PLATFORM

Nintendo Wii

DEVELOPER

Nintendo EAD Tokyo

PUBLISHER

Nintendo

GENRE

Platform

# OF PLAYERS

1

Rating

E

U.S. RELEASE DATE

November 12th, 2007

MSRP

$49.99

Super Mario Galaxy

OVERVIEW

During the centenary Star Festival, Princess Peach is kidnapped by Bowser, and taken to the center of the universe. It is up to Mario to save her!

REVIEW

Boy, it has been a long time between reviews. What happened? Super Mario Galaxy happened!

Believe it or not, it had actually gotten to the point where I thought I was getting too old for some of these games. I didn’t have nearly the attention span I used to. When once I could play a game for an entire day - even go without sleep sometimes to get through a game, these days I barely muster the interest to play for an hour, maybe two. And too often I will play about halfway through a game and just get bored of it, and move on. Portal seemed to fly in the face of that, but that was only a couple hour game, hardly a fair measure.

Then came Super Mario Galaxy. When I first started playing this game, I feared the worst. Right out of the gate the game sent you into levels that made full use of the 3-D environment. Would the entire game be running around these tiny planets, sending you through an increasingly dizzy series of levels?

Super Mario Galaxy is a spiritual sequel to the groundbreaking Super Mario 64, and like that game, it is essential that you master moving through that extra dimension if you want to be successful in this game. Essential - but the game doesn’t beat it into the ground. There are plenty of levels where you aren’t expected to go upside-down and side-ways at all. And while one or two really challenge your virtual sense of direction, as long as you have a basic grasp of the controls needed when going around and beneath the mini-planets, you will be able to get through the game.

Of course, Super Mario 64 is the giant elephant in the room, so might as well get into that now. Super Mario 64 was a revolutionary game that put the Nintendo 64 on the map, and redefined platform games for another generation, and effectively killed the sidescroller. Super Mario Galaxy has been referred to as a true sequel to that game (ignoring Sunshine completely), and the buzz was that this game would do for the Wii what SM64 did for the 64. In some ways, it succeeded.

One of the most revolutionary aspects of Super Mario 64 was the camera control. You could spin the camera all around you, deciding for yourself which angle you wanted to see a particular challenge play-out. The system was not without its faults, but it was the one thing that really made the “fish bowl” style of play possible.

Super Mario Galaxy is a lot more restrictive with the camerawork. There are many cases where you can rotate the camera around - but you eventually learn to not even bother trying. So rarely is it actually useful that you eventually stop bothering. Most of the time, you just get an error that tells you the camera can’t be moved where you are standing. Overall, this isn’t a terrible problem though - the game camera generally does just fine with the exception of swimming - the camera motion there is atrocious. If there were more swimming in the game, that would be a real drawback.

Clearly, there is a added dimension in this game, which is something very comparable to Super Mario 64. But it is far from groundbreaking - it seemed a lot more gimmicky. I can’t imaging seeing the entire genre of platform games switch to this style - it would get annoying very quickly. Sure - it is a testament to technology that they were able to pull it off as smoothly as they did, but it is far from the groundbreaking advance that Super Mario 64 was.

Of course, there is the controls. You can’t talk about a Wii game without mentioning the controls. Like most first-party Nintendo games, Super Mario Galaxy makes effective use of the control style. This one naturally requires the nunchuck - which you use for your movement and crouching, while the A button on the Wii remote itself is your jump, shaking the Wii Remote is your spin attack, and pressing the B button fires a “star bit” (of which you collect thousands of during the game) at friend and foe alike. The controls are smooth and well laid out, but hardly revolutionary. At least, not when it comes to Super Mario Galaxy. There is nothing in this game we haven’t seen done equally well in Metroid or Wii Sports.

In short - there was nothing truly groundbreaking in Super Mario Galaxy, at least, nothing even comparable to Super Mario 64. But the thing is - it doesn’t need to be. It is a solid game that was remarkably fun to play.

The format is very similar to Super Mario 64, but with a little more story behind why you need to collect the stars. It would seem that comet that passes overhead every 100 years (the reason for the Star Festival) is in fact a star-powered mobile observatory operated by Rosalina. Bowser has stolen all of the stars from the comet, and it is no longer able to travel. In order to reach the center of the Universe and rescue Peach, Mario must quest for more and more stars, until the Comet Observatory has enough power to reach Bowser.

The striking similarities to Super Mario 64 aside, Super Mario Galaxy also includes aspects of other Mario games that have been absent. In what seems to be a superfluous addition, you now have lives, much like in previous games. You don’t die much - well, you do, but not nearly enough to make up for the easy 1Up Mushrooms you can find all over the place, but there is the occasional level where you find yourself dying, a lot. Along with that is the “death” music, that you find all the way back in the original Mario Brothers. As it was in that game, hearing that bar over and over as you struggle with a difficult section of a level is strangely motivating and flat out annoying. You dread to hear it again, and clench in frustration every time you know it is coming. It is rare, but occasionally you will have to back out of a level and get a few more lives before continuing on the difficult task.

The return of the Power Suits. This game features a Bee Suit and a Boo Suit, which are both fun to use. It also has a Springo Suit which was absolutely horrible to use - of course, it is part of the challenge of the game, but all of the other power suits were fun (even in previous games), and the Springo Suit was the first one I can recall ditching at the earliest opportunity. The Invincible Star is there as well, as well as the Fire Flower - the latter of which operating on a timer this time around like the Invincible Star. You can also pick up turtle shells once again and use them for various tasks, going back to Super Mario Brothers 2 for that one. A lot of old characters from previous games are back as well - even the Cheep-Cheep flying fish make an appearance. Overall, the inclusion of game elements from the whole range of previous Mario Games really adds a sense of completeness to Super Mario Galaxy, and makes it a much more complete game.

The graphics - well, as usual, they are simply gorgeous. Super Mario Galaxy seems to make full use of the Wii’s graphic potential, and like Metroid Prime - it will leave some gamers wishing that the Wii’s graphic capabilities were more on par with its other major competitors. There aren’t any shortcomings though - everything is well rendered and the game flows smoothly - any load time is so well hidden that you don’t even think about it. High marks all around there.

One of the best parts about this game is that it can be played in short bursts. You can play for an hour or so, gather a bunch of stars and put it away for a while, coming back later and not feeling lost at all. As someone without a lot of time on their hand, that is really refreshing. You can also beat the game with a preset number of stars, but if you are more the completist, there is a ton to do to complete everything in the game - and for a “Grown-up Gamer,” that is where the game really shines.

There are 120 stars in the standard game that you can get. Suprisingly, I was able to get them all without referring to a strategy guide once. Some are challenging to find - but they are far from impossible, and the game gives you plenty of clues as to where to find them. After you have beaten Bowser twice and collected all 120 stars, you can play through the game once again with Luigi. A few of the challenges are more difficult with Mario’s brother, but all of the stars are in the same place. The game seems a little more tricky with Luigi - he is a little clumsier than his brother (Mario stops on a dime - Luigi stumbles a bit and doesn’t recover from jumps quite as easily), a tiny added bit of difficulty that allows the game to retain a level of challenge the second time through. After gaining all 120 stars a second time, you unlock the “Grand Finale Galaxy” - which gives you access to a total of 242 Stars to collect. Even after all that, I am not sick of the game, and can imagine playing it again someday.

There is a slight multiplayer element - not enough for two serious people who want to dig into the game, but if you have a friend who isn’t too “game-saavy” who might want to play (girlfriends come to mind), they can pick up another Wii Remote and help you gather Star Bits. Star Bits are all over the place - and you can use the ones you collect to fire at enemies to stun them, and also to unlock a few extra galaxies. You gather Star Bits by running over them with Mario, or simply by pointing your Wii Remote at them. Your second player can help you along by gathering Star Bits for you with their Wii Remote, and can also fire those same Bits at enemies - essentially watching your back. They can also make you jump - in case of emergencies - and if timed right, both players can execute a super high jump. The latter isn’t really useful, but it is a fun addition if you want to play around with the game a bit.

BOTTOM LINE

This game is a blast - and well worth getting. It may not “make” the Wii as a viable console in the long-term on its own, but it definitely adds another outstanding title to a growing library of great first party games. This game is highly recommended.