Super Mario Galaxy (Did I play a different game from everyone else?)

Kiey

I seem to have had a very different experience with Mario Galaxy as it seems most people have (so it seems.) That being that I find the game to be average, not that progressive pure awesome that it seems its being reviewed as being. I go into more detail about my issues with the game on my blog (there aren't any ads there so I don't feel weird about posting the link, plus I means that the thread page isn't completely taken up by my article from the start.)

I'm curious if I'm not the only one else feels the same way I do, otherwise I look forward to discussing the game in case I'm completely missing something about it.

Chris

Well if you look at it in the whole Mario franchise it's an average game. Not the best ever but still pretty good. If you look at the last few Mario games though it's a different story. Mario 64 was a fantastic game. It really took the transition to 3D really well. Mario Sunshine was so-so. The game was fun to an extent but it was so different from the way everyone loved Mario that it almost wasn't good at all. With Galaxy though they've gone back to a lot of the key factors that really made the franchise great. Also some old things that haven't been in a home console Mario in more then a decade are back, meaning the fire flower. In my opinion to date it's been the best Wii game released and it beats out most things that are on the PS3.

...

Gravity? Gameplay? Yeah, okay, if you look at the bare bones of the story, Bowser kidnapping Peach, then yes, it's hardly worth a look. They did that from the first Mario game. Though Donkey Kong kidnapped her before that... when Mario was still (a) carpenter. But anyways, as Chris said, before Mario 64, Mario games were 2D. Okay, some had minor depth where you could go behind the main level and run past everything, or had a map which had some basic 3D-ness. But Mario 64 was the first Mario game in 3D, and was amazing. I still hate that damned huge penguin bumping me of the course! >:O Or me running up a hill and then getting smacked in the face with a snowball from my right and then sliding back. The awesome in Super Mario Galaxy lies in the fact that you need to use the changing gravity to your advantage. I haven't played the game, but from what I've seen it's, like Mario 64, ground breaking. Unless of course you can point out one well known big platformer game that did it before.

zombie a gogo

I've seen lots of gameplay from this game and I wasn't impressed...I have no plans on getting this game.

Kiey

I will agree that Mario 64 was a fantastic game, it really established the base for which all future 3D platforming games were built. But the game is 11 years old now, and the genre has moved forward a lot and I feel like Nintendo has completely ignored that. I kind of feel like they were actually going in the right direction with Sunshine, only because they tried something different with how Mario did things. I would have liked to have seen how things would have gone had they continued down that path.

@ Nineless
Mario is a plumber.
Also the gravity stuff isn't so much an issue, it's used once or twice as a puzzle, but (at least for me) I never really noticed it or had it affect me at all during gameplay.

Chris

When they made the original Donkey Kong and Mario was still called Jumpman he was a carpenter. I don't know if they changed it before it came to the US or if he became a plumber after the first Mario Bros. game. The one where you're in the small sewer killing crabs and turtles coming out of pipes.

am_dragon

First I don't think that reading reviews and expecting to have the same experience the reviewer did is a good way to play games. If the game sounds good to you pick it up and play it. I didn't really pay much attention to the reviews, other than knowing most were positive.

I've got several hours in to Mario Galaxy at this point. I have 28 stars so far, and I'm really enjoying the game. If you want to nitpick you can find fault with anything. The "galaxy" and "planet" structure of the game does make it a tad more linear than Mario 64. If they gave several paths on each "planet" it might be confusing to get to the primary goal. I think they were aware of this and there are optional paths to take in many of the levels. Taking a side path may not lead to a star but they do add challenges to the game, and eventually lead you back to the primary path.

The hub world seems to be getting more interesting as I progress. It is definitely easier to get to the next level than running from one side of the castle to the other. I don't know if that is a good or a bad thing. There are a few touches that add to the hub world as you progress.

Rochelle

First and foremost, I did not play Mario 64. I unfortunately missed out on most of the N64 games, so my views may be skewed. I was able to play Mario Sunshine to it's fullest, so I do have some sort of concept of the abilities Mario was capable of doing as well as how the game progressed with the more shines you collected.

I currently have 17 stars in the game, and I have recently passed the first Bowser encounter. I haven't really read any reviews on the game, nor have I sought out stuff on the internets on this game, other than desktop wallpapers. Speaking for myself, I find this game to be awesome. It has been a while since I have became extremely excited in playing a Wii game. Mind you, there are some pretty fun Wii games out there, but Mario Galaxy is my current craze. I have even lost a lot of urge or desire to play WoW, and I have picked up my Wii-mote to get some Mario loving action going. ^_~

I read your blog, and I can see your points. There were some difficulties I encountered at first, however I was able to pass them with minimal difficulty. At first part of me thought, "Whoa, that was kinda hard, and I did it." Then part of me thought, "Hey, that was kinda easy." However, I then wondered maybe it was so easy, because of my awesome Mario skills! ^_~ Perhaps most Mario-goers are fairly used to the controls of Mario and how the platforming goes, that what may seem hard to a possible newcomer, is cake to us. I dunno.

I'm honestly ok without having the punch, kick, or the Mario belly hopping. The spin pretty much makes up for most of that. I am really loving his crouch walk. I find it to be adorable and hilarious. My boyfriend caught me one time just crouch walking for a good 10 minutes around the space ship. He asked what I was doing, I simply replied, "I can't help it, it's so funny to watch him do this!"

The only thing I currently don't like about the game, is the fact that your saved lives aren't saved, and each time you restart the game, you're back at the standard 4 lives. For most part, it isn't hard to get 1-ups in the game, however I like having a lot of lives saved up for when I play a challenging level, like the side planets created by the pink stars, or the other "? block" levels in the galaxies. I'm not the best at completing those levels with ease, so having a few extra lives to fall back on is good to have.

Overall, I'm really loving this game. It has brought back a lot of the excitement I once had into playing console games. It's well worth my money.

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Mario is a plumber.

-____- I know.

When they made the original Donkey Kong and Mario was still called Jumpman he was a carpenter.

Oh yes, Jumpman was the name, I thought he was also addressed as carpenter, but meh. But Kiey, you really didn't know that? o.o

And aaaaaah, sweet memories of Mario 64. I've spend days trying to make the most awesomenesst jump into the little pool from the bridge. Those were the days.

Apreche

I'll say more when we do a show on galaxy, but I have something to say. I'll try to talk more about Sunshine than Galaxy in this post to avoid redundancy.

The reason that the main line of Mario games are fun is because they are platforming games. Platforming games are very simple. You have a character who uses a very limited set of abilities in increasingly complex and difficult ways in order to navigate an increasingly complex environment. These games are fun because you are simultaneously solving puzzles, but also testing your skills to see if you can execute the solution. Most other genres of games do one or the other, puzzles or reflex/execution, but good platform games, like Galaxy, do both.

In Mario 3 they pretty much perfected this formula in the 2D World, and they repeated that perfection in Mario World. Mario 64 brought the formula into 3D, but did not perfect it. Mario Sunshine was good, but wasn't hailed as being amazing because in many ways it stepped away from the formula. Much of the game did not involve navigating restrictive environments. Much of the game was wide open allowing you to navigate any way you pleased, and thus made you frustrated you couldn't go faster. Much of the game was spent shooting water at things or flying with the water tank. You weren't utilizing a few abilities in increasingly amazing ways, you had too many abilities, some of which you barely used.

Remember the parts of Mario Sunshine where you had to get the secret star in the levels with the retro music? Those levels were the perfection of 3D platforming games. Restrictive and difficult environments which you both had to figure out how to navigate, then utilize your hand-eye coordination skills to execute that solution.Also note that in these levels the water pack was not available to you. Imagine that, the levels where you had fewer abilities were the most fun.

I've only got 2 or 3 stars in Mario Galaxy so far, but I can already see it is shaping to be the business. It is as if they took those secret stages from Mario Sunshine and just made the entire game just like that. Much fewer moves for Mario, much more challenging and interesting environments.

zombie a gogo

I wonder if those of us that missed a generation may have a different take on current generation games as a result. I missed the N64 generation, so I basically went from the SNES to the PS1. I went from games like Super Castlevania, A Link to the Past, Super Metroid, Super Mario World, etc. to Resident Evil, Final Fantasy VII, etc.

Now, I personally have never liked any of the last or current gen Zelda, Mario, Castlevania or Metroid games. I've even tried to go back and play Super Mario 64 and the Zelda 64 games and I hate them as well. I wonder if I would have the view if I did not miss the N64 generation? Anyone have similar views or comments?

Double Z

I wonder if those of us that missed a generation may have a different take on current generation games as a result. I missed the N64 generation, so I basically went from the SNES to the PS1. I went from games like Super Castlevania, A Link to the Past, Super Metroid, Super Mario World, etc. to Resident Evil, Final Fantasy VII, etc. Now, I personally have never liked any of the last or current gen Zelda, Mario, Castlevania or Metroid games. I've even tried to go back and play Super Mario 64 and the Zelda 64 games and I hate them as well. I wonder if I would have the view if I did not miss the N64 generation? Anyone have similar views or comments?


I missed the N64 and the GameCube era, and I think it makes me like even more the current Nintendo games. I am only 11 stars into Mario Galaxy, so I don't want to say much about it, but judging from my experience with Twilight Princes, I'm probably going to love it too. But it is true that my views will be a lot different from others, since the last Zelda, Mario, or Metroid games I played were on the SNES

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and the Zelda 64 games and I hate them as well.

BOOOOOO!!! >:O Ocarina of Time has been the best reviewed game for a decade! And only now with Galaxy it's been bumped to second place. Everytime I started over I loved it. It's awesome! Darned be ye who hate the Ocarina of Time. . . . Sorry for the fanboyism, but come on! It's awesome! Just like a gecko wearing a pink bunny suit making comments about the idiotic cartoonish enviroment he's in! *loved Gex 64 for the time it was with him*

zombie a gogo

First of all reviews mean little to me, especially since in many instances people who review these games are those who already enjoy them. Secondly, I'm not trying to be a dick by saying I hate them, I just do. I'm not a Nintendo hater as my fav game ever is Zelda 2 and I absolutely love the early Mario and Castlevania games, but I just do not enjoy playing the newer ones.

I think I may just have liked those old games so much that I didn't want to see them change or I've just moved on to something else. During the PS1 era I was all about the 3rd person survival horror genre (Resident Evil, Dino Crisis, Silent Hill etc). The PS2/Xbox era got me into the console FPS genre (Halo, Killzone, Half-Life etc). My FPS love continues today on the consoles and PC and that's probably why I'm not into the modern Nintendo games. Today I feel the same about F.E.A.R. on PC and Xbox 360 as I did about Zelda 2. No doubt I'll move onto something else the next time around.

Li_Akahi

I know I am going to get flack for this, but I liked Link to the Past better than Ocarina of Time.

zombie a gogo

Amen!

Kiey

I completely understand how people can like this game, because it is fun for the most part but I don't think its all that good. And it seems to be the case that that is just me. I'm really not trying to nitpick the game (well I am to support why I don't that its as good as its being reviewed to be,) but generally I find myself more interested in playing anything but Mario Galaxy. And I've never had this experience with a Mario game. Whenever I've gotten a Mario game it was playing that until it was done, or I got too frustrated with it. And I haven't completed it, and I'm definitely not frustrated since I'm finding it almost simplistically easy.

I gave it some thought today I think that what I would like to see in a 3D Mario game is this: make a world where you have this area/world/island/continent much like in Super Mario World where the levels are all connected together on a big map. Make it 3D, and remove the separation between one level and the next, so that you basically have one continuous 3D world. You would have to complete the castle at the end of the area to move to the next one. Oh, and you get rid of the life meter, and bring back the Mario/Super Mario system where you need to find red mushroom.

zombie a gogo

It may be that people are just scared to say that newer Mario/Zelda games are not good...almost as if it's blasphemy to say such a thing. The only new Mario game I liked was the remake for the DS.

Apreche

It may be that people are just scared to say that newer Mario/Zelda games are not good...almost as if it's blasphemy to say such a thing. The only new Mario game I liked was the remake for the DS.

New Super Mario Bros. was fun, but it was too easy and too short. I blew through that game so fast and never played it again.

zombie a gogo

Agreed. But I still enjoyed it.

I would LOVE to see a new Zelda 2 game made for the DS. I remember when I was really young I use to wonder what worlds were beyond the mountains and oceans in the game. It's too bad that they wouldn't make a game that would take place beyond those areas in a new world.

Chris

The only new Mario game I liked was the remake for the DS.

By remake do you mean Mario DS which was the port of Mario 64 or New Super Mario Bros, which was a new game modeled after the classic side scrolling Mario?

Also this is probably completely fictitious and I haven't felt like looking for any facts, but I read that Nintendo employee's are either planning or attempting to plan a remake of A Link to the Past in 3D. This is more likely then not complete crap, but could be nice if it's done.

zombie a gogo

I meant the "New" Super Mario Bros.

I heard that same story, but I'd much rather an "Adventures of Link" remake or continuation.