in theory, sunshine and galaxy should probably mean more to me than they do. super mario sunshine was the first 3d mario that i owned, and i very distinctly remember getting my wii a few years later and tearing into super mario galaxy - it was either the holidays of 2007 or 2008, i can't recall. i definitely recall being fascinated by galaxy's breadth and expanse, its scale and the variety i found in its ideas, constantly throwing new planet types and level gimmicks my way. i maintain galaxy does have moments of excellence that i was spot on for remembering as a kid.
it's really a bummer to return to this one with a lot more worldliness and experience in my early 20s, with my new outlook on what motivates and captures me in art and expression, and see galaxy for what it is to me now - not the milestone masterpiece that i thought it was, but a really good game too shy of pushing itself to take that step and become that masterpiece.
another writer here put similar thoughts together with a lot more expanse than i care to, but in summary, i feel that galaxy wants to have those moments in which it borders on subversion of what mario as a series has been, with a grander scale with lightly-dipped themes like the cycle of life and a nice layer of isolation and ambience thrown on top... but then for every moment of that, there's three in which the game loudly babies and parades itself around as another Quirky Nintendo Game with kiddish (not in the sense of childlike wonder, but patronizing babyish tone) aesthetics, music and design. galaxy is simply too afraid to be what it wants you to think it is, and given that this title ushered in the era of the mario mandate, a phenomenon which still exists in which the diverse edges of the mario series would be dusted smooth, corporate and conforming, this doesn't come into retrospection with a lot of surprise. ultimately, it's hard to take galaxy's moments of attempted profundity or emotional outreach all that seriously, because the GAME doesn't take them all that seriously. this is different from a game like earthbound, in which these themes are all tonally consistent and the quirk and charm are part of the grander narrative; it's just a clash of ideas vs. mandates that comes off a lot less inspired than sunshine, a game i'd still say is an overall substantially less completely worthwhile experience.
and that's nothing to speak of some of my gripes with the gameplay; while the planet navigation with its warping gravity is mostly good and certainly impressive, mario himself never feels quite right, with queer changes to his flow of movement inconsistent between various types of traversal. an archaic lives system returns making itself even more fruitless with the game's constant barrage of extra lives - which, now that i'm thinking about this while writing, actually begs an interesting thought about the galaxy experience itself..
q. if the concern is to make super mario galaxy accessible to newcomers, why even bother with the concept of 1-ups at all? why not forgo the system for infinite lives, allowing newcomers to continue until they complete the levels, and for veterans to not fan to belabor meaningless game over screens? to that point, if this was supposed to be a new step for a wider-than-ever target demographic, why all the back-steps and throwbacks to super mario bros. 3? why all the typical "mario series tropes" that steal away from galaxy's original identity? if this is supposed to be a new mario for a new generation of players, why are we stuck on all of these old ideas, even when in execution several of them are WORSE than they have been in previous entries (the camera controls, the star-based mission structure, the coin collection missions, forced control gimmicks in "special levels" which add arbitrary unneeded difficulty)???
a. "because this is nintendo, this is mario, and this is the way we've always done things. tradition overwrites innovation."
it's really a bummer to return to this one with a lot more worldliness and experience in my early 20s, with my new outlook on what motivates and captures me in art and expression, and see galaxy for what it is to me now - not the milestone masterpiece that i thought it was, but a really good game too shy of pushing itself to take that step and become that masterpiece.
another writer here put similar thoughts together with a lot more expanse than i care to, but in summary, i feel that galaxy wants to have those moments in which it borders on subversion of what mario as a series has been, with a grander scale with lightly-dipped themes like the cycle of life and a nice layer of isolation and ambience thrown on top... but then for every moment of that, there's three in which the game loudly babies and parades itself around as another Quirky Nintendo Game with kiddish (not in the sense of childlike wonder, but patronizing babyish tone) aesthetics, music and design. galaxy is simply too afraid to be what it wants you to think it is, and given that this title ushered in the era of the mario mandate, a phenomenon which still exists in which the diverse edges of the mario series would be dusted smooth, corporate and conforming, this doesn't come into retrospection with a lot of surprise. ultimately, it's hard to take galaxy's moments of attempted profundity or emotional outreach all that seriously, because the GAME doesn't take them all that seriously. this is different from a game like earthbound, in which these themes are all tonally consistent and the quirk and charm are part of the grander narrative; it's just a clash of ideas vs. mandates that comes off a lot less inspired than sunshine, a game i'd still say is an overall substantially less completely worthwhile experience.
and that's nothing to speak of some of my gripes with the gameplay; while the planet navigation with its warping gravity is mostly good and certainly impressive, mario himself never feels quite right, with queer changes to his flow of movement inconsistent between various types of traversal. an archaic lives system returns making itself even more fruitless with the game's constant barrage of extra lives - which, now that i'm thinking about this while writing, actually begs an interesting thought about the galaxy experience itself..
q. if the concern is to make super mario galaxy accessible to newcomers, why even bother with the concept of 1-ups at all? why not forgo the system for infinite lives, allowing newcomers to continue until they complete the levels, and for veterans to not fan to belabor meaningless game over screens? to that point, if this was supposed to be a new step for a wider-than-ever target demographic, why all the back-steps and throwbacks to super mario bros. 3? why all the typical "mario series tropes" that steal away from galaxy's original identity? if this is supposed to be a new mario for a new generation of players, why are we stuck on all of these old ideas, even when in execution several of them are WORSE than they have been in previous entries (the camera controls, the star-based mission structure, the coin collection missions, forced control gimmicks in "special levels" which add arbitrary unneeded difficulty)???
a. "because this is nintendo, this is mario, and this is the way we've always done things. tradition overwrites innovation."