Review Friday: Super Mario Galaxy
A couple of weeks ago now I bought Super Mario Galaxy. The first real Mario outing on the Wii. I spent Tuesday night playing it for a while (my brother had been hogging it last week).
Image from Wikipedia’s article on Super Mario Galaxy [Wikipedia.com]
This starts, as virtually every Mario game does, with Bowser capturing Princess Peach. You then find yourself in the company of Rosalina, some kind of Star Queen, and baby stars called Lumas, on some kind of observatory. The observatory is the hub of the game, various ‘rooms’ containing galaxies that in turn contain planets. The galaxies serve as levels, each galaxy having up to 5 stars. Some have one, some have three, some have three, a comet star, and a hidden star. These ones are greedy. You play on planets within the galaxies. As in Mario 64 you have to collect a certain amount of stars before you can proceed to the next level… er.. galaxy. Every room has a boss planet where you fight Bowser or Jr. Bowser. There are 46 galaxies in 6 rooms.
Most of Mario’s trademark moves appear, the long jump, triple jump, wall jump, and the infamous butt slam. Absent are such things as punching, kicking and the jump kick. He sure likes to jump lot. The melee moves (punching, kicking) have been replaced with a spin attack, activated by shaking the Wii remote. This is actually very comfortable and almost natural, certainly it doesn’t feel tacked on. The Wiis motion sensing is also used when you race on top of a manta ray and when Mario is on top of a ball (it was a Super Monkey Ball style level).
Graphically this is the best Mario game to date. Water, ice and crystals show all sorts of reflections. The rest of the environments are similarly gorgeous, in a cartoony sort of way. Not gorgeous in a Crysis sort of way (that game still leaves a bitter taste in my mouth).
The soundtrack to this game is incredible. Orchestral scores accompany Mario throughout the levels, with eerie noises that sound a bit like a theremin when you use ‘pull stars’. Traditional Mario sounds are played when you collected a trail of notes, activated by a giant coin. If you hit all 25 notes you are awarded with a 1-UP or something similar. Other power-ups in the game include ice flowers (Mario can walk on water, freezing it underfoot), fire flowers (act like the 2D version) and a Red Star that acts like the Wing cap from Mario 64.
The caps from Mario 64 have been replaced with ’suits’. Essentially Mario changes into something that fits into the level, such as a Boo or a Bee.
This new Mario game is set up for short gameplay sessions, perhaps targeting the casual gamer demographic. Each star takes about 6 minutes to collect and you can save after each point. Makes it easy to finish what you are doing, save and quit.
Another departure from the Mario formula is the life gauge, which has been reduced from 6 segments to 3 segments. It can be temporarily boosted by mushrooms. When your life segments reach zero, you die. However if you have a 1-UP mushroom you can continue with the same amount of star bits and roughly where you were in the level when you died. Other causes of death include falling in black holes, losing a race and drowning. Dieing is a common occurrence in Super Mario Galaxy (just one little slip and you fall into a black hole), but luckily 1-UP mushrooms are very common. You can find them and you earn one for every 50 star bits you collect.
Pros
- It’s a Mario game
- Lovely effects, especially on ice and crystals. Really shows what the Wii is capable of.
- Incredible soundtrack
Cons
- Camera problems, A 3D Mario tradition that hasn’t been fixed
If there’s one thing this game has taught me it’s that many things in life can be sorted by just shaking it.
Have a good weekend,
Jason