Super Mario Galaxy

As you may have noticed, one of my favorite Wii games is Super Mario Galaxy. Although I haven't finished the whole 121 star deal I would like to give you my low-down on the game before I lock myself in my basement until I finish Brawl.

First of all, I'd like to give you my background on Mario games in general. I've never been a huge fan, I think I have a 3:15 ratio for finished to own mostly because I've never liked the arcade timed and overly difficult parts. Galaxy, I must say however, did break this mold and made an extraordinary game that deserves the spectacular game awards it did receive, including game of the year from Nintendo Power.

It all starts with the presentation and game play. What really impressed me was that Nintendo didn’t go overboard with the motion sensing and stuck to very basic Mario game play. This allowed for a familiar control scheme that makes sense to veterans and players alike. Even navigating swimming wasn’t as bad as in the past, more straightforward in Galaxy, a problem I’ve always had with other Mario games. The game is also given to you in a very straightforward manner with the same basic world-level setup seen in most Mario games. What Nintendo did do different however was to provide the storyline in a separate area, being read from a children’s book. Many fans did not like this style because you had to manually choose to continue the storyline but I liked it because it was easy to go from level to level without much dialogue or extra cut-scenes that sometimes may look nice but sometimes can be downright annoying.

Speaking of cut-scenes, the graphic design of the game was absolutely outstanding. Anywhere from the game’s incredibly animated character models, to the cinematic sequences, to the overall world design, it was a cute, friendly world that has been a tradition in Mario games past to present. I especially goggled over the worlds where Mario assumed the bee costume. I also was totally flabbergasted by the animation Bowser had this time, I mean, he totally looked like the brutal, evil thing he is. The Mario series also continues their tradition of small voice exclamations while characters are speaking, but still fail to do full voice acting. Although it is a nice touch, I wish Nintendo did fully voice their characters considering the epic scale of Galaxy.

Another last pointer I must make was that the fully orchestrated music added to much to the game. You really felt like you were in these rich environments thanks to the music. The different styles really helped with whatever the stage you were working on was; a haunted mansion, a joyous garden, or some totally wacked out Galaxy that you couldn’t of thought of in your wildest dreams. Overall I give the game a 9.8 missing a ten because of some levels that were just too easy or too hard and disrupted the steady stream of pretty difficult, but not at the point of over-the-top gameplay.