Quality Time: Super Mario Galaxy (Wii)

Space.

 

Here on our little blue and green sphere, the very word captivates mankind with the thought of endless opportunity. Those who have left our atmosphere have called it a transcendent experience, the path to even something as close as the Moon or Mars fills us with curiosity and ambition, and the unfathomable size of this enormous black expanse means many agree there must be extraterrestrial life out there just because something so filled with other galaxies and worlds must have had the good fortune to create life more than once.

 

When we finally saw beyond the clouds and realized those stars in the sky are billions upon billions of miles away, humanity’s imagination ran wild. On Earth we are bound by what works within the logic we know, but space is the place where the impossible still seems possible. We dreamed of species built in strange and exotic ways, and the very physics at play feel like they can bend to whatever shape an author wishes them to without leaving the reader incredulous.

 

This opportunity to explore the outer limits of creative thought means fiction often finds itself heading to the stars to reinvigorate something that’s starting to run dry on ideas. Dick Tracy left his somewhat grounded detective work behind as he went to the moon, The Brave Little Toaster took a trip to Mars despite just being a sentient appliance, and Jason Voorhees took his gruesome kills to space once the camp on Crystal Lake was becoming a bit too familiar. In fiction that doesn’t initially start in space, it often ends up feeling cheesy or trite to see these adventures suddenly head to space, and even in the realm of video games we see series like Dino Crisis decide to leave Earth in their attempts to inject easy novelty into the franchise.

 

If you heard a series starring a squat little plumber who jumps really good was heading to space, you might think its creativity had run dry as well, but this isn’t any old plumber we’re talking about. Mario is the biggest name in video games, has multiple masterpieces under his belt, and when it’s time for this particular plumber to go on a new adventure in one of his mainline series, you can usually expect an incredible degree of craftsmanship has gone into the experience. Not every Mario game is good admittedly, but when Nintendo decided it was time to take Mario to the stars, they did not do it lightly. This was not to be a cheap gimmick, this wasn’t going to be some kooky adventure to see aliens after terrestrial adventures got stale…

 

This was to be one of the best video games ever made.

 

WELCOME NEW GALAXY!

Super Mario Galaxy wasn’t just the latest Mario title to come out back in 2007, it was something treated with the level of gravitas you don’t really expect adventuring in space to carry after fiction had made it such a trite place to take washed up characters. Technically, this wouldn’t be Mario’s first brush with outer space, he had been willing to head to the stars for brief stints to spice up things like go-kart races or board game parties, and Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins had a few levels set in a place called Space Zone, but this was no mere visitation. This was a journey, an epic adventure that sees Mario exploring places unlike anything he had ever seen before and exploring a universe filled with amazing new sights.

Despite setting off an outer space odyssey, things seem almost all too familiar at first. Mario runs to the castle of Princess Peach on the night of a star shower, the people celebrating the visitation of a comet that swings by once a century. However, this very day is the same one Mario’s longstanding nemesis Bowser swoops in, but while the evil turtle king snatches up the princess like always, he does not simply sit in a castle waiting for Mario to run in and save her. Bowser’s power and reach have extended far beyond his kingdom full of Koopas, the evil king now setting up in the center of the universe and firing up a reactor that can create entire galaxies, ones he aims to rule over with an iron fist. Mario tries his best to prevent the kidnapping, but despite being a hero who has taken down this particular villain before, he always did so with some unusual edge against the Koopa King. Since Mario can’t hurl him into spiked explosives, trick him into smashing through the floor, hurl robotic minions back into Bowser’s face, or… tip over his bathtub, Mario is easily knocked away by Bowser as the king takes off into space, Mario sent tumbling through the void…

Until he lands on a strange little planet, one that is home to the adorable little star people known as Lumas. These little creatures are all helpful little children who seem perfectly happy to transform into tools Mario can use like launch stars that carry him from one planet to another while some can even become entire galaxies if you are able to fill them up with the cosmic confetti better known as Star Bits. More importantly, these Lumas are all taken care of by a motherly figure known as Rosalina, this princess of the stars in charge of the Comet Observatory that can bring Mario to the center of the universe, but only if he can restore it to its full power. Power Stars have been scattered across tens of galaxies, Mario needing to brave new worlds with strange shapes and challenges to gradually power up portions of the Observatory he can then use to find new galaxies to explore.

Mario’s usual quest to save Peach evolving to preventing Bowser from becoming a galactic despot certainly ups the stakes immensely, and with Bowser apparently having other locations like a plant that manufactures destructive dark matter and the ability to generate entire stars with ease, he’s more a threat then he’s ever been before. However, in this quest across multiple galaxies with the very fate of the universe hanging in the balance, there is a personal tale that can only be told if you take the time out of your quest to visit the Observatory’s library. Every now and then, Rosalina will be willing to share a new chapter from a storybook that she is reading to her Lumas, and very early on it’s clear the young girl in this story is her. While Mario often introduces new characters as if they were always meant to be there and rarely takes the time to develop them, Princess Rosalina sneaks in her backstory beautifully, with even series director Shigeru Miyamoto apparently unaware a lovely tale that gives the character depth was slipped under his nose. Apparently he wasn’t too happy with it, but considering he thought grinding a hop and bop platformer like Donkey Kong Country Returns to a stop again and again to blow pointlessly on a dandelion was a good enough idea to require its inclusion, not all of his ideas seem to be winners.

Rosalina’s story is a charming little addition that has an unexpected degree of pathos. Rosalina and the first Luma she ever met are jointly wandering the stars in search of their mothers, coming across new worlds and eventually growing their ranks as more and more Lumas attach themselves to this caring young lady. Rosalina’s journey continues on for months and months with no path to answers though… but that’s because Rosalina always knew the truth about hers. While we see her reflecting on her family a few times during this personal quest, memories of a brother, father, and mother recalled with a bittersweet air, soon the young Rosalina breaks down, because she knew her mother had died years ago and was now buried under a tree on a hill. The young princess weeps as she comes to terms with this fact, but the Lumas she had grown to care for all lend their support, only for the one to she started with to realize he could make the ultimate gift for her. The Luma becomes the Comet Observatory, a way for her to travel the stars better with all her new children, and while Lumas can transform into things… that is the end of its life. It’s final gift was to give Rosalina a way to not only take care of her new family, but a means that would allow her to see her mother again, Rosalina taking the Comet Observatory to the hill her mother was buried beneath every 100 years… creating the comet festival that lined up with Mario’s start to this new adventure.

The storybook is short overall but gorgeously illustrated with an outline-free, ethereal style that makes it almost seem dreamy. The nine chapters it contains use careful language to describe the passing of Rosalina’s mother, and the storytelling method means it doesn’t explore the process of coming to terms with it and living on as much as more involved works, but it does so much to make Princess Rosalina a more likeable character despite her relatively small role in the story and usually reserved and calm demeanor that could seem rather empty otherwise. We know how she has grown into this role, and it has a surprising amount of emotion to it, the storybook being the most emotional the Mario series has been willing to get outside of the more story-heavy RPG subseries. It’s a small but wonderful touch and one that could get easily lost in the discussion of the many amazing things Super Mario Galaxy does, but it’s just one of many ways that this game helps to stand out from the other Mario titles, even this game’s immediate sequel Super Mario Galaxy 2.

 

Princess Rosalina is only a helper in this journey, but while she gets the fleshing out, Mario gets to go on the incredible quest to cross all sorts of unusual galaxies. This adventure to unusual worlds would not nearly be the same if the planets were just the same sorts of environments that Mario was already used to, so that’s why we need to begin discussing the types of galaxies featured in this game named for them.

 

A UNIVERSE OF UNIQUENESS

Super Mario Galaxy’s quest to collect Power Stars doesn’t take you to places it merely calls levels. Instead, each place you visit is its own galaxy. The term “galaxy” has certainly been condensed from how we know it in the real world, but in this 3D platformer, a galaxy is made up of a bunch of different planets that vary in size, shape, and concept. Some will be more similar in size to a building than a planet, but others are wide open areas with plenty of locations to explore. Most importantly though, each one of them has their own gravity, meaning that Mario is able to run across their surface without worry that he’ll fall off.

In fact, the gravity mechanics are one of the most amazing things about Super Mario Galaxy. One of the first planets you visit is a large sphere, and no part of it is outside of your reach. Gateway Galaxy’s simple little green world acclimates you easily to the idea that if you’re able to completely cross a planet’s surface without any fear of falling off the world once you’re on the bottom, and even as you start coming across planets that are more disc-like in shape or some other unusual form, you know that you can simply walk over the edge without the threat of tumbling off into the infinite void. Gravity does follow a few set rules though, like when you find yourself in a box you can’t go up the walls unless a sloped surface eases you into it, and there are places where dropping down a hole or getting too far out of a planet’s orbit will cause you to spiral off into a nearby black hole, but each little planet you find yourself on is made so much richer by the opportunities that having its entire surface to walk on open up.

 

Sometimes you’ll find yourself slingshotting between the orbits of small planets as you make your way onward, sometimes you’ll dodge danger by seeking refuge on the safer side of a surface. Other times you may have to scour a large world for items hidden all around its circumference, or you might face a boss who comes barreling over the horizon to chase you down. The game is constantly concocting new ways to explore this simple change to platforming mechanics, gravity allowing for things like riding a manta ray across a large twisting and turning waterway that floats through the air. You might have to point your Wii remote at the screen to grab small blue Pull Stars that gravitate Mario towards them so he can slip through space junk and asteroid fields in one part, but in another you’re slipping through stars as fireballs leap off their surface.

Super Mario Galaxy isn’t content to just rely on the typical space imagery you’d expect from such universal travels though. It does have its fair share that feel rooted in the science fiction style of space exploration familiar to the genre, the Dreadnought Galaxy taking place in and around an enormous spaceship and Space Junk Galaxy living up to its name with its debris ridden space field, but then you also have Honeyhive Galaxy which is the home to a bee monarchy, Freezeflame Galaxy that shifts between hot and cold planets depending on the path you take, and Ghostly Galaxy which is a haunted mansion that plays off ideas like disorienting gravity and disappearing ground to really up its spook factor.

 

Even within a galaxy the exact shape of planets can get wildly creative. One memorable moment in Gusty Garden Galaxy has you walking across giant floating apple planets and coaxing an enormous caterpillar to tunnel between them to give you a bridge, Toy Time Galaxy has you hopping across enormous wooden trains and traversing the enormous “Mecha-Bowser” that is really just an enhanced version of a wind-up key robot toy blown up to unexpected proportions. You’ll encounter planets shapes like question marks, ones that shrink and grow, a planet shaped like Yoshi the dinosaur’s face, and even a world with disappearing tile ground whose shape is best described as a rhombicuboctahedron, a shape you’ll certainly never hear being directly name-checked again. Creativity runs rampant in designing planets that take on strange shapes and sizes, some still looking like little planets with grass or stone surfaces while others find Mario stepping on unexpected surfaces like a galaxy made exclusively of sweets. Some are laid out more like platform gauntlets where gravity will drag you down if you miss a jump, some open up a large area to walk around in, and some happily shift the gravity around with specialized fields, the game even introducing new gravity gimmicks in the final stage that leads up to your last big battle with Bowser.

Even if these galaxies had simply created hundreds of little playgrounds for the player to run around in and jump on baddies, Super Mario Galaxy would already have an incredible platformer on its hand that shakes up conventional design in new and interesting ways. However, Super Mario Galaxy isn’t just content to turn platforming upside-down, sideways, or whatever way gravity happens to be pulling it with this complex mechanical system. Super Mario Galaxy also endeavors to explore engaging new ways to play these impossible places you explore, and while there is an egregious case of recycling one planet when Honeyhive Galaxy’s hub area is mirrored and set to autumn for the start of Golden Leaf Galaxy, even it knows to spiral off and do its own thing to avoid any part of this game feeling like it is truly repeating ideas.

 

A GALAXY’S WORTH OF AMAZING GAMEPLAY

Exploring outer space wouldn’t be the same if all Mario did was jump around like he usually does… but even though he still does that, Nintendo made sure his movement is spectacular to control. While there is the rare bit of gravity awkwardness if you catch yourself running between two fields, Mario’s movement almost always cleanly and logically follows the rules of the nearest celestial body he should be gravitated towards. This means that when you jump, do your running triple jump for greater height, backflip, or somersault, you can do so with not only a reliable idea of where you’ll end up, but with a great amount of aerial control to further guide you to your intended destination. Mario’s jumping is intuitive and fluid, but once you start throwing in ideas like the wall jump and your aerial spin, you can even get Mario to skip past small challenges if you have mastered the movement controls.

 

The aerial spin in particular is an important addition to Mario’s repertoire, because not only does it allow you to take a small double jump in the air to adjust yourself, but the spin is Mario’s main method of attacking. You can still land on the heads of many things or do a ground pound if they are a bit tougher, but the spin lets you knock enemies about, turn tough guys over, and push objects of importance to the right place. The spin move is actually set to a shake of the Wii Remote, and while most of your controls are button based, this feels like a surprisingly smart integration of the often derided “waggle” concept of the Wii. Some games have you needlessly shake the remote to pay lip service to using the system’s motion control, but here, this allows you to jump freely with the buttons without having to move your finger to another button to perform the spin like in the Super Mario 3D All-Stars repackaging of the title, and its just different enough from your regular jump button to mean you’ll pull off the spin with purpose rather than potentially tacking it on habitually to normal jumps.

 

A bit less exciting is the Wii remote’s integration of the pointer function, but it has a good role to play as well. The earlier mentioned Star Bits are scattered around levels, sometimes falling from the sky, other times adorning setpieces or floating around the air waiting for you to collect them. These are picked up by pointing at them, and in one of the most hilariously bad multiplayer concepts Nintendo has devised, you can invite a second player along to pretty much just collect these with almost no appreciable impact on the adventure otherwise. However, in a single-player adventure, these do a good job augmenting moments that otherwise might not feel interactive enough. At one point, Mario launches out of the top of an erupting volcano as he heads towards the stars, and while this looks really cool of course, you may also get your Wii Remote up and start collecting the Star Bit trail around him to avoid this just being a cutscene you can’t participate in. Star Bits are a bit of a currency, extra routes and optional galaxies opened up by feeding these to big Lumas which makes collecting these a valuable diversion, but it also weakens their other use. You can fire Star Bits at enemies to stun them or trigger other unique reactions, and some boss fights will have healing coins buried in the dirt you unearth by pointing your Wii Remote cursor at them and firing, but since these are a valuable resource elsewhere, it discourages the use of them for these moments.

You can usually get by without whipping out the Star Bits, and the Wii Remote still finds some other interesting uses along the way. You pull yourself towards tiny blue Pull Stars in parts of the galaxies where no ground exists to walk on and Sling Pods let you pull back Mario and fling him from asteroid to asteroid or even fight a gigantic poisonous spider boss. Shaking the Wii Remote can help you launch out of star-shaped objects to fly to new planets, and a few galaxies completely shake up how the motion controls get involved. The manta ray riding course was mentioned earlier, but sometimes you’ll find yourself atop a ball that rolls more quickly based on the angle of your remote, the player navigating dangerously thin courses to get the star inside that ball they’re riding. Snow Cap Galaxy is perhaps a little too ambitious with its cylindrical planet covered in snow that parts when the cursor moves over it, but only because it doesn’t introduce the idea well and the snow returns, making clearing it away feel somewhat off in a timed challenge about finding and catching bunnies hidden under the snow.

There’s more of the good kind of gimmickry to be found outside of how Mario controls though. Different planets and galaxies will engage with unique mechanics that don’t overstay their welcome. Matter Splatter Galaxy’s level geometry can only be seen and interacted with based on when its found in a moving spotlight, some areas have platforms drifting around in space and only snapping into position once you’re close enough, one area features small drops that create ground as they bounce about like rubber balls, and sometimes the only way to traverse a world like Bubble Breeze Galaxy or Bubble Blast Galaxy is, unspurprisingly, to hop in a bubble and use a wind blower to guide you safely through the air. The game mixes its new ideas with older concepts as well, the player able to ice skate around a planet but having to consider its donut like shape when chasing down a penguin for example. Battlerock Galaxy has plenty of battlefields and hazardous areas where the extra surfaces of the planet give you more means of dodging foes or them different ways to catch you by surprise, and this stage even features the interesting two-dimensional segments where the gravity will completely invert depending on the arrows shown on the wall. Sometimes you find yourself determining an area’s gravity by smacking switches, and even if the game isn’t throwing a curveball at you with its gravity gimmicks, you still have races to win on these worlds, timed challenges that require outsmarting rabbits or planning explosive placement, and bosses that play with how Mario moves in outer space.

Megaleg is one of the most impressive boss concepts because, in a manner similar to Shadow of the Colossus, Megaleg is both the boss and what you traverse. Climbing up the giant machine minion of Bowser’s son Bowser Jr., you need to navigate its enormous legs and central body while tricking its many mounted cannons into damaging itself. Kingfin has you traveling around inside an enormous water sphere to chase down the titanic fish skeleton to nail it with shells. Bowser himself involves baiting him into landing on certain parts of a planet to burn himself and then hit him when he’s running around trying to put out the fire, although since you fight him multiple times, this evolves to later having to do things like time your strike right when he’s inexplicably rolled up in a rocky ball so you hit his face that is still sticking out. While Tarantox makes interesting use of the Sling Pods and some bosses like Dino Piranha make uses of their spherical planet for a more interesting boss chase, some bosses do feel a bit like regular platforming game villains. The enormous lava octopus King Kaliente is about hitting his shots back at him instead of doing something funky with gravity, and Bouldergeist is a giant rock monster who you gradually break apart by grabbing explosive black ghosts by their tongue and smashing him into them… which is still a strange idea even in a game with many strange worlds.

However, while some bosses go for traditional design and others branch out, there is also another idea in play that can spice up certain galaxies. Prankster Comets will visit the galaxies from time to time, introducing a new twist to a star that makes it more challenging. A Daredevil Comet makes it so you need to beat a boss without taking damage, making long and dangerous fights like Bouldergeist much more difficult. Cosmic Comet has a strange starry duplicate of Mario appear to challenge you to a platforming gauntlet, and Speedy Comet makes it so you have to finish a galaxy in a time limit. These are often chosen carefully to ensure they are relatively tough, the game careful to pick a star challenge that would benefit from a tighter condition applied to it. The Purple Comets that appear after you beat the game’s main story are often about optimizing your movement through a level, sometimes even with a timer to make it tougher, and the path to 120 stars for a completion-focused player is one paved with plenty of legitimately challenging moments.

 

You’ll have fun and relaxing galaxies along the way on top of these more difficult additional trials that don’t need to be completed to beat the main game, but completing the adventure reveals a new “Super Luigi Galaxy” mode that lets you play as Mario’s brother Luigi and has one extra star for a total of 121. To put things into perspective, even after getting 120 stars the first time I played Super Mario Galaxy on my brother’s Wii, I then learned of Super Luigi Galaxy… and happily replayed the entire game as Luigi, got all 121 stars, and didn’t regret it one bit. I could have been playing one of his other games with the limited access I had to a Wii at the time, but the constantly shifting mechanics and gimmicks of Super Mario Galaxy meant that even an immediate return trip still felt fresh and exciting.

This particular section of the review is already the most packed, but I haven’t even gotten to things like the power-ups. Mario is no stranger to eating special mushrooms or grabbing strange flowers to spice up his gameplay, and Super Mario Galaxy includes a few new ones to once more contribute an entirely new variable into enhancing the ideas explored in a galaxy. Honeyhive Galaxy isn’t just a galaxy where you interact with a bee kingdom, you BECOME a bee with the Bee Mushroom, Mario now able to buzz through the air, climb sticky surfaces, and stand on things like flowers that he’d usually be too heavy and clumsy to cross. The classic Fire Flower crops up as a way of burning away obstacles in your path while the new Ice Flower lets you freeze water you come in contact with, turning large open water instead into platforming areas where you can even jump up two adjacent waterfalls to reach new heights. The Rainbow Star makes Mario an invincible speed demon that can charge through planets full of baddies with ease, but our last three power-ups are underwhelming in a few different ways. The Boo Mushroom turns Mario into an adorable round ghost who can float about and turn intangible, and while there’s nothing wrong with the concept, it rarely appears since the ideas for it seem rather limited. The Red Star gives Mario the ability to fly freely through the air, but it only shows up in one planet devoted to collecting coins that necessitate it and as a way of moving around the Comet Observatory. These are underutilized at least, something with potential that simply wasn’t used as much as it could have been, but the last power-up, the Spring Mushroom, really is just flawed. Winding Mario up in a metal coil, you bounce around automatically, the player able to leap up to new heights with a well-pressed A button, but pressing it well isn’t as clear cut as you might hope. With Mario’s regular movement feeling so dynamic and accessible, switching to this weaker form of mobility just for some extra height makes its appearances a little disappointing.

 

I really could keep going about all the different little ideas that Super Mario Galaxy chases. A galaxy where you ride dandelion spores from planet to planet, dark matter that disintegrates Mario instantly and moves along surfaces, music notes that lay out a path you need to follow to hear a classic song and earn extras like 1-up Mushrooms, vines you make sprout from the ground and then twirl around to reach new worlds, an incredibly thin world where duck-like cataquacks launch you skyward if you can’t slip by them, a floating spiral of stone where enormous box-shaped enemies threaten to flatten you… I wasn’t kidding in saying I really could go on and list every little nifty idea or interesting object. Not everything is a winner, but in a game packed with so many winners, it’s hardly worth getting riled up about how basic the Baron Brrr boss fight is where you can so easily smack him uncontested.

 

Instead, let’s move onto one last magnificent element that helps to not only enhance the moment to moment gameplay in Super Mario Galaxy, but really helps it feel like the climactic cosmic journey it’s built up to be.

 

ONE OF THE BEST VIDEO GAME SCORES OF ALL TIME

By the time you’re reading this, The Game Hoard has already played over 700 games for the site and many more before the site was made. I have seen other games on Youtube, watched others played them, or just otherwise heard the music featured in them. And yet if you ask me what the best video game soundtrack is, I will, without hesitation, say Super Mario Galaxy.

 

I would like to be proven wrong one day with something better coming out because who wouldn’t want an already amazing soundtrack to be joined by an even better one, and sure, some games can sort of cheat and say they’re technically boasting a better score. Super Mario Galaxy 2 carries over much of the music found in this game and adds to it with new tracks. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate’s absurd amount of tracks includes Super Mario Galaxy music as well as hundreds upon hundreds of tunes plucked from games with amazing soundtracks, and there are plenty of rhythm games that pluck already popular tracks from popular culture and collect them in one place. However, there’s a reason we don’t say a musician’s best album is the album that is literally just their big hits collected into one package. And besides, in Super Mario Galaxy’s case, it’s not just a matter of sounding the best, but also matching the tone of the game it’s coming from. You may be able to say that a game like Mass Effect or The Last of Us uses its soundtrack to underscore major pivotal moments beautifully, but they also don’t have the same catchiness and musical presence that Super Mario Galaxy’s orchestral tracks nail flawlessly.

 

The moment the game’s title screen appears, it already sets a wonderful tone. Overture‘s explosive burst of brass sets the scene for an incredible adventure only to fade to a steady, subdued song that sounds contemplative, like you’re drifting through the stars and looking out at the cosmic emptiness around you. That balance of embodying a grand journey while pulling back for more melancholic reflection on the otherworldly nature of leaving your home planet leads to the construction of the various different tunes featured throughout the game’s backing tracks, each galaxy enhanced by the direction it chose to go with.

 

Into the Galaxy kicks you off into your first real exploration of a galaxy and its incredible new concepts and mechanics. Good Egg Galaxy‘s theme continues this triumphant march into the stars, giving way to flutes that match the weightlessness of moving between the different planets all while the drums keep energizing you to explore forward in this new incredible land. Super Mario Galaxy’s main theme swells as it continues on, and that theme reappears at many different points with new emotions carried behind it. Dawn ~A New Morning~ arrives at the end and uses a softer sound to tell us everything will be okay after an explosive finish to the adventure that nearly destroyed the universe, and the Bowser battles feel all the more climactic for their soundtrack as well. Final Bowser Battle already sounds incredibly dramatic, and even though the fight is fairly easy, the powerful brass, the way the strings carry the sound, and careful injection of choral chants makes it truly feel like the universe’s fate is in jeopardy. Once you start to really lay on the damage though, the choir really steps up their involvement in the song to send goosebumps down your arms as things start to swell to their dramatic conclusion.

Gusty Garden Galaxy might be one of the game’s crowning musical achievements, the woodwinds and strings coming together in such an emotional way that speaks of adventuring forward triumphantly with heart and confidence. While Super Mario Galaxy likes its brass, it also holds back here for a unique bridge before they all push in to continue building this song that is practically an adventure in itself, nothing better representing the game as a whole then this tune that captures all of its fantastic creativity in this truly epic quest. As mentioned before though, Super Mario Galaxy can have its quieter moments that still fit in well in this cosmic journey. You might have the intimidating presence of a song like Melty Molten Galaxy on one hand that matches its lava world design, but the Comet Observatory’s theme is weightless waltz through the stars that gains more texture the more of the Observatory you power up. Drip Drop Galaxy is a stark departure from the bombastic tunes that carry you through your adventure, the mystery of outer space embodied by this cautious track with its sounds drifting in and out and reverberating as you swim through this underwater world. Freezeflame Galaxy’s sound changes depending on if it’s hot or cold, but both of them feel reserved and atmospheric, another galaxy that wants you to breathe in the environment enhanced by slowing things down and being more spacey.

 

Both forms of exploration shine in the musical tones found in Galaxy’s soundtrack. The intrepid explorer taking off in search of the unknown and the trepidatious wanderer who approaches a strange place with proper caution carry through these worlds, excitement and quiet contemplation coming together with plenty of musical variety that draws from symphonic instruments and unexpected digital sounds. Even if you’re going to a beach world you get a song that balances one of these tones with the area’s aesthetic, the proper level of energy found in this song that is instantly memorable despite progressing through a few different verses. Admittedly, something like the Toad Brigade song isn’t really of the same caliber as most of the soundtrack, but then Space Junk Galaxy does an amazing job capturing the mystery and serenity of outer space with a beautiful melancholic sound.

 

Some songs like Blue Sky Athletics retool Mario classics, but the build-up to the game’s climax featured in the sound of Bowser’s Galaxy Reactor really sells that final push forward, and the simply named Sad Story comes in perfectly to underscore the portion of Rosalina’s storybook where the truth of her grief is revealed. Some songs in the soundtrack can get me teary-eyed just with the power behind the emotions they evoke, and unsurprisingly the Staff Roll track that brings so many of them together is a perfect showcase of the musical and compositional talent that went into enhancing this already amazing game. Mahito Yokota and Koji Kondo not only brought us something that served its role excellently, but it continues to shine beyond the context of the game. So often when I’m writing these reviews I put on game music in the background, often relaxing music compilations, and not only does Super Mario Galaxy almost routinely feature in these, it features in general compilations of the best video game music, in collections of happy video game music, and in compilations of epic or energetic game music. And those compilations are what I hear when I’m not searching out Super Mario Galaxy’s official soundtrack to listen to specifically while writing or sleeping. It’s versatile on top of being spectacular, and even though music description and evaluation isn’t my expertise, I feel I had to do my best to truly display this soundtrack as the magnificent piece of art it is.

 

CONCLUSION

Super Mario Galaxy is a showcase of some of the best things video games have to offer. Mario is in top form with wonderful platforming movement in galaxies full of inventive gimmicks and unique planets that provide challenges that are engaging and conceptually fresh. The game is constantly pushing forward into new ideas that it never dwells on too long, constructing memorable situation after memorable situation as strange gravity and diverse trials intersect in new ways. Traversing each new galaxy is a delight that is easy to go back to even after you’ve just beat the game, and the game’s music is magnificent both in its own respects and balancing out the game’s two tones of pushing forward bravely into the unknown and taking in the magical nature of the cosmos. The talent of every developer working on the title has lead to a game that embodies the best Mario and Nintendo have to offer, even a little story slipping into what is a phenomenal achievement in gameplay excellence.

 

Super Mario Galaxy is quite rightly hailed as a masterpiece by many people, and I’m not exactly shaking things up with heaping more praise onto it. I do often contend that no one should devalue their voice just because it seems like everything’s been said about something before though, and it’s just as important to acknowledge when you hold a popular opinion as it is to present an unpopular opinion if it goes against the norm. Super Mario Galaxy isn’t perfect, things like the Spring Mushroom, some rare moments of control awkwardness, and other little moments like riding on the ball not quite matching the whole “magnificent masterpiece” narrative if viewed in isolation, but no game is perfect even if it gets so many things right. The cute touch of talking instructional signs having punny names like Bill Board or Phil Board isn’t what I’d point to when I want to say Super Mario Galaxy is one of the best games ever made in the same way I won’t single out a basic boss idea like Topmaniac who you can ground pound and knock into electrical barriers with a spin easily as if it was some detrimental flaw. Super Mario Galaxy has its rises and falls like any game, but it comes together in so many excellent ways that are still worthy of admiration and more importantly, worthy of experiencing yourself.

 

Surprisingly few games have tried to imitate the gravity ideas found in Super Mario Galaxy, possibly because of their complexity and not having the same resources Nintendo can pull on, but Nintendo put its technical know-how, creativity, and musical talent to the test here in trying to create a Mario experience that truly feels like it is pushing into something above a typical platforming title. It’s been said, even by me, that Super Mario Galaxy could work very well as the plumber’s last journey, the fantastic climax to many years of amazing adventures that often define video game genres and shine on years after their release. Super Mario Galaxy innovated in a way that is still fairly unique and even dabbles in things like character backstory that the series rarely touches on. It’s not just a game that impresses with some of the best and most varied gameplay the genre has achieved, but it injects in plenty of other contributions to make this a truly monumental title that is easy to love.

 

While Mario has gone on more adventures since, many with plenty of creativity, amazing music, and concepts that continue to push the envelope, Super Mario Galaxy still feels special. Cohesive in concept, intuitive despite its adventurous design, and with unforgettable music, this game exemplifies how to mix accessible fun with creative artistry. Mario took to the stars, and Super Mario Galaxy ended up shining brighter than the sun for it.