4.5/5 ★ – Tomcar's review of Super Mario Galaxy.

Super Mario Galaxy is widely considered one of the greatest games ever made, and for good reason. Upon my latest replay I can say that its legacy still holds up just as well in 2024 as it did in 2007. I played it via the Now delisted super Mario 3d all stars collection, where it received a 1080p face lift. This game and its sequel always had great art design with cinematic lighting that looked great in 480p. They are considered two of the best looking games on the Wii. It holds up great in HD. The music is also legendarily good. It was one of the first Mario games to use a full orchestra rather than relying solely on midi tracks, and it sounds incredible. From the somber tones of space junk galaxy, the whimsy of Rosalina’s observatory, and the epic grandeur of gusty gardens and the good egg galaxys’, it all sounds incredible. I think it’s still the best Mario sound track. The level design is great, but there were a few galaxies that weren’t so fun to return to, ones that required a lot swimming, and the twice reused honey hive galaxy come to mind. The control is not as tight as 64 or sunshine before it, and that’s fine as the platforming challenges don’t often require that same level of precision. Though, Mario does some times get confused when walking on a planetoid, and will some times walk in a circle when trying to move straight on these spherical platforms. Being a marquee title for the Nintendo Wii, Mario Galaxy is chock full of motion controls. Nintendo did a great job of adapting the Wii’s pointer to the switches gyrometer. Outside of needing so reset the cursor just a little too often, it feels great to grab starbits, and use pull stars. The motion controlled mini games such as the manta ray surfing and ball balancing obstacle course also feel fine with the switches gyrometer. I’ve completed this game 100 percent many times before with both Mario and Luigi. It’s worth doing once to unlock Mario’s brother, but some of those post game stars that involve collecting 100 purple coins absolutely suck, and I wouldn’t recommend doing them a second time with luigi. Outside of some small nit picks, this is still an amazing game. It’s not my favorite Mario game, I think that honor still goes to super Mario 3d world, but it’s a close number 2.