So, I've never really been a big 3D Mario guy. I would play them here and there but inevitably I'd hit a roadblock where I either got frustrated or bored. 64 and Sunshine I've still never beat to this day, and until now I had never beat either Mario Galaxy game. 3D platformers in general aren't really something I'm super big on, tbh. However, Super Mario Galaxy was actually pretty fun for me. I certainly had my gripes, but, for the most part, the game was solid in my opinion. The later parts (from the third galaxy onwards) were especially great.
I am dedicating an entire paragraph to controls and gameplay feel because, to be honest, I thought I was going to really dislike this going in. I do not like motion controls in my platformers and this game has them in spades since Super Mario Galaxy was kinda built to sell you on the Wii. The gravity swapping also really threw me off and was a bit annoying for me to wrap my head around, but, once I got the hang of it, it was actually pretty fun. Mario's movement feels a bit strange to me; it is mostly smooth, but it took some getting used to how far he moves, so sometimes I'd get hit by an enemy that I thought I got close enough to hit but Mario wasn't actually close enough. I really don't know how to describe that better, but it was certainly a weird feeling and it made me very worried that I'd hate the game's movement. I dunno if its just me but I also felt like the nunchuck's stick makes it to where Mario is always moving at an angle, which makes tight platforming very challenging since you can't just move straight forward. Sometimes when I turned Mario around he'd make like a full circle instead of just turning direction, though this was very rare and might've been my fault. The motion controls are mostly unobtrusive, thankfully. My hand would get pretty tired having to keep a Wiimote constantly raised to grab any Star Bits or interact with Pull Stars in the level, but the spin move was decently fun to use and most usage of motion control felt fair to me. The problem is in levels like Sling Pod Galaxy, where you need to precisely fling Mario from sling pod to sling pod, which was ridiculously difficult for me (though I did eventually do it). I later realized the issue was more so with me having a hard time understanding what exactly the trajectory was rather than the motion controls themselves. Also, the ball levels suck. I tried doing one of them and it felt so clunky to control that I just completely skipped them because I hated it so much. Overall, the controls and gameplay feel definitely have their quirks in my opinion, but by the end the game seems to ease up a lot more on the motion controls and I got more accustomed to the way the game feels. I was really enjoying the last couple of galaxies with little to no complaints, they were tough but felt fair.
Now that that's out of the way, I can talk more about the general gameplay. I think the level design here is pretty good, there's some galaxies here with levels that I found very enjoyable like Honeyclimb Galaxy, Freezeflame Galaxy, Ghostly Galaxy, Toy Time Galaxy, and Gold Leaf Galaxy, among others. Even the boss galaxies were pretty fun; rather than just taking you right to the boss, most have a sort of mini level beforehand, and some are quite challenging. Most of the galaxies I loved were nearing the end of the game, though I didn't get to experience any levels from the very last galaxy since I took the opportunity to end the game with the final Bowser fight right after unlocking the final galaxy. Despite my gripes with the motion controls, there were some levels that used it to good effect; I liked how Bubble Breeze Galaxy uses motion controls for you to blow a bubble around a dangerous pond with a bunch of spikes for you to avoid, for example. Of course I would rather there be no motion controls at all, but, since they had to be here, I'm glad that Nintendo used it in fun ways like this. I could definitely see why people liked this game so much by the end, but I will say that the early parts of the game were quite boring and annoying to get used to for me. Maybe that's just a "me" problem, I dunno.
I will give a brief shoutout to the visuals and music here. The visuals won't blow you away (maybe they did back in 2007 though), but you can really tell just how cinematic Nintendo was going here and it looks great for the Wii. That sorta cinematic vibe also transfers to the music, which...I don't think I need to tell you is truly amazing. You get some more standard sounding Mario tunes in there (that doesn't mean they sound bad of course), but a lot of this soundtrack is really flexing the fact they got a full orchestra and it just sounds amazing. You listen to the Gusty Garden Galaxy theme and try to tell me that doesn't sound majestic as hell. This also has easily the best Bowser fight theme in my opinion, its very epic (one of the rare times you'll see me use that word unironically) and conveys the grand scale of Bowser's plan this time. Really awesome stuff, genuinely.
Overall, I wanted to think of Super Mario Galaxy as this masterpiece everyone seems to tout it as, but I just don't. I still enjoyed my time with it, but it took until at least halfway through for me to start really liking it and seeing where people were coming from. Admittedly, those last few galaxies I played were truly great. I think I'd give Mario Galaxy 4 stars. My frustrations early on are just enough to bump it down to 4 stars, but if the early parts of the game were as good as the late game was, I'd definitely give it 4.5 stars. Am I just missing something? Guess I'll find out when I start Super Mario Galaxy 2 later today.
I am dedicating an entire paragraph to controls and gameplay feel because, to be honest, I thought I was going to really dislike this going in. I do not like motion controls in my platformers and this game has them in spades since Super Mario Galaxy was kinda built to sell you on the Wii. The gravity swapping also really threw me off and was a bit annoying for me to wrap my head around, but, once I got the hang of it, it was actually pretty fun. Mario's movement feels a bit strange to me; it is mostly smooth, but it took some getting used to how far he moves, so sometimes I'd get hit by an enemy that I thought I got close enough to hit but Mario wasn't actually close enough. I really don't know how to describe that better, but it was certainly a weird feeling and it made me very worried that I'd hate the game's movement. I dunno if its just me but I also felt like the nunchuck's stick makes it to where Mario is always moving at an angle, which makes tight platforming very challenging since you can't just move straight forward. Sometimes when I turned Mario around he'd make like a full circle instead of just turning direction, though this was very rare and might've been my fault. The motion controls are mostly unobtrusive, thankfully. My hand would get pretty tired having to keep a Wiimote constantly raised to grab any Star Bits or interact with Pull Stars in the level, but the spin move was decently fun to use and most usage of motion control felt fair to me. The problem is in levels like Sling Pod Galaxy, where you need to precisely fling Mario from sling pod to sling pod, which was ridiculously difficult for me (though I did eventually do it). I later realized the issue was more so with me having a hard time understanding what exactly the trajectory was rather than the motion controls themselves. Also, the ball levels suck. I tried doing one of them and it felt so clunky to control that I just completely skipped them because I hated it so much. Overall, the controls and gameplay feel definitely have their quirks in my opinion, but by the end the game seems to ease up a lot more on the motion controls and I got more accustomed to the way the game feels. I was really enjoying the last couple of galaxies with little to no complaints, they were tough but felt fair.
Now that that's out of the way, I can talk more about the general gameplay. I think the level design here is pretty good, there's some galaxies here with levels that I found very enjoyable like Honeyclimb Galaxy, Freezeflame Galaxy, Ghostly Galaxy, Toy Time Galaxy, and Gold Leaf Galaxy, among others. Even the boss galaxies were pretty fun; rather than just taking you right to the boss, most have a sort of mini level beforehand, and some are quite challenging. Most of the galaxies I loved were nearing the end of the game, though I didn't get to experience any levels from the very last galaxy since I took the opportunity to end the game with the final Bowser fight right after unlocking the final galaxy. Despite my gripes with the motion controls, there were some levels that used it to good effect; I liked how Bubble Breeze Galaxy uses motion controls for you to blow a bubble around a dangerous pond with a bunch of spikes for you to avoid, for example. Of course I would rather there be no motion controls at all, but, since they had to be here, I'm glad that Nintendo used it in fun ways like this. I could definitely see why people liked this game so much by the end, but I will say that the early parts of the game were quite boring and annoying to get used to for me. Maybe that's just a "me" problem, I dunno.
I will give a brief shoutout to the visuals and music here. The visuals won't blow you away (maybe they did back in 2007 though), but you can really tell just how cinematic Nintendo was going here and it looks great for the Wii. That sorta cinematic vibe also transfers to the music, which...I don't think I need to tell you is truly amazing. You get some more standard sounding Mario tunes in there (that doesn't mean they sound bad of course), but a lot of this soundtrack is really flexing the fact they got a full orchestra and it just sounds amazing. You listen to the Gusty Garden Galaxy theme and try to tell me that doesn't sound majestic as hell. This also has easily the best Bowser fight theme in my opinion, its very epic (one of the rare times you'll see me use that word unironically) and conveys the grand scale of Bowser's plan this time. Really awesome stuff, genuinely.
Overall, I wanted to think of Super Mario Galaxy as this masterpiece everyone seems to tout it as, but I just don't. I still enjoyed my time with it, but it took until at least halfway through for me to start really liking it and seeing where people were coming from. Admittedly, those last few galaxies I played were truly great. I think I'd give Mario Galaxy 4 stars. My frustrations early on are just enough to bump it down to 4 stars, but if the early parts of the game were as good as the late game was, I'd definitely give it 4.5 stars. Am I just missing something? Guess I'll find out when I start Super Mario Galaxy 2 later today.