Miyamoto and his team have managed to take the tired platforming genre and turned it into something magic.
It seems appropriate for this review then that the franchise responsible for most of these moments is the Mario series. Everyone who has played their fair share of games can relate to sliding down their first flagpole in Super Mario Bros, finding Yoshi for the first time in Super Mario World, running around Peach's castle grounds in Super Mario 64 and so on.
Now, with Mario's first proper adventure on Nintendo's fifth generation console, the plan is to provide some more of these defining moments and revolutionise platforming all over again, as had been done with Super Mario 64 just over a decade ago. Thankfully, we can safely state "mission accomplished", as Super Mario Galaxy is one of the finest games we've ever played.
The Look Of Love
It's funny, because the thing that annoys us most about Galaxy is that its fantastic graphics show us the sort of games we could have been playing for the past year had some developers bothered to pull their finger out and actually tried to use the Wii to its full potential. Any claims that Nintendo's console is effectively a motion-sensitive GameCube are blown right out of the water when you start the game and witness the controllable intro sequence. As you make Mario approach Peach's castle during a night-time meteor party you can't help but stop and admire the incredible water effects as the light shining through the castle windows reflects on the surrounding lake, while small meteor fragments and stars rain onto the castle grounds.
It doesn't let up there either. Throughout the whole game the graphics constantly amaze, with stunning visual effects (as the camera moves and large planets rise or set far in the distance you're treated to a fantastic sight as the horizon glows, creating a sort of lens flare effect), some remarkably huge playing areas (if you stop just before you collect the star in one of the Honey Hive Galaxy missions, you can see the whole of the level sprawling down below you) and characters that are positively filled to the brim with personality (not least of all, the main man himself).
Simply put, if you've long been dreaming of a game that actually makes the most of the Wii's powerful graphics processor then your dreams have come true. Super Mario Galaxy will not only rock your socks, it will blow your actual feet clean off, leaving you with a set of comedy stumps that you can use to pretend you're a marauding pirate (not literally mind, Nintendo's strict health and safety policy wouldn't allow that).
Sweet, Sweet Music
If your ears are starting to feel a little bit jealous, tell them not to worry; the eyes aren't the only thing being treated to a feast here. The sound is some of the best we've heard in a Mario game. While the new musical themes may not immediately be as catchy as the classics we all know and love, they fit the environments perfectly and capture the feeling of being in an unfamiliar location and we promise that eventually you'll grow to love them all the same and find yourself uncontrollably humming along as you've done in previous Mario titles.
Retro-heads needn't stress out however, because they're more than catered for with heaps of old-school nods to the earlier games in the series. Question blocks return, mushrooms are back (and are the best-looking mushrooms yet, if we do say so ourselves), and there are loads of moments where you think "that's the thing from that other one!"
Some of his power-ups give a similar sense of nostalgia. As well as the all-new Bee Suit and Boo Suit and some other power-ups we don't want to spoil (let's just say they involve ice and bouncing), the return of Fire Mario and invincibility (complete with the original music) make it clear that this is a return to Mario's roots.
In fact, strange as it may seem to claim, we reckon that if Super Mario Galaxy shares most with one particular game in the series it's Super Mario Bros 3. While the fact it's set in 3D means that obvious comparisons will be drawn to 64 and Sunshine, the fact is that Galaxy calls upon the third game a number of times throughout when it comes to nostalgia trips, something Mario's previous 3D ventures chose not to do.
Bowser arrives at the start of the game in an airship - much like the boss battles in the third game - complete with the same airship theme that played during the original. Similarly, the Cookie Factory Galaxy features the same music as world 1-2 of SMB 3, bringing a smile to the face of anyone who remembers it (it certainly had us grinning like we were 10 years old again). And collecting the likes of the Bee Suit and the Boo Suit for the first time had us reminiscing of the times we first encountered the Raccoon Suit and the Frog Suit in Mario's third adventure.
It Ain't Easy Being This Good
In terms of difficulty, the game varies. When we originally played demos of the game we were worried that it was going to be too easy, but those fears can be put to rest. While some missions are indeed quite simple, others will test the skills of even the most dedicated Mario fans (the aforementioned Cookie Factory Galaxy has a nice stage where you have to make your way along moving platforms riddled with holes by carefully jumping forward, avoiding the holes and being sure not to hit any laser beams in the process). It's perhaps slightly trickier than Super Mario 64, but not as frustrating as some of Super Mario Sunshine's later levels were. Challenging but entertaining, in other words. Needless to say it'll take you a while to get all 120 stars.
Playing with the Wii Remote as a pointer sounds like it might be a fiddly experience but the fact is that within five minutes we'd actually forgotten that we were using it. It speaks volumes about how well the system works (you can stun enemies by pointing at them and pressing the B button to fire star fragments at them, and can gather a load of star fragments by simply waving the pointer over them) that within mere minutes it felt like we'd been doing this since the days of Mario 64.
The ability to make a second player control the pointer instead to let you concentrate on controlling Mario feels slightly tacked-on but at least it offers some form of co-operative gameplay for the first time in a 3D Mario adventure (even if the player controlling the pointer is clearly getting the short straw).
To tell you any more about Super Mario Galaxy would be like giving you a packet of Maltesers that we'd already sucked the chocolate off of. We know that the vast majority of you are going to buy this, so telling you all our favourite bits would just be a case of rubbing it in because we've experienced them first. If we bought a ticket for a film at the cinema we'd hate someone to spill the beans on the showstopping set-pieces before we'd seen them for ourselves.
There are so many moments in this game that had us gasping with surprise, chuckling away at cheeky nods to past games and shaking our heads at the sheer genius of it all that it'd be a crime to gaming if you didn't experience it for yourself.
This is the best game that the Wii has to offer and could well be the best game this generation. While I'll be pelted for that and this by numerous Sony and Microsoft fanboys, if this isn't the game you will be buying the next time you visit GAME, Gamestation or anything like that, you are a complete idiot. Or already have the game. Whereas you are cleverer than Einstein himself.