I will never forget the first time I played this game and how it changed my gaming life and perception of the medium as a whole. Before 2008 I really wasn't into Mario or that much of Nintendo. I never played a Mario game up to that point, I never found him to be especially appealing to me as a young kid. Anyway I rented this game from my local Video Ezy in 2008 with relatively low expectations expecting a good platformer but nothing really more than that.
Anyway, from the moment I put that game in my Nintendo Wii, for the next two weeks I was transfixed on my TV screen, absolutely blown away from what I was constantly experiencing. I had no idea what I was in for when I started this game.
The game is breathtaking in every sense of the word and forever changed my view of Nintendo and the Mario franchise from that point on. This is the game that made me a legitimate fan of Super Mario. The way the game captures the nature of space inspired my imagination in a way very few games could. The gravity effects were mind blowing for the time and still hold up today. The stages and galaxies themselves feel alive and expansive.
I loved how you could run up walls and at points go completely upside down as well as jumping from planet to planet, being pulled in by it's separate individual gravitational pull. The platforming is stellar with a very cinematic feel to the way the worlds and levels are presented and how you progress between each part of the stage, usually by spaceflight where Mario gleefully spreads both of his arms out as he flies through space.
The graphics are stunning and are some of the very best you can find on the Wii. It's a shame the Wii never supported HD visuals because if it could, this would rival many Xbox 360 and PS3 titles at the time.
The greatest aspect of this game by far is definitely the music and soundscape. The musical ambience creeps it's way in in such a magical way that perfectly captures the atmosphere and feeling of every area and stage. Some of the music in this game is very touching and emotional, like To The Gateway on the very first planet of the game and Space Junk Galaxy, as well as Good Egg Galaxy which is the first official level in the game that isn't a tutorial stage.
It really is one of those types of games you just can't put down because of just how ingenious the level design is. The level of fun to be had in this game is almost intoxicating.
The controls are extremely tight and responsive with a few motion controls added here and there but never feel invasive or overly annoying. There is one level where you have to control Mario on a ball as you use the wiimote almost like a joystick to roll him in a certain direction, that part is slightly annoying but it's overall fun outweighs the annoyance. That is the one thing I want to make crystal clear about this game. It's just fun, and you can't ask for more than that.
Anyway my first playthrough of Super Mario Galaxy is one of the biggest surprises I had as a kid and I recommend anyone to pick up and play it. I rank it up there with the original Banjo-Kazooie games, Battle For Bikini Bottom and Super Mario 64 as being one of the greatest 3D platformers of all time and one of the very best games of the late 2000s. Super Mario Galaxy 2 is also one of the best gaming sequels, improving on the first game's mechanics, but it still didn't have the same impact as what the first game brought.
Play this masterpiece of platforming as soon as you can
