Best Mario Game...
Mario is a beast. 20 years have passed since his glorious debut, and he is still going on strong. Lots of great Mario games have been released and a lot of crappy ones have been released. My personal favorite Mario game was Super Mario Bros. 3. No other Mario game was better than this one in terms of gameplay and fun factor until this one...
Super Mario Galaxy...
Story:
Well if you played any other Mario game, then you should probably understand the story of this one. Princess Peach is chilling in the Mushroom Kingdom and Bowser decides to crash the party. Everyone gets sent out to space and Mario meets Princess Rosalina and her crazy Observatory. Mario has to get some damn stars again and save Peach again.
Graphics:
Dear lord is this a good looking game. Most games on the Wii look like simple GCN and PS2 games. Its almost infuriating to see developers not trying hard enough and making the Wii look pathetically week. That can't be said here because this game looks amazing. This is the first game on the Wii that really pumps out power of the Wii in the visual departments. There are hundreds of colors filling up the screen with great lighting effects and all the other graphical bells and whistles. Water looks wet and wonderful, fur looks soft and fuzzy and the game has a nice polish look overall. Couple this with the usual cutesy crazy designs of the Mario universe and you got one nice looking Wii game.
Sound:
Best soundtrack in a Mario game. Handsdown. This time around Koji Kondo has not taken up the leading sound designer role and instead given that position to a much younger man. And boy can this guy create some awesome music. The game has sweeping scores making full use a symphonic orchestra with songs that perfectly capture the whimsical feel of the game. You'll listen to new songs and some old ones as many would have guessed. Other than the awesome brass and woodwinds and other instruments pleasing your ears, everything else in the audio department is standard Mario. Mario does his "yahoos" and "wahas" with a joyful tone to his voice and the sound effects have a playful cartoony feel to it.
Gameplay:
This is the game you wanted when you bought Super Mario Sunshine. Don't get me wrong. The gameplay in Sunshine was great, but pales in comparison to Galaxy. What you get in Galaxy are some of the most creative levels in a Mario level. These levels are creative in a way because of the linearity of them. There are few open world levels this time around and even the ones in the game are quite small and restricted. So its a nice mixture of the classic 2d linear games and the open 3d ones. Speaking of 2d, there a couple 2d sections that are done well and test out the players platforming skills.
Now obviously the biggest thing that has yet to be said is the game main attraction. Gravity. Each tiny or humongous planet in each galaxy you enter have different gravity. Bigger planets allow you to jump like normal, whereas on smaller planets, you will have a much floatier jump. In fact, if the planet is small enough, you might be able to jump around the whole planet. Some of the craziest moments involve running to the bottom of the planet while messing around with the gravity in the game.
The controls are some of the best in a Wii game. Nintendo was very smart in not force feeding the Wii gimmicks time around and the only main gesture is the shake of the Wiimote to do the spin attack. Other than its standard stuff. A is jump and B is star bit shots. (Star bits are collectible goodies)
Other than that this is a very standard Mario game. You collect hella stars while going through some of the best levels in a Mario game and beat some ridicuously easy bosses. Go do some comet levels to do some challenging versions of the levels. Get in fun costumes (except the Spring one) and laying some pain on the enemies. So yeah good stuff.
Overall:
Overall, if you have a Wii, get this game. Hardcore crowds will eat this up while, the casual audience will find a fun and easy game they can enjoy. This is the reason why you buy a Wii.
