Super Mario Galaxy is a 3D action-platformer game developed by Nintendo EAD Tokyo and published by Nintendo for the Wii. It is the third 3D platformer in the series after Super Mario 64 and Super Mario Sunshine. The game follows Mario on his quest through space to save Princess Peach from his nemesis Bowser. Levels take the form of galaxies filled with spherical planetoids, while gameplay is updated with a variety of gravity effects and new power-ups.
The game was first shown at E3 in 2006 and enjoyed a high level of pre-release awareness. The game has received extremely positive reviews from the gaming press.
Gameplay
Most of the game is set in outer space along a vast chain of miniature planetoids and other space matter, though many levels consist of larger areas to explore such as the Beach Bowl Galaxy and Honeyhive Galaxy.
Mario is capable of jumping or launching from planet to planet in order to gather items and defeat enemies. Each planet has a gravitational force, which allows the player to circumambulate rounded objects, walking sideways or upside down. The varying degrees of gravity also have an effect on Mario's ability to jump as he jumps higher in low gravity, which is similar to Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, and is used to pull Mario towards certain planetoids while in mid-flight. Like previous 3D Mario games, the main objective is to collect Stars, which are awarded by completing tasks or defeating enemies. The game's central hub is the Comet Observatory, which is divided into six themed areas: the Terrace, Fountain, Kitchen, Bedroom, Engine Room, and Garden. Distributed among these six worlds are 42 "galaxies", or levels, with 1 to 7 stars each. Obtaining these stars allows the player to unlock more in each themed galaxy. There are a total of 121 stars in the game, with the 121st star only available after collecting the first 120 with both Mario and then Luigi.
As in every 3D Mario game, Mario's health consists of a power meter, which can be restored by collecting coins, but when it reaches zero, Mario loses a life. Mario begins with a power meter made of three sections, but when players collect a life mushroom, his meter is expanded by three to a maximum of six health bars. Mario also has a second and separate health meter that designates his air supply when swimming underwater; if it is empty Mario will quickly lose parts of his power meter. The bottomless pits featured in previous Mario games that cost Mario a life when fallen in have been replaced by black holes, which are stationed beneath the surfaces of certain planets and spread throughout space (though sometimes when Mario is outside of the gravitational pull of a planet, he will fall in traditional fashion).
Like recent 3D Super Mario games, Mario has a range of jumping abilities, such as his trademark triple jump and his wall kick ability. He can also perform flips by immediately turning the other way and jumping, and do a ground-pound move to smash breakable objects or enemies below. Some of the moves that were absent in Super Mario Sunshine have returned for this installment, such as the long jump. Mario's melee move is a spin, executed by shaking the Wii Remote or Nunchuk, which allows him to attack enemies, break objects and activate Launch Stars and Sling Stars that shoot him across the galaxy. The Wii Remote's motion sensing is used to 'steer' a manta ray, direct wind when riding a bubble, balance on top of a rolling ball, activate Pull Stars that pull Mario between planets, and collect, aim, and fire Star Bits.
Environmental Mechanics
New gameplay mechanics include Gravity Arrows, which make Mario gravitate in the direction that these arrows point, and Star Bits, which can be grabbed simply by moving the cursor over them. For every 50 Star Bits he collects, Mario will be rewarded with an extra life, similar to how collecting 100 coins resulted in an extra life in the other games. He can fire Star Bits to stun enemies or spawn coins from some places or objects like sprouts, which bloom when struck with Star Bits. The Star Bits, which resemble the Japanese confection konpeito, can be used to feed Hungry Lumas that appear within the observatory and galaxies. When they are full, they form a new planet or galaxy in which an additional star can be found.
There are five types of Prankster Comets that appear randomly; when one of them comes into contact with a level, a special challenge is initiated which leads to a Power Star.
Super Mario Galaxy features the most power-ups and transformations of any 3D Mario game to date. He has the ability to transform into a bee and a Boo using different suits. The Boo suit allows him to become invisible and the bee suit allows him to fly and hover for a short time. Also, ice and fire flowers are present. Fire flowers work the same as in 2-D games (apart from a 20-second time limit) and ice flowers let Mario freeze water and lava to walk or skate on it. The Spring Shroom lets Mario jump very high. The Red Star allows Mario to fly around freely for a short time, similar to the Wing cap from Super Mario 64.
The game offers up to six save files and has the (optional) ability to transfer Miis from the Mii Channel for aesthetic purposes.
Multiplayer
Super Mario Galaxy has a co-operative two-player option called "Co-Star Mode", where one player controls Mario and a star pointer, while the other uses a second Wii Remote and controls another pointer on-screen to gather Star Bits and shoot them at enemies. While the first player can normally do this except during certain events, the second player can shoot stars without restriction. The second player also is more efficient in manipulating the environment, such as halting object and enemy movement. Some obstacles, when halted by the second player, are automatically destroyed. Additionally, the height of Mario's jump can be increased if the first and second player press the A button at the same moment. Because of these added abilities, especially the ability to stunning enemies, Co-Star Mode is less difficult than single-player mode.
Plot
The game opens with Mario receiving an invitation from Princess Peach to attend a festival in the Mushroom Kingdom celebrating the passing of a comet overhead. While Mario is making his way to the castle, a series of ships led by Bowser suddenly appear. As Bowser summons a massive spaceship to rip Princess Peach's castle out of the ground, Mario manages to grab on to the castle as it is flung into space by a Magikoopa.
Mario awakens on a small planet with Lumas, small star-shaped creatures that float in the air, and is taken to meet a woman named Rosalina in the Japanese version). She explains to Mario that she is a watcher of the stars, traveling the universe in her spaceship, which takes the form of the comet that passes over the Mushroom Kingdom once every hundred years. She tells him that Bowser has taken the Power Stars and Grand Stars needed to fuel her ship, which means they cannot follow him until more are collected. Granting him the use of a Luma, which allows him to spin and use star portals, she tells him to collect the stars needed to power the ship and rescue Peach.
As Mario collects more stars, he gains the ability to travel to more outlying galaxies. When Bowser is defeated the second time, a number appears in the Observatory's main room, counting down every time Mario gets a star. After sixty stars are collected, the countdown reaches zero and Rosalina offers the option of pursuing Bowser and rescuing Princess Peach. If the option is selected, the spaceship transforms into a comet that takes Mario to the final level. Bowser then tells Mario that he took the stars in order to start a new galaxy, which he intends to reign over with Peach at his side, eventually taking over the rest of the Universe as well. Upon his defeat, Bowser's Sun collapses in on itself, creating a super massive black hole that consumes the entire Universe into a singularity, resulting in a Big Bang.
After being sucked into the galactic storm, Rosalina appears to Mario again. She tells him that stars never die because when they become stardust, they gather into Lumas and are then reborn and she hopes this will be true for him as well. The scene then cuts to Mario, Peach, and Bowser waking up back in the Mushroom Kingdom while fireworks go off overhead. The game ends with Mario greeting the new galaxy up above - implying that the Lumas created a new Universe after the old one vanished into the black hole.
If the player completes the game with 120 or 121 stars, an additional cutscene is shown at the conclusion of the staff credits. Rosalina revisits her home in Gateway Galaxy, thanking Mario and assuring that she will watch over him. She then departs and leaves behind one Luma, who becomes Luigi's partner.
A second story is told discontinuously as levels are completed, unlocking picture book chapters. The story is of Rosalina, who finds a spaceship containing a lost Luma that wants to find its mother. She also hopes to find her own mother, who once told her that she would be going away on a journey but would become a star in the sky and watch over her, and agrees to accompany it into space on its journey and later agrees to be its mother. After settling on a far-away planet, other Lumas appear and also call her "Mother". Eventually though, she becomes homesick and wishes she could go back and be with her mother, finally realizing that what her mother was trying to tell her was that she was dying. One of the Lumas transforms into a comet and they make a new home on it, traveling the universe and returning home once every hundred years to the blue planet where her mother is buried.
History
In a roundtable discussion at E3 2007, it was made clear that Super Mario Galaxy was not Super Mario 128 after Miyamoto stated that production only began after the team finished making Donkey Kong Jungle Beat, (early 2005) and Mario 128 has been in production and development since at least 2001 (when the first trailer was shown at E3). In an after-hours press event at E3 2006 in May, Miyamoto stated, "I don't want to promise anything yet. But if it's not a launch title it will definitely be there within the first six months."Nintendo of America CEO Reggie Fils-Aime later stated in a November 27, 2006 interview with cable TV network MTV that the game is expected to release sometime up to Holiday of 2007. On January 4, 2007, Nintendo of Europe issued a press release indicating a 2007 European release. Near the end of Miyamoto's keynote presentation at the 2007 Game Developers Conference in March, he stated, "You'll be able to play Super Mario Galaxy this year." At Nintendo's E3 2007 Conference, it was confirmed that Super Mario Galaxy would be released in North America on November 12, 2007 and four days later in Europe. In North America, certain retailers had given out a free limited edition coin for pre-ordering the game. Some retailers had delayed it until November 13, like GameStop in North America, and some retailers had delayed the release until November 14, 2007.
It was first hinted by Takashi Tezuka, Nintendo's analysis and development's general manager, that multiplayer was going to be co-op in an interview with gaming site IGN. Two-player functionality was later confirmed, along with reports of the team experimenting with new ways to use the Wii Remote so that one player can control Mario while the other aids him, backed up by suggestions by Shigeru Miyamoto that the second player could have the ability to affect Mario's progress. It was later revealed at Nintendo's E3 2007 that the co-op mode was permanently implemented into the game and could be accessed anytime.
Pre-release
Critics and fans reacted positively to the demo version. When the game was first revealed at E3 2006, it was one of the most played and enjoyed games of the show floor. Matt Casamassina, the editor of IGN Wii, loved it so much that he went on to say that the game was practically perfect. Matt Wales agreed that it was everything Super Mario Sunshine was not. Giancarlo Varanini, of 1UP.com, wrote that it was the best example of how the Wii Remote can be used. Russ Fisher appreciated the game, because it was "fresh", and compared it to the Metroid Prime series which transformed the Metroid franchise into 3D and was very successful.
Reception and Sales
The game has enjoyed extremely positive reviews. GamePro stated that the title "raises the bar in terms of what can be achieved on the Wii". IGN called Super Mario Galaxy "Wii's best game, and an absolute must-own experience," as well as "one of the greatest platformers I have ever played." GameSpot praised its gameplay and level design stating, "If ever there were a must-own Wii game, Super Mario Galaxy is it."
Reviewers have noted some flaws with the game. GameSpot found "a couple of Mario's special suits can be frustrating to use" and IGN referred to one story-related aspect of the game as "an unnecessary side-tale [that] contrasts with a traditional story."
Super Mario Galaxy is currently the best-reviewed game of the seventh generation, and has become the second best-reviewed game of all-time on review aggregate site Game Rankings.
Super Mario Galaxy sold 250,585 copies in Japan for the week ending November 4, 2007, and over 500,000 copies in the US as of November 20, 2007. The game sold more copies in its first week than any other game for Wii and any other Mario title in the history of the franchise.
Official Site
www.SuperMarioGalaxy.com