Final Thoughts: Super Mario Galaxy
I fully completed Super Mario Galaxy about a week from the day I got it. What does that mean? In a nutshell, it means the game had to be either a) really short or b) really good (because I rarely ever have enough time to finish a game that quickly nowadays). Obviously, the answer is "b". The game is so good, it's almost impossible to turn off. You always want to go just a little longer to get just one more star... and well, I'm sure you all know how that ends up.
As is my usual goal with the 3D Mario titles, I completed the game with all 120 stars (I won't mention any spoilers about what happens after that)... and having accomplished this, I'd like to suggest SMG's greatest achievement is not its amazing innovation of the platform genre, but instead its amazing variety of levels and challenges.
One would think there would be a fair amount of recycling with 120 stars to collect (as was clearly the case with Mario 64 and Mario Sunshine), but this is not the case at all. I'm not saying there's not any recycling (there is one exception that I'll mention later), but there is so little that it can pretty much be dismissed offhand. Instead of 6+ stars per world (all basically re-treading the same ground) as in previous games, the larger worlds only have 4+ stars, and each of those stars feature entirely different challenges and areas. In addition to the larger galaxies that contain 4+ stars, there are a whole boatload of individual galaxies containing just one star each, which are all completely different and unique! There was never a slow or dull moment in the game. This aspect of Galaxy represents game design at its absolute best. I cannot give enough credit to the designers for this.
Before I get into my breakdowns of the "good" and the "not-so-good" (there was no "bad"), there is one last aspect of the game which I would like to address in slightly more detail: co-op. The cooperative mode in SMG has typically been dismissed offhand or ignored completely by most people, and I think it's a shame. Indeed, I initially felt that way too... but then something happened...
...for the most part, I only had the chance to play Galaxy in the evening or at night. This of course means I'm occupying the TV, so in general there isn't all that much anybody else in the house can do at that time. For the first few days, my significant other sat on the couch and watched me play for a little while, eventually getting tired and falling asleep (which is understandable). But then one night I remembered the co-op mode and suggested she try it out... BAM! Instant win for everybody. She gets something to do, I get help in the game, and we both get fun out of it. The solution was so simple, so genius, it could only have come from Shigeru Miyamoto.
Now I wouldn't recommend the co-op to another hard-core gamer, but for a casual gamer who typically only plays things like Wii Sports or Brain Age (e.g. my significant other), this simple two-player mode is amazingly fun and absolutely perfect. I don't know why, but collecting Star Bits (pointless as they are) with the remote is unbelievably addicting and fun, and sharing that fun with someone else makes it even more fun. And lest you think this simple co-op mode is pointless for the main player, think again! It actually came in very handy on many occasions. The second player has the ability to stop enemies and also give Mario and extra boost on jumps (with the right timing, of course). We put these added abilities to use on some particularly annoying levels (such as the Dreadnought Purple Coin challenge) with excellent results. While most people will likely dismiss this two-player option, I urge you to give it a try if you can. See if you can get someone to play with you who doesn't usually play a "hard-core" game. You might be surprised at how much fun you have.
With those main points out of the way, let's take a quick look at some of Galaxy's main bullet points:
The Good:
- As mentioned in detail above, the amazing freshness and variety of the challenges and locations are a clear high point.
- The difficulty. I've seen a lot of people complain that the game is too easy... I beg to differ. I think the pacing of the difficulty in SMG is absolutely spot-on perfect. As has been noted many times, only 60 stars or so are required to actually "finish" the game. This allows a lot more people to see the ending and get their money's worth. However, that's only half of what Galaxy has to offer. For serious players, there's another 60 to go, and some of the stars do in fact represent a far greater challenge than most average gamers would probably care to tackle. I'm not saying any of them are impossible, but you're going to die a few times... and anyone who says otherwise is a liar. On another note, part of what makes Galaxy slightly more difficult than previous Mario games is the health meter, which has been changed to 3 bars instead of 6. I thought this was was an excellent change and I was happy to see it.
- The graphics. Galaxy was clearly the high-benchmark for graphics on the Wii at the time of its release (alongside perhaps Metroid Prime 3). It looks absolutely beautiful on my HDTV. I'm not one to usually care about or notice graphics, but this game really impressed me.
- The music. The orchestrated score is the cherry on top of this masterpiece. The compositions were as good or better than anything else I've ever heard in a game before. Absolutely perfect and top-notch all around.
- The physics, gameplay and camera. The physics and gameplay have been talked about ad infinitum elsewhere, so I'm not really going to go into detail here. Suffice it to say that everything about this game felt amazingly fresh and innovative. The controls were absolutely perfect. Even such simple Wii-centric additions like shaking the remote to spin felt awesome. The automatic camera was also beyond top-notch. I initially had reservations about this, but I have to say that whoever the hell programmed this camera should be given an award. I can probably count on one hand the number of times camera placement screwed me in some way. It's an amazing achievement for a platform game (especially one of this nature).
- The characters. I loved the addition of the Lumas and Rosalina to the Mario universe. It was nice to have a different set of characters to interact with, other than the usual mushroom kingdom types. I also like the way Rosalina's story is presented in a completely non-obtrusive and optional way. For the record, I enjoyed her story, but I like how the designers made it so that players who don't care about it don't ever have to deal with it.
- Boss fights and power-ups. I won't spoil what any of these are, but I just want to mention how cool and unique these elements were in Galaxy. I had a lot of fun with all of them... yes, even the final power-up (which a lot of people don't seem to like).
The Not-So-Good:
- As briefly mentioned above, there was a slight case of level recycling. For some strange reason, there is a galaxy later on in the game called Gold Leaf Galaxy, which is basically just a mirrored version of the Honey Comb Galaxy with a different color palette. I did not understand this at all... it just seemed lazy and pointless.
- The completely pointless and unoriginal story. I'm not referring to Rosalina'a story (which was cool). I'm referring to the whole ZOMG-Bowser-kidnapped-Peach-again debacle... ZZZzzzz. If the best they can come up with is THIS... AGAIN, then I'd actually probably rather have no story at all. I mean, seriously... what's the point of this? That said, this gripe is just a mere blip of a blemish on SMG, because story elements in this type of game are completely irrelevant. It doesn't really matter, but still... you just wish that they'd have come up with something at least a little more fresh or interesting. Geez.
...and that's pretty much all I can come up with to complain about. Seriously. The game is THAT good.
In closing, Super Mario Galaxy is a game that comes about as close to perfect as you will ever find. Find it, buy it, play it. What else can I say? I've played and finished every game in the main Mario series, and I can unequivocally state that Galaxy is the best of them all.
As is my usual goal with the 3D Mario titles, I completed the game with all 120 stars (I won't mention any spoilers about what happens after that)... and having accomplished this, I'd like to suggest SMG's greatest achievement is not its amazing innovation of the platform genre, but instead its amazing variety of levels and challenges.
One would think there would be a fair amount of recycling with 120 stars to collect (as was clearly the case with Mario 64 and Mario Sunshine), but this is not the case at all. I'm not saying there's not any recycling (there is one exception that I'll mention later), but there is so little that it can pretty much be dismissed offhand. Instead of 6+ stars per world (all basically re-treading the same ground) as in previous games, the larger worlds only have 4+ stars, and each of those stars feature entirely different challenges and areas. In addition to the larger galaxies that contain 4+ stars, there are a whole boatload of individual galaxies containing just one star each, which are all completely different and unique! There was never a slow or dull moment in the game. This aspect of Galaxy represents game design at its absolute best. I cannot give enough credit to the designers for this.
Before I get into my breakdowns of the "good" and the "not-so-good" (there was no "bad"), there is one last aspect of the game which I would like to address in slightly more detail: co-op. The cooperative mode in SMG has typically been dismissed offhand or ignored completely by most people, and I think it's a shame. Indeed, I initially felt that way too... but then something happened...
...for the most part, I only had the chance to play Galaxy in the evening or at night. This of course means I'm occupying the TV, so in general there isn't all that much anybody else in the house can do at that time. For the first few days, my significant other sat on the couch and watched me play for a little while, eventually getting tired and falling asleep (which is understandable). But then one night I remembered the co-op mode and suggested she try it out... BAM! Instant win for everybody. She gets something to do, I get help in the game, and we both get fun out of it. The solution was so simple, so genius, it could only have come from Shigeru Miyamoto.
Now I wouldn't recommend the co-op to another hard-core gamer, but for a casual gamer who typically only plays things like Wii Sports or Brain Age (e.g. my significant other), this simple two-player mode is amazingly fun and absolutely perfect. I don't know why, but collecting Star Bits (pointless as they are) with the remote is unbelievably addicting and fun, and sharing that fun with someone else makes it even more fun. And lest you think this simple co-op mode is pointless for the main player, think again! It actually came in very handy on many occasions. The second player has the ability to stop enemies and also give Mario and extra boost on jumps (with the right timing, of course). We put these added abilities to use on some particularly annoying levels (such as the Dreadnought Purple Coin challenge) with excellent results. While most people will likely dismiss this two-player option, I urge you to give it a try if you can. See if you can get someone to play with you who doesn't usually play a "hard-core" game. You might be surprised at how much fun you have.
With those main points out of the way, let's take a quick look at some of Galaxy's main bullet points:
The Good:
- As mentioned in detail above, the amazing freshness and variety of the challenges and locations are a clear high point.
- The difficulty. I've seen a lot of people complain that the game is too easy... I beg to differ. I think the pacing of the difficulty in SMG is absolutely spot-on perfect. As has been noted many times, only 60 stars or so are required to actually "finish" the game. This allows a lot more people to see the ending and get their money's worth. However, that's only half of what Galaxy has to offer. For serious players, there's another 60 to go, and some of the stars do in fact represent a far greater challenge than most average gamers would probably care to tackle. I'm not saying any of them are impossible, but you're going to die a few times... and anyone who says otherwise is a liar. On another note, part of what makes Galaxy slightly more difficult than previous Mario games is the health meter, which has been changed to 3 bars instead of 6. I thought this was was an excellent change and I was happy to see it.
- The graphics. Galaxy was clearly the high-benchmark for graphics on the Wii at the time of its release (alongside perhaps Metroid Prime 3). It looks absolutely beautiful on my HDTV. I'm not one to usually care about or notice graphics, but this game really impressed me.
- The music. The orchestrated score is the cherry on top of this masterpiece. The compositions were as good or better than anything else I've ever heard in a game before. Absolutely perfect and top-notch all around.
- The physics, gameplay and camera. The physics and gameplay have been talked about ad infinitum elsewhere, so I'm not really going to go into detail here. Suffice it to say that everything about this game felt amazingly fresh and innovative. The controls were absolutely perfect. Even such simple Wii-centric additions like shaking the remote to spin felt awesome. The automatic camera was also beyond top-notch. I initially had reservations about this, but I have to say that whoever the hell programmed this camera should be given an award. I can probably count on one hand the number of times camera placement screwed me in some way. It's an amazing achievement for a platform game (especially one of this nature).
- The characters. I loved the addition of the Lumas and Rosalina to the Mario universe. It was nice to have a different set of characters to interact with, other than the usual mushroom kingdom types. I also like the way Rosalina's story is presented in a completely non-obtrusive and optional way. For the record, I enjoyed her story, but I like how the designers made it so that players who don't care about it don't ever have to deal with it.
- Boss fights and power-ups. I won't spoil what any of these are, but I just want to mention how cool and unique these elements were in Galaxy. I had a lot of fun with all of them... yes, even the final power-up (which a lot of people don't seem to like).
The Not-So-Good:
- As briefly mentioned above, there was a slight case of level recycling. For some strange reason, there is a galaxy later on in the game called Gold Leaf Galaxy, which is basically just a mirrored version of the Honey Comb Galaxy with a different color palette. I did not understand this at all... it just seemed lazy and pointless.
- The completely pointless and unoriginal story. I'm not referring to Rosalina'a story (which was cool). I'm referring to the whole ZOMG-Bowser-kidnapped-Peach-again debacle... ZZZzzzz. If the best they can come up with is THIS... AGAIN, then I'd actually probably rather have no story at all. I mean, seriously... what's the point of this? That said, this gripe is just a mere blip of a blemish on SMG, because story elements in this type of game are completely irrelevant. It doesn't really matter, but still... you just wish that they'd have come up with something at least a little more fresh or interesting. Geez.
...and that's pretty much all I can come up with to complain about. Seriously. The game is THAT good.
In closing, Super Mario Galaxy is a game that comes about as close to perfect as you will ever find. Find it, buy it, play it. What else can I say? I've played and finished every game in the main Mario series, and I can unequivocally state that Galaxy is the best of them all.
