Amazing game, but not perfect
Super Mario Galaxy has been out since November 2007, but I haven't had chance to play this before now. Many regard this best Wii game around. Metacritic and GameRankings have this game rated at 97%. Great game yes, but I wouldn't, and wont rate this so high. Read why.
Super Mario Galaxy is 3D platformer and continues the same line of story as in every Super Mario game so far. Bowser kidnaps Princess Peach and Mario need to rescue her while travelling through vast selection of levels/worlds. The difference here is compared to any previous Mario game is that this is truly a 3D platformer. As the name gives a way the game is set in space. All the various levels are presented as planets. Some more traditional platform worlds and some different shape of planets. These planets are basically big balls and other shape where Mario can walk freely around the globe without falling. There also several flat planets where Mario can walk on both sides without falling. This gives the game a fresh feel and with the huge selection of these different levels game never becomes boring. I did notice couple recycled levels layout-wise but this didn't really bother too much. There is also lots of secret levels which will surely keep you busy. To cope with such amount of levels Mario has also different outfits to help him. The range from the traditional fireball shooting suit to the awesome bee suit that gives Mario ability to fly for short time. There is also less fun spring suit that changes Mario to big spring that he can use to do huge jumps. Sounds nice but doesn't always work perfectly with the semi-fixed camera view. This camera is was also problematic on cases when walking underneath a planet and other tricky places where the angle stayed the same despite you being wrong way around. This is probably done intentionally but in few cases makes progressing hard.
Controllers for the game work really well with nunchaku controller being the one you use to move the mustasched hero around and the remote is used for pointing things such as collection star bits, which are kind of like coins. It is possible to do sudden spin with waggling the remote which is used throughout the game. Here I feel that the Nintendo could have done bit better. With such innovative levels and different bosses you basically use the same waggling move over and over again. I also had some issues with the controllers starting to act up. Either starting to draw to certain direction or the pointing not being accurate at all. Reminded me of the non-calibrated joystick issues for old PC joysticks. Restarting the Wii helped here. Haven't experienced anything like this with any other Wii games.
Graphically Nintendo has done fine job and I am fully aware of Wii's limitations here before going any further. The general scenery is bright cartoony type with the standard cliche words which look good enough. Characters and especially the boss and Mario all look really amazing. You can really see the minor details done really well. Such as Bowser's hair or shiny armour/shell. Biggest problem with the graphics I have is and this is with taking into consideration Wii's limitations. I think Nintendo could have tried to use same level of detail in the world as in the characters. The space setting is cheap enough decision and fair enough Mario games are not know for the eye candy. But for example the water beach/water level's could be taken from Wii Sport games. And for sure this is not a good thing. There are prettier Gamecube games even.
There isn't really much to write about sound since Mario doesn't really talk and the other sound is quite minimal but this isn't really a requirement in a platform game anyway. The music however is something else. Game has full soundtrack of a symphony orchestra type music. Which at first sounds bit unusual. Especially the main waltz theme. Soon enough you'll get hang of it and can really enjoy the classic melodies orchestrated. To redeem bit on the Nintendo fans eyes after this review. I will use my Nintendo club points for this soundtrack
All and all I can say I really enjoyed the Super Mario Galaxy but I wouldn't call this a perfect game. With the simplistic look it is clearly aimed for younger audience despite Nintendo saying that this for hardcore gamers as well. Difficult does ramp up during the game but except for couple of times where I was stuck for a while this game is really simple. The amount of 1-up's thrown at you is amazing and the last boss giving hardly any challenge.
