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. Gravity plays a significant role in the game, as each planet has a gravitational force that prevents Mario from drifting off into space, which allows the player to effortlessly circumnavigate rounded objects. The varying degrees of gravity also have an effect on Mario's ability to jump, 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 set in 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.^[2] Obtaining these stars allows the player to unlock more in each themed galaxy. There are a total of 121 stars in the game, however, to complete the game 100%, the player must collect the 120 stars Mario can collect again with Luigi, before the 121st star becomes available.

As in every 3D Mario game, Mario's health consists of a power meter, which causes Mario to lose a life if it reaches zero. When the game starts, Mario begins with a power meter made of three sections. The power meter can be restored by collecting coins. The meter can be expanded by threes when players collect red mushrooms. 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 which cause Mario to lose a life when fallen in have been replaced by black holes, which are stationed beneath the surfaces of certain planets and spread throughout outside space (Although sometimes if Mario is out 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. He jumps higher in low gravity, which is similar to Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door.^[3] Mario's melee move is a spin and it allows him to attack enemies, break objects and activate Launch Stars and Sling Stars that shoot him across the galaxy. The Wii Remote also comes into play to collect Star Bits, aim and fire them at enemies, and also activate Pull Stars that pull Mario between planets. There are also some occasions that use the Wii Remote's motion sensitivity, one where Mario rides on top of a Manta Ray, another with him riding on top of a ball.

Super Mario Galaxy features the most power-ups and transformations of any 3D Mario game to date. ^[4] He has the abilty to tranform into a a bee and a Boo using different suits. The boo suit allows him to become invisible whilst the bee suit allows him to fly and hover for a short time. Also, ice and fire flowers are present. Fire flowers work as they do in 2-D game (Apart from the fact that they have a 20-second time limit), while ice flowers let Mario freeze water and walk on it. The Spring Shroom lets Mario jump very high. The Red Star allows Mario to fly around freely, similar to the Wing cap from Super Mario 64.

Environmental mechanics

New gameplay mechanics include Gravity Arrows, which make Mario gravitate in the direction that these arrows point,^[5] and Star Bits, which can be grabbed simply by moving the cursor over them. These have three purposes. For every 50 Star Bits he collects, Mario will be rewarded with an extra life, similar to how, in the other games, collecting 100 coins resulted in an extra life. He can also fire Star Bits to stun enemies, or spawn coins from some points. Finally, they 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, where an additional star can be found.

There are also musical notes; these usually come in chains of 25 when activated and often play classic Mario themes when they are hit.^[6] When all are collected, an item, such as a Power Star or a 1up Mushroom appears. However, there normally is a time limit or some other obstacle placed on collecting them. They are sometimes activated by another new feature: The Question Mark Coin, which activates many events in the game, such as the appearance of items, coins or star bits. New gameplay footage has shown Mario riding a manta ray down a giant floating water slide, riding a ball with an unlockable star inside (altering the tempo of the music based on the movement) and catapulting himself using alien plantlife. He has also been spotted floating in a bubble that the player controls with the Wii Remote so that the on-screen cursor will blow the bubble in the desired direction of travel. A dandelion puff-like item has been seen as a form of transport that the player controls by shaking the Wii Remote. Gameplay videos have also shown some form of tetherball-like objects that Mario uses to attack enemies, get coins and/or Star Bits. Within the game there are sprouts at which the player may launch Star Bits, turning them into flowers in order to get coins. Also, some tornadoes have made an appearance as a way for Mario to helicopter himself across seas of treacherous quicksand. His attack also interacts with screws, unlocking all new paths for him to take often leading to hidden places.

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.^[7]

The game offers up to six save files and has the (optional) ability to transfer Miis from the Mii Channel for aesthetic purposes.^[8]

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.^[9] The second pointer is used to assist the first player by gathering Star Bits and shooting 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 (in pre-release single-player demos, the first player could also do this). Some obstacles, when halted by the second player, are automatically destroyed, further aiding the first player. Last, the second player's pointer can improve Mario's jump if the first and second player press the A button at the same moment.^[10] Because of these added abilities, especially the aforementioned power of stunning enemies, the game is less difficult than if it were to be played through with only one player.

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.^[11] 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.

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 overhead, bombarding the area and crystalizing the celebrating Toads. As Bowser summons a massive spaceship to rip Princess Peach's castle out of the ground, Mario manages to grab on to the castle, ascending upwards with it until he is flung into space by a magikoopa (Who is believed and accepted by many to be Kamek). Also, as a nostalgic touch, Kamek's spell has a red square, circle and triangle spinning inside it, like the original Magikoopas in Super Mario World.

Awakening on a small planet, Mario is greeted by three rabbits who dare him to catch them. As they are caught they reveal themselves to be Lumas, small star-shaped creatures that float in the air. After capturing all three of them and releasing the planet's Grand Star, Mario is taken to a massive spaceship to meet an enigmatic woman named Rosalina ("Rosetta" (ロゼッタ) in the Japanese version^[12]). 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 (the same one Peach had planned to show Mario), 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 further and further galaxies. When Bowser is defeated for 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 player selects this option, the spaceship transforms into a comet which takes Mario to the final level. When confronted, Bowser tells Mario that he took the stars in order to start a new galaxy in the center of the Universe, 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 sucks the entire Universe into it. Just before he is sucked into the storm, Mario's Luma appears, waves goodbye, and vanishes. The Black hole eventually consumes the entire Universe into a singularity and results in a Big Bang.

After being sucked into the galactic storm, Rosalina appears to Mario again. She tells him that stars die, become stardust, gather into Lumas, and are then reborn as stars, galaxies, and planets. In that sense, then, stars never die--they simply live multiple lives, none of them the same. She tells him that she hopes this will be true for him as well and vanishes. 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 - heavily implying that the Lumas created a new Universe to allow everyone to continue living on despite the old Universe being sucked into the black hole.

If the player collects 120 stars, Luigi will be unlocked. If the player collects 120 stars with Luigi, The Grand Finale galaxy is unlocked, where the final 121st star is collected. William Mink and Thomas Kaplan, from Nintendo helped create this part of the story.

A second story is told through picture book chapters, which are unlocked as the player completes new levels. The story is of a girl, heavily implied to be Rosalina, who comes across a broken spaceship which contains a Luma. The Luma is searching for its mother in the sky and the girl borrows her father's telescope to help look. After failing to find the Luma's mother, she agrees to accompany it into space on its journey and later agrees to be its mother. The girl 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. Soon after settling on a far-away planet, other Luma appear and call her "Mother" as well. They live happily, although the girl is troubled one night when she sees the hill near her house through her telescope. She becomes extremely homesick and distraught, wishing she could go back and be with her mother, finally realising that what she actually meant when she said that she was "going away" was that she was dying, and is now in fact buried under a tree that the girl used to play by. Seeing this, one of the Luma suddenly transforms into a comet and offers to take her through space to see her. She and the rest of the Luma set up their new home on this comet and travel the universe, returning home to the blue planet where her mother is buried once every hundred years.

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,^[13] (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."^[14] 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.^[15] On January 4 2007, Nintendo of Europe issued a press release indicating a 2007 European release.^[16] 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."^[17][18] 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.^[19]

Pre-release

Critics and fans reacted positively to the demo version.^[20] 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.^[21] Matt Wales agreed that it was everything Super Mario Sunshine was not.^[22] Giancarlo Varanini, of 1UP.com, wrote that it was the best example of how the Wii Remote can be used.^[23] 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.^[24][25]

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".^[29] 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."^[26] GameSpot praised its gameplay and level design stating, "If ever there were a must-own Wii game, Super Mario Galaxy is it."^[27]

Reviewers have noted some flaws with the game. GameSpot found "a couple of Mario's special suits can be frustrating to use"^[27] and IGN referred to one story-related aspect of the game as "an unnecessary side-tale [that] contrasts with a traditional story."^[26]

Super Mario Galaxy is the best-reviewed game of the seventh generation,^[39] and has become the second best-reviewed game of all-time on review aggregate site Game Rankings.^[40]

Super Mario Galaxy, has sold 250,585 copies in Japan for the week ending November 4, 2007,^[41] and over 500,000 copies in the US as of November 20, 2007.^[42] 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.^[39]

References

External links

• Official Site
• Game page at Wii.com
• Official Japanese Site