Genre: Platformer, Action-Adventure
Year: 2007
Developed by: Nintendo EAD Tokyo
Published by: Nintendo
Platforms: Wii
#11
Feeling Like: The final frontier
Super Mario is ubiquitous. 10% of my entire blog contain the word “Mario”, and that doesn’t include games Mario is in but not featured in the title, like Super Smash Bros. My first ever video game was Super Mario Bros. To say I have an affinity for the Italian plumber would be as understated as saying I sort of enjoy playing video games.
After dozens of iterations and a bar of quality stretched across nearly 40 years, it’s shocking to see Nintendo still pump out excellent Mario games. You’d have thought there was no more water in the well, no more milk in the cow, no more oil to drill for. But they keep reinventing Mario, or rather the surrounding environments, physics and movesets to ensure the player is charmed and enraptured from the very first moment.
Super Mario Galaxy may be the best Mario has ever been. They may have rocketed into the third dimension with Super Mario 64, but in Super Mario Galaxy, Nintendo perfected the formula and created a sense of wonder that other developers can’t come close to. There’s a reason you don’t hear much about other 3D platformers. Why bother trying to compete?
The miniature galaxies and planetoids are the highlight. It’s similar to previous games where you keep returning to the same level to gain power stars, but this time you’re soaring through space, landing with a satisfying somersault. You’re hit with a WELCOME TO THE GALAXY! and the challenge begins. Most puzzles or areas only take a few minutes to complete, so you won’t ever get too bored with an area. There’s something to see in every pocket of this galaxy.
I can’t even begin to tell you how many times I long jumped off a rock, only for the gravity to swing me back and around to the other side, like a Mario satellite. It makes perfect sense for what they’re going for, yet each time it felt like magic. Running around in 3D isn’t anything new, but literally being able to go in any direction, and the camera seamlessly follow you in any axis, was incredible. It meant more areas to scour for secrets, it meant more creative puzzles and it meant opening up my mind to new possibilities. Each area had an orange star that would blast you to a new area. I often didn’t want to go, but there are hundreds of this asteroids to plant your feet on. No time to lose. Off we go!
The soundtrack is ethereal. Brilliant, in every sense of the word. You’d think that a space theme would get old or repetitive, but Koji Kondo and Mahito Yokotoa’s score discards that notion.
“Space Junk Galaxy” has to be one of the best on the soundtrack. Magnificent.
“To the Gateway” makes me want to stare at the stars.
“Good Egg Galaxy” just wait for 0:56.
“Battlerock Galaxy” hell yes.
You can easily picture some classical orchestra playing “Comet Observatory 2“.
I can’t say the Wiimote & nunchuck is my favorite controller scheme, but it sure works here. Using the Wiimote to point and collect star bits, or shoot enemies with them felt surprisingly natural. The nunchuk joystick and corresponding buttons took a little bit to get used to, but they work. The new power ups are equal parts useful and adorable. You get to turn into a BEE, complete with a little stinger on Mario’s bum, it’s too much! It’s not the most robust in terms of new abilities, but since every stage introduced something fresh, I felt like I was being introduced to a new power every thirty minutes or so.
It’s impossible to convey how fundamentally sound the controls are, or how wonderfully creative every screen is. There are countless ways to use timing, physics, gravity, Mario’s powers and enemies to make your way through Super Mario Galaxy. I played this in the winter of 2007 in my parent’s basement – it was the very last video game I played at Oliver Street, as I was going to move into my first apartment with Dobbo in January 2008. I can’t think of a more appropriate swan song. Even the story (the story! In a Mario game!) is worth getting invested in. Rosalina is a perfect addition to the Mario cosmos, and her assistance near the end of the game is holler out loud worthy.
The boss fights are terrific, especially the multiple confrontations with Bowser. The game forces you to adapt to the environment and seek out new ways to pummel the king of the Koopas. There are a million little secrets to find, some of them in plain sight but thanks to the mind-bending level design, it may not be so simple. I wasn’t frustrated for a single second, I felt like I was playing Nintendo’s magnum opus.
I can still smell 680 Oliver’s basement – it mostly reeked of cat, and was cold, and the lighting was dim, and the lime-green couch had staples poking out, but it was home for a very long time. Going from begging my parents to rent a NES and The Legend of Zelda in 1990 to completing Super Mario Galaxy on the Wii was like a universe spanning adventure of my own. The hub world was a treat, the soundtrack is sublime, the bite-sized level design is unparalleled and the classic Mario feel is here, and more. You won’t regret playing it, not in 2023, not ever.
The 500 