Super Mario Galaxy

Well, I’ve procrastinated with this one long enough. 50-some years after its release, I’m finally getting around to reviewing Super Mario Galaxy. To think we’re now at the era of Hyperreality Videogaming. Anyone remembers the big VR craze, back in the Tens? That was so basic compared to now. Technology is awesome, it keeps on evolving. …what do you mean, Blogger says this was posted in 2018? It must be glitching again. Maybe I’ve set the wrong date. This is March 30^th, 2058, right? Still not sure it was a good idea to switch review releases to Saturdays, after I posted reviews on this blog on Fridays for 37 years. It still feels weird somehow, even if it’s been 8 years. And I’m what, 65 now?

The gang's all here on this retro poster...
...even Rosalina?
I mean, by 2058, Mario Galaxy IS retro now.

Mario and I, we go way back. I wasn’t alive for his first few games, but I saw the franchise evolve. It’s gotten so weird now. I mean, it was weird at the time, but it kept getting weirder and weirder. They jumped the shark when Mario rallied all the Mario lives lost in all the previous games to take down a multiversal conqueror. Thrice. And no, I don’t mean Bowser.

In spite of its scope, Super Mario Galaxy feels like a return to the roots of what a great Mario game was. Maybe it’s because the franchise nowadays is so far removed from what I remember of it, back when I was a teenager. Giving Yoshi that edgy, mature spin-off was a bad idea. Kid-friendly dragons and guns don’t mix.

The Nintendo Selects version, which
I think was the one I bought, all the way
back in... 2013?

If this ploy doesn't work, Bowser could just recycle himself
into an enterprise of building movers. This sure is an
interesting way to do this.

Developed by Nintendo EAD Tokyo, published by Nintendo (obviously) for the Wii on November 12th, 2007 in America, yadda yadda. It starts as Mario is invited to Peach’s Castle as a guest for the Star Festival, a beautiful once-a-century event in which stars fall on the Mushroom Kingdom. Because Bowser can’t spend a year without crashing an event held by the heroes, he shows up, freezes most Toads, uproots Peach’s castle and carries it into space. Mario was almost at the castle, so a Magikoopa blasts him into space as well. Hey, he can see his house from here!

Let me guess: This game never grabs a chance to
reference The Little Prince.

When Mario wakes up, he’s on a planetoid with a little chubby star speaking to him. It turns into a rabbit and, with two friends, makes him play hide-and-seek. Puh-lease, I have a Princess to save! I gotta go roll a ball into a hole and race on a manta ray, I don't have time for your silly games! Still, by saving the rabbits, a small tower appears and, on it, a celestial lady who gives Mario another chubby star being, who fuses into the plumber and gives him the power of spinning. So you mean to tell me Mario had no idea how to spin on himself before? Huh. Well, okay, he probably knew, but this time he can use this ability to hurt enemies. This first mission takes him around a few more planetoids, forcing the player to learn to get used the physics of Mario Galaxy – that is, moving around small spheres. You can collect coins and Star Bits around levels, and you can throw the star bits by pressing B on the Wii remote (and if you play in 2-Player mode, a friend can help you pick up Star Bits and stun enemies by throwing them at the enemies).

"Mamma mia! This star is-a bigger than me-a!
I know I have a big-a hyperspace arsenal, but-a...
This isn't gonna fit-a!"

"Your kingdom will soon be my home as well.
I will invade every single one of your spin-off series."

At the end of the mission, Mario collects a Grand Star, and finds himself transported to a strange spaceship, where he’s welcomed by the cosmic lady. She presents herself as Rosalina, which you already knew, she’s become almost more important than Peach by now. She adds that Bowser and his army stole the Grand Stars powering up this vessel, the Comet Observatory, and have fled to the Center of the Universe. In order to get there, Mario needs to collect Stars around the galaxy, which opens the way towards Grand Stars, which will allow the Observatory to reach the center of the universe. Gather stars, beat levels, unlock more places, got it. Should be easy. Plus, you have to collect 60 stars to get there. That’s only half the game!

That’s all the plot we need for a Mario game, no? Okay, fine, that’s not technically everything. You can actually learn more about Rosalina as you progress through the game. You’ll often catch her telling a story to her Lumas (the chubby star beings). Although, she’s telling it like a bedtime story. It’s like saying “It happened to a friend of a friend”.

Rosalina, telling her story: "Any resemblance to real
persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental."

Every galaxy is like a box of surprises. You don't know in
advance if you're getting the peacful one with the bees,
the giant cake with moving platforms, or the monstrous
undead fish skeleton.

From there, things are pretty standard for a Mario game. Remember Super Mario 64? Probably not, that thing’s 62 years old. That game had 15 main levels, all of which contained 6 Stars, plus one more if you collected 100 coins. And multiple secret Stars. In Super Mario Galaxy, levels have anywhere from 3 to 6 Stars. The coins don't matter as much, as the focus is more on Star Bits. Though Galaxy also has a lot of “secret” stars, whether it’s green Stars hidden in a few levels, or other Stars that can be obtained by feeding some Lumas with Star Bits. Some Stars aren’t secret but aren’t part of complete levels per se, just a one-time level unlocked by your own Star progression. Those levels tend to be more gimmicky in form.

Even space itself has tranformed to become a reference
to the oldest Mario games!

Good thing I can't die in here!

The progression is pretty standard, too. The Comet Observatory is a  large area in which you can’t die whatsoever, split among Domes containing multiple levels each. Sheesh, this is more complex than the spacecraft that landed on Earth two years ago. Remember that? The aliens came from the neighboring solar system, and just needed a cup of sugar? Friendliest folks. The Domes are named things such as the Terrace, the Fountain, the Kitchen, the Bedroom, the Engine Room or the Garden. There’s also the Planet of Trials, for tougher challenges.

Beating a boss with only one HP?
To some gamers... "Big deal".

Oh, and there’s also Prankster Comets, which often appear around the Observatory and affect one particular mission in one level. Those will add new requirements, and when completed, will give Mario one more Star. There’s a few variants:

-The Speedy comet, which forces you to complete a level with a time limit;

-The Daredevil comet, which reduce your HP to 1 before putting you through a level;

-The Cosmic comet, which pits you in a race against a fast cosmic clone of yourself;

-The Fast Foe comet, which speeds up all enemies and obstacles in a level;

-And the Purple Comet, which replaces the 100-coin Stars, making you gather 100 purple coins in a level. Those are only accessible after beating the final boss.

I'm not even going to ask how a creature this big doesn't
just crush the planetoid it's standing on with every stomp
of its huge feet, but... this is the Mario series.
Physics are pretty elactic.

Every world has a few galaxies with missions, and one Boss level unlocked by gathering enough stars. To remind you of the big bad, those apparently happen near giant Bowser heads. And just in case you wondered how big the stakes are, the boss at the end of the first dome is a tripod bigger than the planet it’s standing on. Megaleg, everyone. Definitely a “Holy crap” moment for everyone who played this game for the first time.

I mean, it doesn’t compare to the Jaegers we had to build from that time R’lyeh opened up from beneath the ocean and we needed something to strike back, five years ago, but we really don’t need to remember any of that.

This doesn't look so big? Take the second-smallest tooth in that mouth,
and tell yourself that this is Mario's size compared to that beast.

Come to think of it, there’s a lot of giant bosses in this game, whether it’s Dino Piranha, Tarantox, or FRIGGIN’ KINGFIN. If you don’t believe the Mario series has the potential to make you step back in fear, go fight Kingfin for the first time and then come back to me. It’s like Jaws 23: Return of the Attack of the Zombie of Giant Skeletal Piranha Jaws.

When I said I wanted to meet Queen B, this isn't what
I was thinking of!

Of course, it can’t be a Mario game without new mushroom-based power-ups. Newer games have brought their share of weird power-ups; Worm Mario, Full Metal Mario, Insides Out Mario and the Luigi Mushroom come to my mind. But the series was weird even way back in ’07, and here’s proof:

-The Bee Mushroom, which… allows Mario to fly for very short periods of time, and climb some walls;

-The Boo Mushroom, which turns Mario into a Boo that can become intangible;

-The Ice Flower, which lets him toss ice balls and walk over freezing water or burning lava… somehow;

This power-up tends to make me a little jumpy.

-The Red Star, which allows Mario to fly, and it’s just the 12^th different flight item in the freaking franchise because they never use the same item for that purpose;

-And the Spring Mushroom, hands down the worst Mario power-up of all time, forcing him to only make small hops instead of running, while boosting some of your jumps but being extremely unwieldy. I’d rather play with Insides Out Mario again, and that one flips him inside out, guts and all! What were they thinking?

I spent most of this review talking about various elements, because there isn’t much of a plot. Mario battles Bowser’s army once in a while, mostly at the end of a galaxy inside a Dome. He battles Bowser three times. As the story goes, you unlock more chapters of Rosalina’s bedtime backstory, and gather 60 stars and the last Grand Star, opening the way to the Center of the Galaxy, where Mario fights Bowser for the last time (in this game anyway). And, per tradition for the franchise, it's EPIC. 

For the record, they are surrounded by lava because part of
that fight is taking place within an empty sun. Yes, really.

The defeated Bowser falls into the GODDAMN SUN (But don't worry, he'll survive), and Mario catches Peach in-flight through space towards her castle. Unfortunately, Bowser’s little handcrafted universal domination ploy collapses in on itself and creates a supermassive black hole that promptly sucks in the entire universe. The Lumas sacrifice themselves to the black hole as it engulfs the whole universe, and end up provoking a new Big Bang that brings everything to its rightful place. Yes, really. Though Rosalina had a part in making that happen, as we can see in a scene that would appeal to macro fans out there…

With the universe reborn, Mario wakes up in the Mushroom Kingdom, back to normal, with everybody still alive, and… the adventure continues, I guess. Lemme check my agenda… Ah, yes. Tomorrow, at 3:45 PM, kidnapping of Peach by Bowser #3375. Better get ready for that!

Well, it's a good thing the air can be breathed in every
single galaxy we go into!

This is a very good game, though more than a bit outclassed by titles that came afterwards such as Super Mario Odyssey. It's still far better than many titles of utter bullcrap we've had between 2030 and 2041, the Dark Age of Mario. Still, it’s a great game to own for a retro console like the Wii… in fact, I’m pretty sure it’s one of the base 30 games on the Wii Mini, if you can ever get your hands on one of those. Kind of a moot point anyway since Nintendo joined Steam in 2023 and has been consistently on top of their selling charts since, making their retro games available for all to buy.

So I get 5 extra lives, but I lose them when I'll
leave and reopen the save file? That's bad!

But I digress. Super Mario Galaxy may seem underwhelming once you’ve seen later entries in the franchise, but it was considered a masterpiece at the time, and it still is as far as Wii games go. It suffers from very few issues; the lower resolution is compensated by the world and levels being filled with beauty and color. A treat for the eyes (a line I used at least 300 times on this blog by now). The music is also good enough to be great for a listen on its own, so much so that the SMG soundtrack was often packaged with the Wii. The camera can be an issue, but thankfully it’s rare. You have only three Hit Points (though a power-up may boost that to 6 temporarily). Losing three HP can be very easy, but collecting lives is, in comparison, EXTREMELY easy, you’re even given some at times at the Comet Observatory through a postal worker Toad. Peach is so nice, she sends you dozens of extra lives. The great annoyance is that you lose all accumulated lives when you quit the game and come back, returning to the basic 5. That's bullcrap!

The manta ray is a bit unwieldy, but quite awesome.

Some levels shake up the formula, offering mini-games as challenges to receive Stars. The manta ray surfing is an example. There’s also the ball rodeo, in which you control Mario riding on a ball by tilting the Wii remote held vertically. That one annoyed me a bit. Then there’s all the other challenges you go through in order to collect 120 stars, mostly thanks to the Prankster Comets. Oh, and that’s not all: You can beat the whole game again, gather all 120 Stars, with Luigi once you’ve done it with Mario. Yes, that includes the missions already featuring Luigi, don’t ask how that happened. It’s like that cloning thing that was all the rage in the 2030s. It degenerated quickly. And you even get a small reward for getting all 240 Stars.

Had Super Mario 64 been translated in Quebec like this
game, when Mario went to sleep, he'd probably mutter
"Patates frites.. fromage en grains... sauce brune..."

Those of us who played the original game and lived in Quebec may also remember a controversy around this game. At the time, Nintendo had decided to localize many of its new titles for their audiences, which meant adding a French Canadian text track to the game. The results were... not pretty. Imagine all the Toads and multiple spatial beings talking with a heavy accent, using localized slang and expressions that just don't make sense in the setting - and tell yourself that this is what us, poor Québécois, had. The backlash was strong enough to make Nintendo drop that idea. (The other game to suffer from this was The Legend of Zelda: The Phantom Hourglass.)

Long story short: Very few, minor flaws. This fantastic game is close to perfection. Go play it. Get it for your old Wii, on Steam, on Mind Download and on Fingernail Games. And keep it around, in case the current conflict between the U.S. and the Neo-North Korea degenerates into a nuclear war again and we need those bunkers we’ve all got now.

I’ll be seeing you next week, if my degrading old man health allows it. After a retro game like we had today, I’m probably gonna be reviewing some game from the PlayStation 9 next Friday, since you all asked so nicely. Until then, have a good APRIL FOOLS! And get off my lawn.