The Cosmic Mario Adventure Lives Up To the Hype

As a child, I never owned a Wii console. Admittedly, I tried Wii Sports plus various premier games when visiting family and friends during the 2000s decade, but I never had a Wii of my own, which resulted in skipping numerous outstanding titles from Nintendo's beloved series.

A prime example was Super Mario Galaxy, together with its follow-up, was recently remastered and ported to the Nintendo Switch. The initial release also appeared within the 2020 special compilation Super Mario 3D All-Stars. I welcomed the opportunity to play viewed by fans as among the finest Mario games ever made. The game rapidly captivated me, while affirming that it fulfills nearly two decades of excitement. That said, I also recognized how glad I am movement-based inputs generally persisted as historical features.

The Cosmic Adventure Begins

Like any other Mario adventure, Super Mario Galaxy opens as Bowser nabbing the princess including her home. His fleet of spacecraft resembling pirates take her into outer space, flinging Mario into the galaxy in the process. Mario meets charming cosmic creatures called Luma plus Rosalina atop her Comet Observatory. She assigns Mario with tracking down power stars to power the Observatory so they can chase after Bowser, and then we’re set free to begin adventuring.

The game's jumping mechanics provides delight, and all it took experiencing several stages to recognize how it’s held in such high regard. It’ll feel familiar among veterans of a 3D Mario, while the gameplay remain accessible and natural following Nintendo's style.

Innovative Physics Mechanics

As a space nerd, the environment perfectly matches my interests, enabling Super Mario Galaxy to experiment with gravity. Round structures enable Mario to literally run circles around them like he’s Goku pursuing Bubbles in popular series. When they’re close together, Mario can leap across and get snatched via planetary attraction by neighboring objects. Additional areas are flat discs, and often feature goodies on the underside, where you may not think to look.

Meeting Familiar Faces

The pleasure in engaging with Galaxy following long gap is having already met certain personalities. I didn't realize Rosalina first appeared within this title, nor that she served as the caring guardian to stellar beings. Prior to this experience, she simply represented part of my regular Mario Kart World character selection. Likewise for Penguins, alongside whom I enjoyed swimming in initial coastal stage.

Motion Control Challenges

The only real drag during this adventure today are the motion controls, utilized during acquiring, directing, and launching star bits, colorful objects found across galaxies. Playing on handheld mode involved moving and adjusting the Switch around to aim, proving slightly cumbersome. Motion controls appear frequently during various navigation areas, requiring players to direct the cosmic indicator at platforms to drag Mario in their direction.

Stages completely dependent on gyroscopic features work better when played with the Joy-Cons detached for better precision, like the manta ray surfing level in the beginning. I haven't typically been a fan of motion controls, while they didn't improve particularly smoothly in Super Mario Galaxy. Thankfully, by collecting sufficient stars through different stages, these gyroscopic sections can be wholly skipped. I attempted the stage featuring Mario maneuvering a large sphere across a path containing openings, then quickly abandoned after one attempt.

Timeless Mario Excellence

Apart from the awkward motion-based input methods, there’s really nothing to complain about in Super Mario Galaxy, and its space-set levels are a delight to navigate. Although notable titles such as Odyssey have come after it, Super Mario Galaxy continues as top-tier and most inventive Mario games around.