Not many game characters are as famed and popular as the mustached plumber devised deep within the bowels of the Nintendo Corporation. Thinking of it, save for perhaps Pac-Man, Mario is the de-facto mascot of gaming. From the day players got to play the incredible Super Mario Bros. the blue pantaloons and red shirt wearing half of the duo stared in countless games, ranging from kart racing to Tetris look-alikes. But while any other game character would have long worn out his welcome, Mario kept coming back to cheering ovations. Much of this was thanks to the long series of games that made him what he is today in the first place – After wreaking havoc in 2D with the Mario Bros series and causing a revolution of its own in 3D with Super Mario 64, fans have grown accustomed to nothing less than fabulous gameplay. But even Mario can lose his breath, as was shown with Super Mario Sunshine for the GameCube, a game that albeit great, just didn’t deliver that sought after magic the N64 predecessor had. Which leaves us with the question: Is Galaxy the true sequel to Mario 64, or does it continue down the Sunshine path?

A long time ago in Mushroom kingdo… I mean space!

Like it or not, every Mario game to date comes with a story. And hard as it is to believe, this story is never entirely the same. Oh sure, Princess Peach gets kidnapped almost every time and 90% of the time it is the super evil Bowser that we have to thank for yet another adventure. But as shown is some of the more recent outings, the band behind Mario still has enough imagination to whip up original ideas about what happens to Peach. After all, as nice as Mushroom Kingdom is, we would have all grown tired of it by now if it was the only locale the series would take place in. On the other hand, if every Mario game pushed us into new environments the series would lose a lot of its trademark look. Quite a pickle, isn’t it? Well, with Miyamoto at the helm a solution wasn’t really that hard to find.

The game starts much like Super Mario 64. After a brief storybook narration we are shown Mushroom Kingdom in the middle of the night, while the inhabitants are all having a jolly good time celebrating. As with any Mario game before this is a clear invitation for trouble and it doesn’t take long for Bowser to appear. Apparently grown sick of kidnapping Peach over and over again he decides to be quick about it and just snags her entire castle up. Mario, not happy with his princes being towed away into outer space obviously tries to rescue her, but due to some unlucky timing fails and ends up falling back down to the kingdom (no, he doesn’t get hurt in the fall. He is Mario after all.).

Back on the ground while his princess is somewhere on the other side of the galaxy, Mario decides to go after her. Before long he ends up on a massive starship, which dubs as Princes Peaches castle from Mario 64. This space faring vessel is in fact nothing else than a huge hub, where the individual rooms represent trips to the various galaxies. Each of the galaxies is a world of its own, much like the picture worlds Mario 64 used. Up until Mario reaches the hub the game is pretty linear, but from there on players always have a few open galaxies they can visit, leaving the order (and which worlds to skip) entirely up to them.

Before we move on to the more interesting aspects of the game, such as how it plays and what the worlds are like, let us dally on a little longer on the cast of characters. You might not agree with me on this one, but one of the reasons Super Mario Sunshine failed (compared to the rest of the series obviously!) was due to the very weird cast of characters. No, wait! Let me rephrase that. Sunshine failed because it replaced familiar faces such as the little mushroom people (with Toad at the helm) with bizarre looking Pianta folk. These tree/palm hair people (with perhaps the biggest noses this side of the gaming realms) were fun to watch at first, but save to a few lucky gamers they simply didn’t say Mario loud enough. With Mario Galaxy once again taking place outside of Mushroom Kingdom chances were the same thing would happen all over again. Well, it doesn’t. All of the old favorites make a comeback, and even the newcomers such as princess Rosalina (the proud proprietor of the space ship hub) end up making a good impression.

Hub-a de Hub

So, let us finally discuss gameplay. The simplest way to describe it would be to call it Mario 64 2.0. Yes, even though the game takes place in outer space and many of the worlds aren’t land based like the Mario 64 worlds were, Galaxy still feels like a true successor to Mario 64. At any given time several of the galaxies will be accessible, with up to 7 different challenges per galaxy available. Finishing a challenge will award you a star and you need 60 to beat the game. If you did the math just now you must think that there are only 10 or so galaxies available. Well, non-linearity is the key word here, so you’ll be happy to know that there are in fact over 40 galaxies on the rooster and 120 stars to be collected altogether.

So, with 40 different galaxies you’re probably thinking many of them are either clones or so generic it doesn’t really matter. I thought so too before playing the game, but as much as I hate being wide of the mark, Galaxy proved me wrong. Each of the galaxies brings up a unique touch to the gameplay. In one galaxy this might be due to the very unique level design while in the next the main attraction will be the changing gravity. Yes, Super Mario Galaxy offers plenty of different approaches within the different galaxies. You’ll be doing the trademark platform jumping, running around miniature planets, walking on ceilings and walls as the gravity shifts around, fighting bosses that border on fuzzy bunny cute or sick rabid dog scary (well, not really) and more. Most importantly however, you’ll be having fun throughout the entire game.

This might come as a bit of a surprise, since Sunshine tried the exact same thing (pushing Mario into something new) but ended up falling short. It’s hard to say exactly what makes it different this time around, but Galaxy doesn’t fall short. If anything, it makes the jump, does a couple of crazy moves midair and ends up landing a good couple hundred yards ahead of even Mario 64. One of the reasons that might be behind this is the way Mario shape-shifts. Borrowed from the New Super Mario Bros. game for the Nintendo DS, Mario is constantly picking up powerups that give him new powers. And they aren’t just limited to him throwing fireballs either! From insanely high jumps, skating on water and being a bee, the game will throw a lot at you, leaving you little if any time to grow bored or fall into a routine.

The grass isn’t entirely green in all parts of the galaxy however. Perhaps due to the fact that the Wii is aimed at casual gamers or perhaps simply because players in general prefer not to be challenged too much, Mario Galaxy strays heavily away from the sometimes hard challenges Mario 64 put before players and instead offers a more casual friendly ride. To get 60 stars needed to finish the game should prove a trivial task for most experienced players out there and even complete newcomers to platformers shouldn’t lose sleep over any of the challenges. But, being the master game designer Miyamoto is, the first 60 stars end up only being the start of the true fun. The later 60 sparkling night-time sky bulbs (yeah, I’m running out of galaxy and star synonyms) are a lot more challenging and should make a drop or two of sweat come out of the forehead of even the biggest pros.

Wii-Mario

So how does the Wii affect Mario Galaxy? My main concern before playing was that the game would suffer from the same disease a lot of Wii titles suffer – a disease I like to call Wii-gimickabilia. You might never have heard of it before, but I’m sure you are familiar with the symptoms such as using the Wii-mote in situations where the nunchuk would have been enough or over simplification of various tasks, up to the point where a chimp would be able to do them (no offense to the Wii-Sports fans). The diagnosis?

Negative, to my great relief. Super Mario Galaxy plays just like Super Mario 64 did, with a few extra touches courtesy of the Wii-mote. Most of the platforming action is controlled exclusively by the nunchuk. Jumping and punching is still in the realm of the Wii-mote, but we are talking about button presses here, not wild hand gestures. In fact, the only platforming related action the Wii-mote has most of the game is the Mario spin. It might be just one simple action, but it ends up making the whole thing a perfect blend of standard 3D platformer controls and fresh new ideas the Wii is so famous for.  And just to reassure you – the analog controls are as tight and responsive as they ever were.

So do the Wii’s motion controls even come into play here? Of course they do. The beauty of it is that they are seamlessly integrated into the whole thing. So yes, most of the time the Wii-mote isn’t really needed per se. But you can use it to collect the coins and stars that fall from fallen foes or broken items. You can run around and pick them up on their own, but using the Wii-mote to swiftly gather them up with the cursor is a lot more elegant. At times the Wii-mote even becomes the chief controller, such as when Mario is racing around riding a manta. There the remote acts as the manta itself, so you need to twist it around to make the animal roll to the left or right. Similarly, you use the remote to control Mario on top a glass ball, but here the remote acts like a joystick.

Which brings us to the camera. On consoles it has become pretty common that the left analog stick controls the movement while the right is in charge of the camera. So, with the Wii only having an analog stick on the nunchuk that might be kind of a problem. But, if you think about it for a second, the N64 only had one analog stick as well and that didn’t make Mario 64 any less grand. I’ll cut right to the chase here – yes, the auto-camera in Galaxy is almost perfect, so you never have to worry about re-centering it or fine tuning it in any way whatsoever. Some of this trouble-free is a freebie for the game, since you rarely find yourself stuck in small spaces where camera issues usually pop up. Still, sometimes the camera doesn’t re-center immediately, so you are stuck with running blindly in one direction until it does. Hardly a problem really, since it happens so seldom, but it does make you miss that second analog stick all the same.

PSWii360

Whoever said the Wii isn’t capable of delivering gorgeous graphics is probably regretting their words right now. Super Mario Galaxy is without question the prettiest Wii game on the market and it does give some of the competitive platformers on the other next-gen platforms a run for their money as well. Let’s be realistic here – the Wii doesn’t render anything in HD, so obviously the resolution isn’t as high as on the other consoles. But if you can get past that you’ll find that Galaxy actually has a lot going for itself. The character models are all exquisitely detailed, probably because the Japanese are so crazy about game characters. That doesn’t mean the environments aren’t just as good! Just the sheer variety of the galaxies you’ll explore will leave you baffled, let alone the artwork and character they all come equipped with by default (I wish more game developers put this kind of love into their products). And yes, Mario’s animations are super smooth and ultra natural (or as natural as a 4 foot plumber’s animations can be).

All of which makes the sound look almost bad. There were never many voiceovers in Mario games, but in this day and age reading every speech bubble with only music playing in the background is something that should be reserved for handhelds (and even there only due to the storage limitations). At least the rest of the audio department did an excellent job. The music is well written and the orchestra playing it did a great job. The mix of kiddy tunes and more dramatic melodies does wonders for the series, as does the great mix of well known themes and fresh material. And the sound effects are all pretty good too, though that isn’t much of an achievement in a game like this.

Conclusion

Super Mario Galaxy is perhaps the biggest game the Wii will ever see. Haters all around the world will probably misquote me and use my last statement as fuel to fire their “the Wii sucks” attitude. What they will ignore however is the fact that my statement doesn’t make the Wii look bad. Quite the opposite, it shows how good Super Mario Galaxy really is. I’m going to go a bit out of character here and say the following: If you are not a die-hard RPG fan or FPS maniac, Super Mario Galaxy is probably the best game you are going to play this year. Heck, for all I know nothing will top it in 2008 either!