If you have a Wii and have been putting it off since the game came out in November, you need to find $50 and go buy Super Mario Galaxy. It's pretty much that simple. Mario Galaxy is the little plumber's return to a form that suffered a little in the previous generation wit Super Mario Sunshine; it's a blast to play, it looks and runs great, and it's long enough to keep you busy for a solid week of playing—a month if you have a life outside of video games.
And if you find every last Star, you can play it again as Luigi, which I guess is cool. I'm not really sure the point of playing through a game such as this one twice, but it's always fun to see the younger Mario Brother in action.
Graphics
Holy crap, this game looks good. I bought Galaxy later than most, so when Brawl came out, I put it on hold to Smash. But finally my Melee burn-out carried over to Brawl, and I began looking for gaming fixes elsewhere, primarily on the X-Box 360. Especially with Grand Theft Auto 4, an obscure game I plan to review sometime this year. So when I turned Super Mario Galaxy back on last week, I was stunned. It looks, honestly, like a first generation X-Box 360 game.
Nintendo pulled out all the stops, giving the game the best texture work they've ever done and a plethora of lighting effects that make it stand out from anything else on the console. Wii games that look this good are a rare feat indeed. But even aside from the aforementioned, the game is beautiful primarily because of Nintendo's impeccable art direction on the title. Bowser looks more menacing than ever; Rosalina is the hottest new Nintendo character since Samus Aran took off her armor, and the level designs are inspired even when the geometry shows. (This only happens occasionally, by the way.) Best of all, the game runs at sixty frames per second most of the time, meaning you don't miss a millisecond of the action on screen.
Gameplay
When I first saw the demos for this game I was afraid Nintendo was making their main mascot's biggest game in years a gimmick. Not that I expected it to be boring or anything less than great; rather, I thought it was a sign of Nintendo selling Mario out to the lucrative casual microgame market on the Wii, with small levels and basic objectives.
Boy was I wrong. While it certainly starts out in this manner, Mario Galaxy opens up soon after, and has some truly inspired levels and challenges. The Galaxy format allows the developers to take you anywhere, much like the magic paintings of Super Mario 64, and do pretty much anything. The segments where gravity is altered at whim are especially fun, forcing the player to keep on his toes and make sure he's aware which way is down. The game also boasts some of the best Mario Boss Fights since Super Mario World, from a powerful Magikoopa Witch that only shells can kill to the final fight with Bowser inside a massive star.
Nintendo hasn't quite reinvented the wheel with Galaxy, but they made it a lot more interesting.
Sound
You know the drill with Nintendo games. Very limited voice acting, cute but appropriate sound effects, and stellar music. Nothing has changed here, with an excellent sound track that recalls all of Mario's history; there are even orchestrated remixes of some classic Mario tunes in the bonus levels, especially from Super Mario Brothers 3. In stark contrast to the heavy voice acting of Super Mario Sunshine, there is very little in Galaxy. I'd almost call this a flaw if some of the voices in Sunshine hadn't been so bad. But the new method creates a bit of a flaw in and of itself; while Rosalina and Peach are given voices, they aren't given many spoken lines. Sometimes the first word of dialog will be spoken, and the rest of the text is left for you to read. It's jarring. It's also a shame, since none of the vocally annoying characters from Sunshine have returned except for Bowser and his son. And Bowser Jr's existence is far more annoying than his voice ever was.
Final Thoughts
When I was young and the N64 was brand new, Super Mario 64 was without a doubt my favorite game ever. Even my father was amazed by how it revolutionized gaming. Every night he would pick my brother and me up from whoever was watching us that day and say to us, “Let's go home and get some stars!”
Mario Galaxy brings back that sense of discovery and wonder that was absent from Mario Sunshine and even from New Super Mario Bros. The game tells you to go and explore the universe. I'm telling you to go by the game—then go home and get some stars.
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