Games of the Abstract: Super Mario Galaxy (2007)

 

Developer: Nintendo EAD Tokyo

Publisher: Nintendo

One Player

Nintendo Wii / Nintendo Switch

 

Reviewing a Mario game seems ridiculous - by this point, one character, an Italian plumber in blue and red, was already a mascot for a legendary videogame company, Nintendo, so any attempt to paint anything new in opinion is comical. That is before you consider this is a big game, highly well regarded, with a budget visibly onscreen and a games console (the Wii) to sell by making the 3D platformer stretch its prowess and game play technology fully. You could argue that one, amateur or professional, should question a game's legacy especially if the franchise is one that is considered a sacred cow, with a lot of money behind it, but honestly that feels less an issue with a company like Nintendo, when the issue has always been when the publisher and hardware manufacturer refuses to make games available, even bad ones or from consoles like the Virtual Boy, and get angry people pirate them.

If there is anything new to this review, it is entirely from someone who never grew up with Nintendo's catalogue and consoles. If I am to be blasphemous, to be a man who buys a Wii second hand when some games now second hand cost more than the actual console, I will say right now my admiration for Super Mario Galaxy in its style and game play will not mean I will suddenly start playing Nintendo games now over obscurer work, and any I do take a fancy to will be whims more than the passionate interest I have even for the misbegotten doomed to perish for lack of sales. As much of this is a contrarian nature, to want to root for the underdogs and the miscreants of art, even if that can lead to questionable ideas and more questionable game mechanics, but as much of is innately that usually, for me, something that is widely popular can arguably be more conventional to appeal to the masses. A console like the Wii is more fascinating now, whilst only some of the games of ridiculously prized on the resell market, for the curiosities than Mario or Zelda, and if I take interest in Nintendo games, they are the curiosities and the strange experiments. As much of this is that, like many sacred cows like the Star Wars franchise or arguing with people on Twitter, I never submerged myself in these institutions, never growing up with Nintendo work in my childhood because I had a Sega Saturn and Playstations one to two in my house. The only time I have played a Mario game before this one is the Gameboy game Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins (1992) as a child, and we have come a long way from that title to Super Mario Galaxy.

With the Switch in 2022 became even more a huge seller than even the Wii, which shows just how exceptional Nintendo have been in getting two generation defying gaming platforms released, these characters and their newest innovations are still going to compel people to their work and hardware. In this case, like if I was to buy a Switch eventually, it seems as if it was at least mandatory to have a Nintendo game if I was to acquire an old black cased Wii for my collection, like a passport you have to acquire. Admittedly, despite the popularity of the Wii, it is surprising that, when acquiring it from a second hand store, there were very few games there of personal interest, almost enforcing that I would be playing Super Mario Galaxy as fate even if I ignored the others. Thankfully you see here why Nintendo, when they get things right, are a behemoth as they are, and even a contrarian like myself admires the hard work they bother to put into their mascot's work.

By this point, the franchise had been a long one existing since the eighties.  The reference to Mario being their mascot, and to push the hardware's capabilities, was emphasised when Super Mario 64 (1996) opened the door for 3D platformers on the Nintendo 64, a console made for the game down to its controller. Three dimensional platformers came before and just after, and I played a few, the Jumping Flash! (1995) to the infamous Bubsy 3D (1996), but Mario 64 became the game everyone wanted to hitch a trailer onto after its breakout success. By this point to, this presents the obvious problem, when franchises are institutions, of constant sequels. Not because of their existence, but that by this point, a character like Mario and his Nintendo band mates are ageless cartoon characters and you can either a) alienate the fan base with a drastic change, or b) continue the same story and tropes and figure out how to keep things fresh. This is not an insult at all, especially as Super Mario Galaxy managed the second successfully, but in mind that, at this point with Princess Peach being kidnapped by the turtle-like giant Bowser again, attempting to bring a continuity to the games is going to either involve Stockholm Syndrome, or the kind of not-safe-for-work fan theories (and art) Nintendo are never pleased with existing. Even in game, whilst kidnapped with her castle taken into the galaxy far away, she managed to get letters still to Mario with five bonus lives continually, suggesting this is not as much as a struggle as before but a constructed fantasy between the three characters of Peach, Mario and Bowser to entertain themselves. Only the actual peril the plumber has, and Bowser's decision to harness the power of the cosmos and black holes adds severity. The later is a really dumb thing to do, especially as with full spoilers, if not many, the ending literally suggests the Mario world was destroyed and rebuilt in a new dimensional plane.

Made with director Yoshiaki Koizumi in the seat, having had his trial by fire before as a director on Super Mario Sunshine (2002) as his first directorial work, a heavily promoted game in 2000s game magazines for the Gamecube that became more divisive for fans as time passed, Galaxy is literally my first proper 3D platformer since I was a child. This is insane to consider but in mind, to my exile from videogames, also a huge advantage to seeing how far games in this genre have evolved. The camera here is still a pain at moments, but the mushroom consuming plumber has the advantage that Nintendo have had a lot of time to hone these games, with the legitimately curious touch that this has to sell a console specific controller which is surreal to consider nowadays as mainstream. Wiis were so commonplace that you could even find one gathering dust on a sell in a hospital, as I have seen, managing the rare achievement of even winning over non-gamers to them. It led to a lot of shovelware, and zumba games second-hand in charity stores in Britain, but it comes with the peculiar aspect, in danger of causing interesting games to not be preserved, that Nintendo put their resources entirely onto full motion control play even if a "classic controller" was made available too. Super Mario Galaxy, in its original version, had to be played with that controller and a "nunchuck" attachment, a controller which is full motion control to aim onscreen, the nunchuck providing the movement stick and jump.

The additional aspect, which is a huge virtue aesthetically and in gameplay, is that with its American cartoon plot, with Bowser carrying Princess Peach to the centre of the universe, Mario finds himself interacting with a figure named Rosalina and her space station full of cute Lumas, star-like creatures who became planets and other intergalactic forms, needing to help repower her station to reach his arch nemesis by travelling around tiny weird planets. The game from the get-go has a playfulness that is its biggest virtue, its sense of colour and pop fell in how everything is already pleasing aesthetically, and that the game's modus operandi was clearly for the staff to come up with every idea for a game play mechanic, or level design, that they could. There were enough rejected concepts to fill out a Super Mario Galaxy 2 (2010), literally the add-on sequel of all the other ideas after this prequel's incredible success.

The Wii's motion controls, even lucking into a later MotionPlus controller for my black plastic box, and specifically the motion sensor bar is a finicky little creature, with Mario attempting to roll on a giant ball a nightmare for the worse example of how, in attempting to set the console up, it was a machine betrayed by one's living quarters rather than the technology being at fault. That said, there are moments where the game does occasional fail, as whoever came up with the giant spring power up that turns Mario into a perpetual bouncing spring, where the bounce button is unpredictable and a greater problem than Mario hoping about in all-directions, should have had a stern talking to about figuring out ideas first on the drawing board. I am admittedly late to the part for that example, as many gamers who bought this brand new in the day lament that power-up's existence, and aside from little decisions like this, ninety percent of this game is innovation backed by Nintendo forcing everyone to make the game to their best. Even these flaws (and the camera's occasional misposition due to a dynamic shot angle) feel closer to the mistakes made by people trying to create than sloppiness, something that sums up the console as much as the game meant to sell the Wii.

A lot here is stuff which gaming really needed more of from the earlier days, how it is designed for anyone to play, right down to bosses having very obviously designed ways shown to find their weaknesses, for the better, but that this will ramp the difficulty up in the end for a challenge at the right time too. The final boss battle was practically a breeze when, to even get to the fire breathing dino-turtle once played by Dennis Hopper, you have a literal assault course of homing bullets with eyes in a vast nightmarish obstacle course before you. The game finds a right balance between its playfulness with its steadily increasing challenge, more so as (in the moments of grimness to a brightly coloured game) falling off the planets in this game leads to Mario being sucked into black holes or into the molten cores of satellites, let alone any of the challenges if you stay on the platforms. Everything has a playability that, once you grasp the instructions, is precise and well made. You start in a main hub with Rosalina's space station, with its mass of platforms and secrets, with both the stars you need to acquire per level to complete the story mode, including multiple versions of levels for variety of a setting, alongside there being a lot of content here even after the story mode is completed. You have collectables, but the star bits, are practically both as a way to feed Lumas, even mid-level, to create new bonus stages, and also for firepower, as using the Wii remote like a gun allows you to fire them at enemies to stun them. Coins are collectable, but also you use them to replenish life, with the risk that you only get them for stomping on enemies then spinning into them.

This is before you even get into the imagination in the game. You will run upside down in a dome slowly shrinking in space to escape, in one of the most inspired levels I have played, one of the many moments where the intergalactic aspect of the game is used for Mario having to move in various different gravities and even walking sideways or upside down in moments. As someone who always found 3D platformers inherently surreal, with their floating platforms inexplicably in the air since childhood, this really took that further in how you will even wander sideways on a giant robot arm as platforms, or on tiny little planets you can run or ice skate around shaped like holed doughnuts to giant wooden Yoshi heads. Even the swimming mechanics, whilst awkward for me, grew on me especially when you can ride shells underwater and eventually fight a giant skeleton fish later on in a riveting moment.

Moments are also surprisingly adult. Beyond the ways Mario can buy the farm, or that I am curb stomping giant caterpillar creatures, this surprisingly becomes cosmic, as the ending literally has an ode to the cosmos nature of life continually in cycles and regeneration as Bowser is playing with material that can absorb the entirely galaxy if he fell into it. It also leads to the real story of Super Mario Galaxy, an emotional core of Rosalina, introduced in this game and to the franchise. Unlocking chapters of a fairy tale that is her own story, told as pastel drawings, she is a girl who became lost in space with a Lumaand become a mother to them all, a tale with is legitimately sweet and profound. As Bowser and Mario continue their usual combative narrative, Super Mario Galaxy's real story is hers, warmly welcomed into the canon even if, sadly, Galaxy's sequel ditched the hub world for level select, and Rosalina herself joins the team for Smash Brothers games and karting races. The later is not an insult to those as, getting even in the Wii, it is inevitable I will explore them, merely a joke that bares in mind that, at the beginning, her creators created someone in this franchise you cared for this late in its cycle when the gameplay would have been enough.

The game's entire aesthetic won me over, even as the contrarian more inclined to the weirder games now opened on a Wii. Entirely based around replacing floating platforms with full tiny little planets to hop on in most level, its playful nature as a game won me over; even with moments of fiddliness with the game, the carte blanche to try anything leads to a very inventive production where the planets can be anything, from a kingdom of bees fending off moles to toy lands, and even gravity can be toyed with you can open up upon so many enticing ideas. Platformers, especially 3D ones from my childhood memory, had that innate surrealism to them, but here with Mario even having to fly through space to get to levels and new areas, you have a cavalcade of videogame aesthetic and tightly produced gaming that Nintendo deserve praise for.

It was obviously the game they had to sell the Wii, if it had not been sold to the public before, and the higher ups let the design decisions be a white board filled in every corner with ideas to accomplish this goal. Once you adapt to the platformer being warped in this game's premise, remembering controls will be different when you are upside down on a round satellite in space, you have so much to work with and that is not even bringing in the powerups and level specific gimmicks, excluding that one spring, which work. Being able to turn into a bee and fly temporarily; turning into a ghost Boo and, in an unintentional adult moment, realising now the other Boos rather than hurting you find you very attractive, and still float towards you; or turning to ice and freezing water under your feet among examples. Nintendo's desire to make sure their mascot has a great game meant bringing in their A-level work, feeling like they had to work here with greater care, even if taking a huge risk with working around a very idiosyncratic gaming controller. From the look of the game to the music by Mahito Yokota and Koji Kondo, orchestral at its sweetest and other times playful depending on the level, I cannot lie and say Super Mario Galaxy does not set a high bar for great game development even in terms of still having a personality and whit to it, even if there are more awkward playing games I will fall in love with and place higher than this inevitably. It says a lot that, barely scraping the barrel's bottom in terms of content, as you have many levels to complete and challenges still to beat, I still got my fair share for a game bought second hand long after its success. It was still, even in the context of choosing this or a piece of shovelware from little choice in the moment, a damn good introduction to the Wii's idiosyncrasies with Nintendo's own altogether.