Mario is Nintendo’s favorite son and has been the poster boy for videogames since almost the beginning. If you ask someone whether they’ve ever played videogames before, chances are good there has at least been a Mario in there one way or another, and many twenty-somethings today probably cut their teeth on Mario’s adventures on the NES. A new Nintendo system isn’t officially a Nintendo system until their star makes an appearance, and now we’re happy to say the Wii has finally arrived. Mario, welcome to the land of system sellers, because your galaxy spanning adventure is just that good.

THE STORY SO FAR
Mario needs to find another girl to trouble himself over, as Princess Peach is nothing but trouble. It all starts off with a letter as Peach summons Mario to the castle to give him a present. What could it be? We don’t know and Mario doesn’t get the chance to know either, because as soon as he arrives, Bowser descends in his flying pirate ship, and with the help of some magic and star power Peach’s castle is literally ripped from the ground and hoisted into the air. After being flung out into the vastness of space, Mario finds himself in an orbiting space station, which is ruled over by a princess looking to restore the galaxy’s stars, whose power was sapped by the evil Bowser.

The Mario games have never really been known for their story and Super Mario Galaxy doesn’t really change things. There is definitely more story here than the traditional Mario games, but nowhere near the story of a RPG or some other more modern platformers. The story is basically around to tie the galaxy premise together and to drive you on forward to the conclusion. However, given how fun it is just to run around and complete levels, the game could have had absolutely zero story and we’d still be crazy for the game.

GAMEPLAY
More so than Super Mario Sunshine, Super Mario Galaxy is the spiritual successor to the ever popular Super Mario 64. Despite the fact that the Wii remote and nunchuk combo is greatly different than the N64 controller, the controls after a bit of experimentation are practically the same, as Mario can still triple-jump, butt stomp, backflip, and practically everything he could do in that genre defining game. Of course, Mario has learned a few new moves as well, with the most useful one being his spin attack that you’ll use to dizzy enemies and bust through things.

The early Mario games were straight left-to-right platformers, with the eventual N64 and Gamecube ones taking Mario into the realm of 3D, giving players giant worlds to explore, where you could climb as high as the level allowed or to the murky depths that waited below. Super Mario Galaxy continues the tradition of advancing Mario’s gameplay along as the next-gen systems he arrives on get more and more sophisticated, and with the newest game Mario’s going to find himself somewhere completely new – underneath!

The big draw to Super Mario Galaxy is that many of the levels are actually small planets or objects that Mario finds himself on, with many of them giving Mario the ability to not only walk on top of surfaces, but underneath them as well. The best way to imagine the typical level in Super Mario Galaxy is to hold something like a tennis ball, and then imagine Mario literally being able to walk on every inch of the ball’s surface, being able to walk underneath or on the side, and him sticking firmly in place thanks to gravity. The way most levels work is that you’ll land on one of these smaller planet sized areas, work out the puzzle or platform your way to the planet’s finish, and then you’ll find a boost star, which will rocket you through space to another planet or object that is in that same galaxy. You’ll keep advancing through until you get a star and complete the level.

Each section of the space station hub world is separated into galaxies, with different worlds and challenge stages being scattered within, each with a number showing you how many stars you need to have in order to unlock it, and within each hub world section is a Bowser influenced boss world. Each world in each galaxy has several stars for you to gather, which come from natural progression and stumbling upon them. For example, when you’re going for your second star in the same world you just went to, though you might start out the level just like you did the previous time, your path will ultimately detour and go a different route, letting you experience new parts of the level, so while you’re often playing a world three or four or five times over, it still feels fresh and fun. Besides naturally completing a level, you’ll also discover stars by finding Luigi, and you’ll even have to make special visits to levels when comets appear, giving you even more challenges to complete, such as racing against yourself to the star, beating a level during a timed run, or complete a level with very little life or with fast moving enemies.

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