Super Mario Galaxy is one of those games you just can't miss.
Well, once again, Peach is captured by Bowser, but what else is new? This time, Bowser's ship basically cuts out the land around Peach's castle and takes the castle into space. Mario manages to catch onto it, but he is knocked off into space, and ends up landing on a small planet. You are awakened by little bunny creatures, who want you to play a game. If you can catch them, they will tell you where you are. The actually are star creatures called lumas. They take you to their leader, and you are asked to collect power stars to help power their space station. In return, they will take you to the center of the universe, where you can confront Bowser and save Peach.
If you have never played a Mario game before, the gameplay is basically the same as previous ones, which is excellent. You use places called observatories to find different galaxies and retrieve a power star from each stage. You have to get a certain number of stars to unlock another galaxy. To complete an observatory, you need to collect a Grand Star, which are in the possesion of Bowser and Bowser Jr. You will find a Fortress where you need to defeat a boss to get the grand star. You eventually find Luigi, conveniently trapped inside a haunted house. He will assist you in your quest to collect all the stars. He usually finds one, but is trapped there, so you have to go and find him.
There are items to collect too: Star Bits and Coins. There are many star bits in a level, and you can collect them by pointing the wii remote at them. When you collect 50 star bits, you will get a one up. You can also use star bits to feed to lumas. Sometimes the will transform into a planet or a galaxy, which may contain a hidden star. Coins are a much more rare, and you actually have to walk into them to pick it up. It will recover your health by one bar, and also if you collect 50 you get a one up.
There are also things called Prankster Comets. They orbit around galaxies, causing changes. With one in orbit, you can get a star that otherwise you couldn't. There are comets that make enemies faster, make you have to complete a stage with limited amount of time, make you only have 1 health bar, or makes you collect 100 purple coins, all to get another star. Although the main quest is on the easy side, these can be quite challenging, which really helps balance the game between hard and easy and accessible by anyone.
The controls in Mario Galaxy are superb, the wii controls fit in perfectly, although their is one problem: Underwater controls can be frustrating. Especially if you are trying to swim into a specific object, and the camera angle doesn't cooperate well. This doesn't really effect the awesomeness of the game as a whole, as there are not much water levels but it really can be an annoyance sometimes. There could be another potential problem too. The wii remote cannot respond to rapid shaking, so, if there are tons of enemies around you, then you couldn't spin fast enough to hit all of them. But, this problem is avoided because you will rarely ever be in a situation like that.
You may come across mushrooms with patterns on it in certain levels. These are actually Mario's suits and are extremely fun to use. There is a bee suit, a boo suit,, a fire suit, an ice suit, and a springy suit. As I said: these suits are extremely awesome and fun too use. The only suit I have a problem with is the springy suit. It is another matter of controls. Don't get me wrong, it is fun to use, just somewhat annoying. For example, you may not even be touching the analog stick, but you jump around, which can lead to death if you fall off. Also, you need to time just right to bounce really high, so sometimes it is easy to die if you can't time a jump right.
The graphics are even better than gameplay. Sure the gameplay is excellent, but the graphics are wonderful and easily the best on the wii so far. The artistic style is beautiful and imaginative, and the level designs are really the best gaming has ever seen. You travel through bizarre and wacky levels that are supported by top notch graphics. The levels are never recycled through the game; there is always a new level waiting. The game plays very smoothly, no frame rate issues, and the textures are perfect. Way to show off the wii's real graphical power, Nintendo!
The sound is just as amazing as the graphics; especially the music the music. Galaxy brings back many old Mario tunes, and sometimes in a very interesting way. Sometimes you come across a question mark ting that if you touch; music notes will form in a line. When you walk through the notes, an old Mario tune will play, each note being a small part of the song. By doing this you may unlock a 1-up mushroom, ect. It is really interesting hearing all these tunes in a unique way. Also, the new, modernized music is just a delight to listen to. Although you might not hear much more that a "Wahoo" or "Yippee" from Mario, you're still getting top notch sound across the board.
You need 60 stars to complete the main quest, but just like in Mario 64, there are 120 stars just waiting for you to collect them. You'll want to find them all because there is so much originality in the level design. The same goes for why you'd want to play as Luigi to collect the stars again. So if you just do the main quest, Mario Galaxy will last you 10 or less hours. But, if you search for all the stars and play as Luigi, you can easily rack up 30 hours of play time.
Galaxy has a very interesting multi-player mode. One player controls mario, and one is kind of like an assistant. Just a pointer that can stun enemies and pick up star bits; which can really help at times, and is good if a friend wants to join in on the fun.
All in all, Super Mario Galaxy is a near perfect game, with only a few control issues leaving a small dent on otherwise amazing experience. Anyone who has a wii needs to add this to their collection. It is a crime to call Super Mario Galaxy anything but an absolute triumph.
Breakdown
Gameplay ~ 9
Graphics ~ 10
Sound ~ 10
Value ~ 9
Tilt ~ 10
Overall: 9.8