THE ECSTASY OF SPACE EXPLORATION
Also for: Android, Wii, Wii U
At long last, here is the saving grace of the Super Mario 3D All-Stars
collection. After the first two disappointing entries, Super Mario 64
and Super Mario Sunshine, I was beginning to fear that I was
impervious to the fun of theoretically ingenious platformers. I simply could
not tolerate their poor gameplay execution, featuring dreadful controls, a
treacherous camera and, above all, level designs that made these flaws even more apparent.
Super Mario Galaxy rectifies all of that. It's the game that fulfils
the promises of those earlier entries and surpasses them by adding a new, gravity-defying angle. Although I never
played it at the original release in 2007, I can confidently say that
it ages with great dignity. Striking visuals, a cheerful soundtrack, upbeat
atmosphere; everything fits together like hand in glove. In spite of its
advanced physics, causing you to often run upside down or vertically, for the
most part it controls like a dream.
One of my favorite aspects of video games in general is thinking and planning
ahead, for instance reaching this milestone on the skill tree, or
anticipating what's inside that locked chest. In that regard,
without even involving a skill tree or locked chests, Super Mario Galaxy
outshines most competition. Just unlocking a new galaxy, discovering its
imaginative challenges, vistas and secrets, is like a skill tree in itself.
Taking inspiration from the series' earlier 3D entries, the goal for each
stage is to collect its Power Star. To reach it you often need to navigate an
intricate number of tiny planets, ships and other more or less abstract
3D-structures. By unlocking shooting stars, vines or slingshots you catapult
your way from one location to the next, until you finally reach the Power
Star. The more of them you gather, the more you power up the central
observatory, which acts as the home base. It is from there that you gradually
unlock new galaxies to visit.
This observatory, run by the lovely Rosalina, is an eventful place, where you
can discover endless extra lives, hidden galaxies and NPC:s. And in the
library section, a surprisingly dark and imaginative tale of Rosalina's
upbringing unfolds as you keep collecting stars. This story provides a great
incentive to keep playing way beyond the ultimate goal of the game, which, as
usual, is to save princess Peach from the clutches of the cantankerous Bowser.
Super Mario Galaxy is not a straightforward journey. You can jump between
different galaxies at your own behest. Progressing through a level, you might
unlock an entrance to the planet's core, leap inside, and suddenly experience
a change in perspective. Just for that section and a few more, the game turns
into a sidescrolling platformer where you constantly need to alter the direction of
gravity between up and down, as you narrowly try to avoid getting pulled in
the opposite direction.
Other levels might involve using the motion controls to roll a big ball across
a narrow golf course, or climbing a big beehive, temporarily disguised as a
Mario bee with the ability to briefly fly. A few racing courses are scattered
among the galaxies, and they are suprisingly fun. Some levels end in a big
boss fight that you can only harm through a fairly obvious chain of
countermeasures. The variation is astounding, and when you thought a galaxy
was cleared, a comet might appear next to it. When that happens the winning
conditions on a certain level changes, allowing you to earn a bonus star.
With the series poor track record of horrible controls and camera, the
variation and imagination sounds like a recipe for disaster, but nothing could
be further from the truth. Nintendo has learned their lesson well. They often
restrict player agency over camera entirely, and as a consequence the
placement gets so much better. Instead of focusing on the camera, you can focus entirely on Mario and the task ahead. And instead of setting you up to fail, the game cheers you on - it wants to
see you succeed.
It can get tricky anyway, but the penalty for failing is endlessly more
forgiving this time around. You don't lose a ton of progress when you fall,
and you rarely lose a life because of it. Mario's moveset remains the same,
and the platforms are generally big enough to give you plenty of leeway. And
above all, the game kindly provides a fair checkpoint system for the few
instances when you plummet off the planet into a black hole and lose a life.
The standard controls are smooth and precise for such a spatially confusing
game. Only the sporadic motion controls might screw you over with their stupid input lag, but that depends on what controller you use. This Switch remaster is
designed around the original joycons, but I opted for the Pro Controller,
because who wouldn't? This forced me to occasionally wiggle the controller
like a boomer who tried out video games for the first time. Some levels got
unreasonably hard, and others - like a hidden one that just threw me instantly
off the stage to my death - I had to abandon altogether.
But Super Mario Galaxy has so many other sort of levels, and once you unlock a few worlds, new ones appear at a steady pace. Others are hidden inside of levels, and become accessible once you feed certain star-shaped NPC:s, called Lumas, enough of the star bits that lie scattered all across the game.
Doubling as ammunition, these star bits can also be fired at most enemies to
stun them, before going in for a spinning attack or a precision jump on their
heads. A more conservative player also gets rewarded; collecting 50 star
bits on the same level earns you an extra life, in addition to the plentiful
green mushrooms that also provide you with one.
Such a diverse game experience, with so many different game mechanics, might threaten to feel disjointed and fall apart at the seams. But Super Mario Galaxy avoids that through its wholesome presentation, with its veritable explosion of colors and shapes, and a stellar, catchy soundtrack that carries every segment smoothly over into the next. No matter where you go, or what activity you pursue, the throughline keeps the momentum going. It makes the game almost impossible to put down.
Super Mario Galaxy is not particularly hard, especially if you
decide to beeline it to the end, collecting as few stars as possible. You've
got loads of safety nets to see you through. Ahead of a boss encounter, Mario may find red, health-expanding
mushrooms, and as he plunges towards a black hole, you can sometimes use the motion
controls to latch on to a gravitational star. Some challenges are a bit tough,
but with the extra lives racking up, you get plenty of attempts. With all said
and done, this is by far the easiest entry in the Super Mario 3D-franchise
yet, and it's all the better for it.
Difficulty is one thing, fairness another. A game could be commended for
being hard, but only for as long as it feels fair and warranted. Failing because a boss has a tricky moveset to memorize feels like a challenge. Failing due
to the camera suddenly changing during a precarious balancing act feels deeply
unfair.
Super Mario Galaxy finds a good balance, alienating no-one,
potentially appealing to everyone. It feels like it encourages you to keep playing; like it can't wait to watch your
reaction to the magic that's in store ahead. You can settle for a leisurely
time, or a challenging one, or switch from one mentality to the other on the
fly. The Galaxy experience is entirely in the hands of the player.
If you played it back in the day, take it from someone who just finished this game for the first time: Your
nostalgia doesn't lie. Super Mario Galaxy is a masterpiece. I sensed the potential in earlier entries, and here it comes to fruition. Almost no single
stage is particularly memorable in itself, simply because their discrete parts
are so disconnected and spatially confusing. I've never before played a
platformer where you cannot objectively comprehend what is even up or down,
let alone east, west, north and south. The compass is all over the place.
But this turns out to be one of its biggest strengths, as it comes with the
side-effect of making the game almost instantly, and infinitely, replayable.
As a location, each world is nearly impossible to recreate in memory. Thus, the next
time I dive into Super Mario Galaxy, maybe in a year or two, will feel like a
new discovery, and I cannot wait for it to happen. Mark my word, this is a
future Hall of Fame-entry. Now I'm eagerly anticipating the sequel,
Super Mario Galaxy 2, to get a release date on the Switch. I will
celebrate that announcement as if it was a brand new game.
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