out of the ground with his flying ships and taking it off into space. While Mario manages to catch up before they get too far, he’s blown off the castle just as its goes off into deep space. Mario awakes on the Comet Observatory, the same comet that passes by every 100 years, where the human Roselina and her Lumas, baby stars, explain that Bowser got the ability for space travel from them, and the only way to save Peach is to power up the observatory by gathering Stars from remote galaxies.

 

For a Mario game story, it’s ok – it’s enough of a hook to hold the game together without making it seem like just a random collection of levels. But it’s not a great story. However, like most, I’m not playing a Mario game to be entertained via drama – the gameplay is where the meat is of the enjoyment of the game.

Gameplay: A+

Super Mario Galaxy is set out in a similar fashion as Super Mario 64. In the Comet Observatory are 6 observatories each which can see 4 or 5 “galaxies” (the word is misused, of course, in what it is describing). Galaxies are not available until a certain number of stars are obtained, and the latter observatories are not available until the Great Start from the previous observatory is collected. Galaxies themselves may have multiple stars, at least 3 with the chance for a hidden star where you have to deviate from the path a bit to find how to get it, a star that can be obtained when special comets are in each galaxy that provide special conditions, such as a time trial of part of the galaxy, a race against Cosmic Mario, or attempting to defeat a boss without taking damage. There are also a handful of galaxies that have only one star but generally also provide a good opportunity for gaining extra lives. Overall, the game has 120 stars to be found, but only half of them are needed to complete the story of the game.

 

Once Mario’s launched to a galaxy, the real meat of what makes Super Mario Galaxy amazing gets in motion. Each galaxy is composed of one or more planetoids, each with its own gravitational pull. Most of these are small enough that Mario can walk around on the outside of these bodies, eventually appearing upside down on the bottom-side, on screen, but the camerawork, in general, makes it very easy to follow Mario around without getting any motion sickness or vertigo. When planetoids are in close proximity, Mario can jump from one to another, though more commonly, special launch stars are used to shoot Mario to a distance planetoid to continue the level. It is possible to fall outside the gravitational pull of a planetoid, and typically this will lead to Mario falling into a nearby black hole and a loss of a life. Certain areas of planetoids also allow for localized gravity effects; hitting a switch may cause gravity to flip and needed to get by part of some levels. This part of level design and how gravity is used in a number of puzzles is incredibly well done, but is only part of what makes this game great.

 

While Mario has his old grab bag of tricks, including jumping, wall-jumping, and stomping to deal with puzzles or enemies, he gains the ability to spin attack at foes. The spin attack is done simply by flicking the remote momentary, and does not detract from any other control aspect of the game, yet the amount of versatility it gets in the game is amazing. Spinning into most foes will stun them, and you can choose to either stomp them to get a coin (which restores health) or to generate Star Bits, which are much more plentiful and can be used elsewhere as a sort of currency among the Lumas. Spinning is also used to break boxes, knock objects into foes, activate some switches, float away from tornadoes, to ice skate on slippery surfaces, or to swim faster when in the water. There is a limitation to spinning as you cannot to do so many times in a row without becoming momentarily dizzy, but once you understand this limitation, it’s rather easy to work with. This spin move is (mostly) new to the series, but yet feels like it has always been part of the Mario games with how well it is put to use here.

The Wii Remote is used for a few other unique aspects of gameplay. The Star Bits that are generated by defeating monsters or that already exist on the level can be picked up by running over them, but also can be collected by using the Remote to point to them on screen. (As with coins, every 50 Bits gets an extra life) This allows you to collect distant Bits without having to traverse what may be a hazardous space between them. There are several points where you need to point and activate something on the screen, whether it be special “drag stars” that can pull Mario through zero-gravity areas, or special sticky launch plants that Mario can use to hurl himself across gaps. The game features a co-op mode that allows the second player to be in charge of collecting the Star Bits as well as performing some other actions to assist the first player during the game, and is a nice idea particularly for parent-child teams. Beyond that, the Wii Remote is used sensibly without going overboard with its features.

 

The gameplay has a lot of different elements to the game yet I never felt overloaded on details. This is partially due to the fact that some of the more gimmicky gameplay elements are appropriately limited to a few levels where they are obviously going to be used (there’s, for example, manta ray racing, or another level that has you rolling and balancing on top of a sphere, making it through a hole-ridden course), while other not-as-obvious elements are introduced in levels where that element is the primary component of gameplay, such that when present in later levels, its use should be obvious (for example, using a koopa shell as a mini-propeller while underwater to be able to swim faster). This is also true of the new power-ups to the game, in that they are introduced in isolated situations so that when present with other elements, its very easy to see how to fit it in. The fire flower is back, and a companion ice flower allows Mario to walk on the surface of water or lava for a short time. The Bee Mario suit allows Mario to fly and hover for a bit, as well as to stick to walls covered in honey, but as soon as the suit gets wet, it disappears, leading to some interesting puzzles involving rainclouds. Boo Mario basically acts like the Boo Ghosts, allowing Mario to turn invisible to pass through certain objects, though, as light is fatal normally to the Boos, once hit with a light beam, Mario will revert. The Spring Mario allows him to make great jumps, but has there’s no leg room inside the spring, Mario can’t easily walk about the level, relying on the spring action to move about. These new powerups fit well within the Mario universe; even the Bee suit, which I thought felt gimmicky, really works well, basically an extension of the Super Mario Bros. 3 raccoon/tanuki suit or the Super Mario in Super Mario World, but just extended to work in the gravity-based gameplay of Galaxy. There’s also a nice over-power mushroom that grants you 6 life points (instead of the normal 3) as long as you maintain over 3 life points, and is usually available right before going into a boss which can be a great help.

There are a few points that I did find to be sometime poor. Swimming is very tricky as you lose a clear point of reference to the ground, so unless you have a good wide shot of what’s ahead of you, its very easy to get lost while swimming and end up going in a direction you didn’t expect (thankfully, later levels provide koopa shells that help to reduce these problems). The other weird aspect has to do with extra lives. Should you quit the game (after saving it), when you come back you will have 5 lives, regardless of how many you had before quitting. This seems like a really odd decision; while I found no level to require me chewing through 20 or so lives, knowing that I had those lives as backup helped me take risks I likely wouldn’t have done otherwise. Fortunately, neither of these are really problematic: swimming is but a small part of the game, and you’re generally given a lot of flexibility, and the extra life issue is one that is easily worked around once you come to realize how that works – that is, if you’re only playing for a short time, racing about to get all the coins and Star Bits and 1up mushrooms you can may not be really necessary.

The game’s difficulty may be a bit on the lighter side – at least through the 60 stars I did to get to the final battle. There are a few levels that can be annoying the first few times until you get your strategies down, but as for running out of health, that’s rarely a problem; most likely you’ll die from falling into a black hole than from taking too much damage from foes. However, the handful of special challenges that I’ve attempted beyond those 60 stars can be rather tricky – the no-damage boss battles against a few of the opponents are rather tough, and racing against Cosmic Mario is not a piece of cake. But the gameplay is solid enough with a tremendous presentation that experienced gamers will probably not notice the lack of difficult for how well this all comes together.

 

Value/Replayability: A+

To get 60 stars and perform the final battle took me about 8 hrs. Easily attempting the other 60 starts would probably take 8 to 10 more hours, and once you get to that, there’s a further challenge that can extend the gameplay beyond that. Add in the fact that each level is scored by tracking how many coins you collect, and you can keep going back to try to improve you score for these levels. Super Mario Galaxy in no way slouches on providing a large amount of content for the package.

Graphics: A+

This is probably the first Wii game that I really wished the console provided better HD support. The game looks so great – everything is exactly what you’d expect in a Mario game color and texture-wise, but still nicely detailed on screen. Yet the game is able to keep up very large draw distances, allowing you to see planetoids far off in the distance without a hitch. Nearly all the galaxies have their own feel to them, and its amazing of how fantastical these planetoid worlds feel.

Audio: A+

The game utilizes a fully orchestrated score, and this really stands out when compared to Super Mario Sunshine. The game incorporates some classic Mario themes as well as its own, and does a wonderful job with dynamic music which you bounce between worlds. For example, one planetoid has a ice side and a lava side – both themes play off the same melody, but the ice theme is light and air against the heavy boldness of the lava theme. All the other sound effects are perfect and borrow from the past as appropriate.

Overall: A+

There’s a few tiny things that one can find fault with in Super Mario Galaxy, but these issues are so small compares to how well everything else in this game works together. This easily is the best Mario title in a long time, and the strongest title for the Wii to date, possibly being one of the best games ever released across all systems. Everything about the game is nearly perfectly balanced from gameplay, difficulty, and presentation, that not one element stands out on its own. There is no question that if you own a Wii, you should own a copy of this game as well.

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