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By Keith B (3rd Apr 2008)

Over the last few years, nothing has made us more silly with anticipation than the latest installment of Nintendo’s Super Mario series. Now the wait is finally over, and the reward is a game that has already become a fixture on the firmament of the “Best Games Ever.” Super Mario Galaxy is the first real successor to the glorious Super Mario 64. It continues the greatness of that original game, but also builds on it, makes it a hundred times more incredible than we have thought possible, and goes where no other platformer has ever gone before…

Super Mario Galaxy delivers on all fronts: The game sports flawlessly designed, expansive levels (here called galaxies), an hugely satisfying pace and difficulty level, a perfect control scheme, and pathbreaking graphics. The premise of the franchise is taken to the logical next step – to Outer Space – and together with the Wii’s sophisticated input options, this enabled the developers to raise gameplay (in terms of perspective relations, controls, and physics) to an entirely new level of sophistication.

But let’s start at the beginning: Of course the latest one of Mario’s adventures is all about Peaches having disappeared, yet again. Of course Bowser is the culprit who did it. Of course he stole all the stars in order to dominate the world. And of course our likeable plump-nosed plumber Mario will venture out, as always, to save the princess, the universe, and everything… But that’s as far as analogies to older Super Mario games can reach. Because this time, you actually have to reach to the skies.

The headquarters for Mario’s latest rescue mission is a kind of orbital space station. Here, new galaxies are constantly being discovered, and it is from here that Mario can reach gates to travel to those galaxies and the planets they contain. Sounds familiar? Maybe. But don’t forget the one important outer-space variable that will change everything about how you walk, jump, and think: That’s right… gravity! It can weight you down, suck you in, allow for super-high jumps, and so forth. In short, the game’s intelligent use of gravity, paired with the unusual level design and perspective shifts, is definitely Super Mario Galaxy’s most important, most ingenious, and most fun innovation. It enables an endless number of new puzzles, challenges, and obstacles, and unheard-of ways of interacting with the game world.

I remember the first time I worked out on a treadmill: It was a decent workout, but when I stepped off the machine, high on the endorphins rushing through my system, I felt nauseatingly wobbly and unsteady for a moment, and it took a while to readjust my body’s sense of gravity, direction, and balance to the physical laws of the real world. Chances are that you will have a similar experience when you get up from the couch after your first mesmerizing Super Mario Galaxy session. This is because the game constantly forces you to sidestep your common sense of up-and-down: The single levels in Super Mario Galaxy tend to be set on planetoid objects of various sizes. They can be as tiny as little asteroids or as vast as huge planets – But whatever their size, Mario can usually travel not only over them, but around and around and around. As a consequence, our hero will sometimes look as if he’s upside down, which means that “left” has all of a sudden become “right,” and which will create the illusion that you might fall into space with even the littlest jump. But thanks to each world’s unique gravity field, this will never happen – all you need to do is readjust your sense of the physical laws applying to each world, and off you’ll go. The sophistication of this tricky play with gravity goes so far that sometimes you need to deal with rapidly changing gravity conditions in mid-game, or attempt extra high jumps in order to break through the atmosphere of one asteroid, floating towards another until its field of gravity will pull you down onto it. This quirky application of physical laws makes Super Mario Galaxy so engaging that you might well forget how to jump straight in the real world, or that you can’t actually walk straight up the side of that house over there…

The star gates you will discover in the course of the game lead to 6 different worlds, each of which contains 5 galaxies, which in turn may contain several asteroids or planets of various sizes. The themes for these galaxies are familiar from older Super Mario games. As can be expected, there are volcanic galaxies, galaxies of islands, or galaxies inhabited by ghosts. Each one of them holds 7 stars that need to be discovered and collected. You will have to return to the levels again and again – but unlike in Super Mario 64, here the galaxies may actually change substantially with each visit. This means that new areas become accessible, new routes open up, and each visit will be new and exciting all over again.

Altogether, 120 stars are hidden in Super Mario Galaxy. While some of them are fairly easy to collect, others are not, and oftentimes, getting a star will seem more like playing a RPG side quest than running through a 3D platformer level. Each galaxy will give you enough original material to spend at least several hours in it. If you limit yourself to the minimum of 60 stars you need to finish the game, however, you can probably rush through it all in under 20 hours.

Aside from the game’s eccentric gravity, there are a few more important gameplay changes to note: Super Mario Galaxy has almost entirely done away with coins. They are still around, but aren’t as important as they used to be. Instead, you now have to collect ‘star dust’ (by pointing at it with the Wiimote), which can be spent on extras, shot at enemies, or exchanged for additional stars. In addition to Mario’s traditional power-ups, a few new ones are available now. In the various new suits, Mario can do things such as fly (and look like a cute little bee), run over water, or bounce around in a big spring. In addition to this, the pace of the game has been stepped up in a major way by assigning a limited duration to all these power-ups. This forces you to considerably speed up your playing at various critical passages, and makes for a whole range of new time-based challenges and puzzles.

The design of the individual galaxies can only be described as perfect, and the creativity and innovativeness that has gone into this game is sheer unbelievable. On your long adventure, you’ll encounter a huge evil robot covering most of the planet it inhabits, a monstrously large worm eating through all the little apple-planetoids of its galaxy, thus letting you traverse them on its back, ghost levels, where new power-ups are necessary to get past otherwise insurmountable obstacles, a Monkey Ball inspired galaxy, and so on. Meanwhile, boss fights are more challenging than ever, and require sophisticated strategic thinking in order to advance. Of course, again and again you’ll also encounter big ol’ Bowser throughout the game – and let me tell you, he’s in good shape, more evil than ever, and out to give you a good run for your money.
Super Mario Galaxy’s controls are a breeze. The only uses of the Wiimote’s sensory capacities are the collection of stardust (point the remote) and the spin attack (shake the remote). All other actions are assigned to buttons or combinations thereof on either the Nunchuk or the Wiimote. If you wish, a second player can take over the duty of collecting star dust (and firing it back at enemies) with another Wiimote. And as we’d expect from the fabulous Nintendo programmers, everything in this department is as responsive as can be.

The game’s graphics are highly deserving of the same uncompromised praise: Regardless of whether you navigate huge 3D planets or find your way through tricky 2D retro passages, everything is beautifully animated, colored, and rendered, making Super Mario Galaxy the best-looking game for the Wii by far. Spectacular visual effects spice up gameplay, the frame rate is flawlessly steady, and the semi-flexible camera perspective is always right-on.

All around, Super Mario Galaxy comes across as a total must-have. Unless you’re irritated by the lack of a decent friendplay option, you’ll find that there is nothing, absolute nothing wrong with this game. The only complaint we could come up with, perhaps, is that the game could have been a tad more challenging. But be that as it may, Super Mario Galaxy is a masterpiece, a truly phenomenal game that delivers everything that you can wish for in a 21st century platformer put out by the cream of the crop of Nintendo developers. People are already calling this one of the best video games of all times – and we concur, wholeheartedly.