In theory, this should be my favorite Mario game. I've poured in thousands upon thousands of hours over the course of a decade mastering this game, speedrunning it, and exploring its limits. I own six separate copies of this game in various languages and systems. Indeed, the reason why I've spent so much time on this game is that its level design is some of the greatest stuff Nintendo has ever made. Yoshi is such a versatile and broken asset to the game, the platforming is complex and vibrant, and all stars excite me. It really is a perfect add-on to SMG1, as it originally intended to be. The reason why I can't bring myself to give this game a perfect score is that instead of marketing this game as a sort of 'lost levels' or addon to Super Mario Galaxy, they slapped in a lazy story that feels lacking, unfinished and lacks vision. The whole story of this game is filler. Did they do it to boost sales? So they could more comfortably shelve it alongside other mainline Mario games? It feels slightly disingenuous. Either way, it's not a big complaint. This is a sublime game and I've had an outrageous amount of fun with it se a child, a teenager and a young adult. I truly hope they re-release this on the Switch, someday.

One of the finest arcade-style early NES games. Maybe it's just the nostalgia factor for me, having played it a lot as a kid with my dad, but I find this to be one of the most exciting turn-based 2 player games ever made. Standing tall as Satoru Iwata's very first work, the unconventional black box NES title tries to emulate a traditional pinball machine instead of creating fantasy worlds like other video games. Especially in the fast B-type, it's addicting and feels very similar to a real pinball machine. It has great charm and personality; before creating the DS and the Wii as the most beloved Nintendo CEO in history, a young Iwata created one of the most enjoyable early titles on the NES.

An excellent an often overlooked mainline Mario game (indeed, it was the last one I hadn't beaten—took me a while to even find the cartridge anywhere).

It's a very creative platformer, and a unique entry in the Mario franchise. The giant tree, the space levels and the giant toy levels make me feel like this game is a lot closer to Super Mario Galaxy than any other classic Mario game. If you are a fan of Galaxy's grandiose aesthetics and enjoy ambiance in Mario levels, this is a must-play for you. Indeed, I think a lot of latter Mario games, intentionally or not, took direct inspiration from this game.

We also must appreciate the fact that this was released on the very same hardware as the first Super Mario Land. Here, we have triple the amount of levels, more power ups, incredible graphics (almost on par with SMB3), saving and significant graphical differences between each level. For this era of short crunchy handheld games, it's really incredible. It's better than a vast majority of NES sidescrollers.

Also, this is the only mainline Mario game (other than SMB2, but that one's an outlier) that features another final boss than Bowser. It paved the way for everything Wario-related and has one of the coolest and most tense final boss battles I've seen in a Mario game.

This game deserves a whole lot more attention and it will likely get that attention thanks to its re-release on the Switch virtual GameBoy. I'm still of the opinion that it's better to play this on a GBA (which colorizes the game and gives it a whole new life) or on a big screen via a Super GameBoy, but playing this game through any means is essential for Mario fans. Check it out.

(Now that I've completed Mario, I'll have to move on to Zelda or smth...)

If is certainly an accomplishment; at an era where developers were already deep into the SNES, leaving the original NES to slowly die, HAL Laboratory unleashed their ultimate flagship title on the now obsolete system. Indeed, having had well over half a decade to perfect their craft, the game studio understood the inner mechanisms of the NES better than pretty much anyone else. The result is a vibrant game with tons of content, and arguably the prettiest and most developed graphics in any NES game. Despite some repetitive and dull level design at times, the game is filled with fun gameplay surprises and challenges. It is, in many ways, the final essential NES achievement.

Pure art. An expressionist adventure that links the Mario and Yoshi franchises together by adding a phenomenal depth to their lore. The story is simple yet touching. The art style is some of the best I've seen by Nintendo; each frame looks like a Van Gogh painting. The levels have an excellent difficulty curve, starting off with simple levels and ending with platforming challenges of an unbeknownst complexity that will test the numerous skills you've acquired with Yoshi within the six worlds. The boss fights are likely the best I've seen in any 2D platformer. The experimental 2.5D sections work remarkably well and show the great capabilities of the SNES as a console. The greatest SNES game I've played thus far, the greatest prequel I've played thus far and possibly the greatest 2D platformer I've played thus far. Will be revisiting.

once you get over the fact that this is clear DLC bait, and that you spend half your life savings on getting all those damn map DLCs, it's just about one of the best games I've ever played. drive through the day and through the night, from Cali to Texas and beyond, deliver eggs or other semi-trucks, roll your windows up and down, see the sequoias, the mountains and the deserts. go 90MPH on country roads carrying tens of thousands of dollars worth of explosive chemicals, or respect traffic laws perfectly. you're free. you're the king. the American dream.

Its visual presentation is less than eloquent (just compare it visually to Faxanadu, a similar-styled game that came out merely months after this title), it's outrageously frustrating and a lot of game design elements are questionable at best. Overworld enemies spawn out of nowhere to pick fights with you and they're hard to avoid. If you avoid too many enemy fights, you won't be leveled up enough to make it through rough sections such as Death Mountain. Some enemies are way too overpowered, taking a stupid amount of hits to take down and having an AI that feels omnipresent. Dialogue is badly written and translated. I have a lot more negative than positive things to say about this game, but I still got incredibly invested in it and couldn't put it down until I beat it. It's much less cryptic than Zelda 1 (still better off having a guide, but it's much more doable without as much mindless wandering as the prequel), its controls are very tight and satisfying to master and some of these bosses reach a Mega Man-esque level of difficulty, epicness and satisfaction. If you have an opportunity to play through this, then you'll probably find something to enjoy about it despite some of its horrible flaws.

Holds an outrageous amount of filler content (ground pound moons, buyable moons, chest moons...). Lots of boredom and aimless hidden moon searching to reach 100%, a very small percentage of the moons actually come with a worthwhile mission worth playing. This being said, the controls are exceptional, level design is great and storyline is modern and fresh. The missions that are worth playing are also some of the best in the series. It's, however, likely my least favorite 3D Mario game for a home console; I would have expected more substantial content for the game and less repetitive idling and searching.

For a game that is so notoriously difficult, it's disappointing to see how much of its difficulty stems in pseudo-difficulty: pick-a-path, find this hidden block, guess what the right decision is before the screen scrolls too far... once you know the layout of these levels, it's really not too hard, and is just an awkward experimental version of SMB1.
I really liked World 9, so I'd love to play the four bonus worlds, but I seriously can't be bothered beating this thing eight times in a row. So it'll likely stay as is.

I'm glad we got Doki Doki Panic instead of this in the West.

Casually, the greatest 3D Mario game.

The "gravity/planets" gimmick is done exceptionally well and surprisingly has very little problems with camera glitches, and doesn't get old. Level design feels perpetually unique and grand. Controls are exceptionally responsive, especially when playing on Wiimote and Nunchuck. The motion-controlled spin attack is very responsive and complex. By holding A or not, and spinning with one or the other controller, different heights can be reached, with various different response times. The skill ceiling for this game is very high, making it one of the most interesting emerging speedrunning scenes.

Being the first linear game of the series, for the average player, the goals of each mission is clear and simple. This allows the game to focus on gorgeous cutscenes, cinematics, camera angles, and allows the player to explore individual planets rather than a large open space (with the exception of some levels, namely Beach Bowl and Honeyhive).

The 64/Sunshine-esque "open world" aspect is not totally lost, though. The Purple Comet missions allow for a revisit of each level which feels not too distant from 64's 100-coins missions and Sunshine's blue coins, while having less of a chance of getting lost or being unable to find coins.

Despite being a linear game, Galaxy promotes exploration by allowing players to go for highest coin counts for each mission, by hiding secret stars in levels, as well as having tons of hidden places to find starbits. Unlike other linear 3D Mario games, such as 3D World or 3D Land, Galaxy lets the player explore the level without getting lost, yielding a perpetual engaging experience unlike anything else in the series.

The atmosphere of Super Mario Galaxy has been talked about to death, with good reason. The Mario Galaxy Orchestra's performances of Yokota and Kondo's music never fail to make each level so much more engaging. The cutscenes and camera angles feel meticulously handpicked by cinematic experts.

Exceptionally for a Mario game, the surprisingly complex storyline and Rosalina's character answer metaphysical questions about the series, and ask questions about love, family and death.

Possibly Nintendo's greatest and most complete Mario accomplishment. No filler, just complete engagement from the player throughout the entirety of the one hundred and twenty missions. A staple for 3D platformers and one of the most important games of the last generation.

Extremely ambitious in terms of size, storytelling and aesthetics. It is indeed a significant achievement in software development and game design that something like that even existed on the Game Boy so early in its lifespan. The black and white graphics are absolutely gorgeous--they fit the "dream" aesthetic wonderfully and leave a lot to be imagined by the player. Dungeons get extremely complex and labyrinthine near the end of the game, and the final boss fight is one of the coolest and most difficult I've ever experienced in retro gaming. Really well encapsulates the quintessential "frustrating and confusing, but satisfying and engaging"

Some of its structure frustrated me a bit; the overworld is filled with random cul-de-sacs and can be extremely frustrating to navigate even w/ the map and warps. Imagine Dark World in ALTTP but twice as difficult to navigate. At times this made me disconnect from the game and brought me significant frustration as there is so much backtracking and getting lost. Some puzzles in the dungeons are pretty dumb too, i.e. there is some Zelda 1-esque "go bomb this random wall that has no cracks" bullshit in some dungeons, which is unforgiveable in my mind for a game released after ALTTP.

Yet, Link's Awakening is indeed a statement in story telling for Zelda, it's difficult, and it's one of the most beautiful Game Boy games I've seen. It's a great game in many regards, and I definitlely want to try playing the remaster in the future.