Review: Super Mario Galaxy

Guess who bought a Wii today?!

...Not me. I think it's a gimmicky, mediocre attempt at a next-gen console. XD ...Hating the system aside, I'd like to point out a real gem among the library, chunked full of lame ports and party titles you'll only get decent playtime out of, unless you're a celebrity, a few times a month tops. So a good friend brought his over and I got to jam some Mario all night.

The Story

Guess what happens this time? Princess Peach kidnaps Bowser. Nah I'm kidding, it's the same old scenario. Albeit this time with the twist of space travel. Peach is abducted, Bowser is scheming to rule the universe, and it's up to Mario to save us all and restore order to the galaxies. It's definitely the most interesting of the series, but at the same time it'll be no chore keeping up with the overall plot.


Kidnapped again. Who'dda thunk? D:

The Presentation

For a Wii game, this looks spectacular. It oozes vibrant color and details. Shitloads of things shine, shitloads of things feature fancy texture tricks in general. If you want your Wii to show some muscle, this is the title to help you feel less insecure about choosing the hardware-handicapped console this generation. Some parts might feel a bit empty or bland at times, but overall the graphics shine. No really, they shine. There's bloom effects up the ass.

The sound is...fitting. Mario sounds like mario, with his cheers of joy as he jumps about, and his screams of peril in the aftermath of your failure to make a jump or spend that last life wisely. The same applies to Bowser and the other primary characters. Not much talking, lots of meeps and cute vocalization. The music is nice, it brings some serious nostalgia at times, remixing the sounds of many classic songs.


Mario. He's a man's man.

The Gameplay

Fun! Lots of fun. You can spin shit, jump on shit, and zoom around from planet to planet. The level design is top notch, of course, it being mario, and the gameplay mechanics work well with the wiimote controls... For the most part. There's some parts where the controls require you to be extremely quick-thinking and have the steadiness of a surgeon. I.E. the ball parts. You roll around on a ball, and it's completely wiimote controlled. One level had me and my friend almost completely insane. We must have retried the god forsaken thing 20+ times.

Besides those few terribly frustrating optional (thank god) levels, which I don't think for a second a young kid could possibly have the patience to sit through entirely, they're overall designed and played out in a fun fashion. They feature everyone's favorite enemies, from the goombas to the bullet bills. Levels are diverse, taking place on classic green grassed earth-types, snowy terrain, and even lava-shooting deathtraps which make you seriously wonder how a plumber could make it through something that epic. Well, he's god damn Mario. That's how.


Oh thank god, I didn't know what he was holding.

The controls are simple, with nothing more to manage besides Mario and a cursor that collects star-bits. It might seem like a hefty multi-task at first to collect these bits by waving around your friendly blue star, and directing Mario, but it becomes second nature within not even a minute. A press of a button makes mario jump, and a flick of the wiimote makes him spin. You may also shoot star-bits using your star-cursor but I generally found that useless most of the time and prefered to save them instead to feed to gluttonous star-things called Lumas that if you satisfy their hunger enough, they TRANSFOOOOOOORM.

The game features a life system that pretty much works like health. You collect enough coins, or get a 1-up and you'll raise your "lives" to a maximum of 6. There's also another set of lives that act as continues, should the previous set run out. It's basically health. I might actually have them mixed up, but anyone could wrap their head around how it works entirely within ten seconds of playing. Mario touches an enemy and he loses a life. Mario lights his ass on fire and he loses a life. Mario falls into the deep, dark, cold, void of space and he restarts the level again. It works.


Spoiler: Holy shit, you fight Bowser.

The Final Verdict

Super Mario Galaxy is a cute game. It's a warm and fuzzy game. No matter how many spin-offs of this popular plumber they make, a handful of them are always worth playing. This is a more than decent game in all aspects, save for a few hair pulling levels and the fact that the overall concept hasn't changed much since the original games. It's hard not to like this game, and the reason why is the secret sauce that has kept the line of Mario titles going for over twenty years. A pinch of nostalgia, a dash of brilliant level design, and years of perfected fun platforming formula. Four, out of five, Konatas for you Mario, you crazy son of a bitch.