About a week ago, I finally powered through the final stages of Super Mario Galaxy collecting the last of the purple coins. Oh, how painful a few of those levels were. But I do sincerely recommend them!
Mario’s doing 3D before, but nothing comes close to this. Visually, it’s not as astounding as Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, but it’s a joy to not fight the camera for once. And why? Well, everything is round. I mean it. Round. The entire first world will simply blow your mind because you run off the horizon and just come around the other side without changing the control stick.
The music of the game and the sound is simply enthralling. I still find myself wishing I could get ahold of the soundtrack some how. Unfortunately the only real way is to be a part of Nintendo’s Japan exclusive Club Nintendo. Orchestral scores do belong in Mario’s world, especially as playful as their themes are.
As for level design, the pace changes are just right, although I wish I had seen less flat worlds and more spherical ones. The joy of the first level wears off rather quickly when you discover black holes by trying to run around an edge and discover that particular world is flat.
So, if you’ve already acquired the elusive Wii, and want to fill out your single player library (two player functionality exists, but you might as well just sit by an watch another play) I highly recommend this title. There’s well over 20 hours of gameplay, and more if you play through as Luigi (after which the 121st star becomes available, though it’s just to a NPC-only planet of reminiscence).
