Topic: Khushrenada's Long Threatened Negative Review and Analysis of Super Mario Galaxy

[Khushrenada]

Some Background Info

I've stated quite a few times that I do not have much love for Super Mario Galaxy. I often point to it as the game that made me start losing touch with gaming. Up to that, every Mario game was a must-have and must play for me. After Super Mario Galaxy, I became a lot more lackadaisical in playing them. In fact, I didn't play any until about a year and a half a go, when I finally decided to finish it but my save seemed to have been deleted so I played the whole thing over from scratch. I finally collected all 120 stars and then I collected them all with Luigi and then got the 2 extras for the grand 242 total. Then I ejected the game and never touched it again. A month ago I sent my Wii to my brother along with my copy of Super Mario Galaxy for him to use. I knew I wasn't touching it anytime soon and I felt no qualms with it missing from my collection. I had more trouble parting with Kirby's Epic Yarn but I think that game needs to experienced by everyone so I let it go out a sense of duty and sharing some joy. Galaxy I sent hoping it didn't bore him or kill his interest in gaming.

But Super Mario Galaxy is a great game! It's got universal praise! It's so original and inventive. It reinvigorated the Mario franchise. It even got a sequel on the same Nintendo system. That hasn't happened since the Game Boy! (World and World 2 on the SNES are two different to be considered a true sequel and have branched into different franchises so I'm not counting that.)

Most of that may be true but I can't understand why. Now this site or the forums have a tendency to be negative at times and I try to avoid that and keep things more light or fun. I don't see the need for bashing and demonizing everything I don't like. Thus, I've avoiding digging too deep into my dislike for Galaxy but now that the match-up has occurred between Galaxy and Sunshine in the voting thread and ejamer's post in that thread to defend Sunshine or why it should be chosen over galaxy has me thinking there's probably no better time to finally just put my thoughts on these two games all out there and state why I do love the one but really dislike the other. Rather than start with a defensive piece for Sunshine, I thought I'd begin with the pre-emptive strike and launch the smear campaign against Galaxy first. More over, why must Sunshine lovers always defend their choice? It’s time the Galaxy lovers started taking a hard look at their game of choice and try to back up their decision when confronted with the awful truth by someone willing to expose it.

WARNING: This is a long, long post. When I threatened to do this awhile ago, I said I was going to breakdown this game a lot.

In The Beginning (My First Time Playing)

When Galaxy was first announced and trailers shown for it at E3, it looked amazing and mind-bending. I had no idea how perspectives would play out in this game. Hoping from one world to the next with gravity shifting and pulling you in other directions. The game looked crazy and insane. I bought the game right away when it came out. I mean, it's Mario. Every console Mario game is a must play.

Playing it, I soon realized the game was not as wild as I imagined it. The levels were pretty linear and would automatically blast you from one area to the next. Still, there was a lot of charming things like feeding Star bits to the hungry Lumas, the Toad Brigade and Rosalina's Storybook. I was disappointed by the linearity of levels after the previous 3D Mario games allowed more exploration. I noted there was a repetitive nature for the bosses and some tasks. It was also the first time I noticed myself getting frustrated with the Wii Controller and just wishing the controls only consisted of buttons as the spin jump proved unreliable. In Sunshine, if Mario jumps in the air and then you twist the joystick in a quick circle, he does a spin jump. No motion control required. But then, you encounter Bonefin or the music of Gusty Garden Galaxy or get the Red Star and can fly and you gloss over such things. I then beat Bowser in what seemed like an epic dual thanks to the music and staging. At this point, I did like Super Mario Galaxy. Then I went to collect the rest of the stars. As I did this, level designs began to get less appealing and more repetitive. And I just didn't like the motion control additions like the Stingray water levels. Somewhere along the way, I stopped playing because it just stopped being fun to me. Soon, I was discovering the joys of movies and giving myself a self-taught film education of which I'm still continuing to this day.

Flash Forward to Nov. 2012 (My second and thorough time playing the game)

Although I was playing less and less games, I never stopped buying them. I decided to input them into Backloggery. Realizing what I had accumulated, I decided I needed to either start playing more or stop buying more. With my lack of playing, I had fallen out of discussing games much on this site since I just hadn't played most of them to participate in the discussions and avoided for potential spoilers. This resulted in people being surprised when I did participate like how Vudu once posted how shocked he was when I actually talked about my playing a game in the Rock Band 2 thread. It just didn't happen that much.

To tackle the backlog, I thought I'd begin by finishing some games that I had beat but hadn't completed. And maybe, after 3, or was it now 4, years of distance from my first time of playing, Super Mario Galaxy seemed like the perfect place to start. Maybe forgetting some of it and playing it over would open my eyes and I'd see all the great things about it that people seem to love it for. Spoiler:It didn't happen.

Realizing very soon into it that I did not like it anymore than when I last stopped playing it, I started making a mental note of everything in order to prove why my view was right. It's been awhile but I still remember a lot of what bugged me and, using some sites to remind me of other levels, I’m ready to break this game down.

Game Opening and the Main Hub

The game starts out with an impressive looking little village and a celebration going on. You just run along a path, trigger Bowser’s attack, go to the castle and start some more of the story. On a planet, you chase some bunnies until they start to tire and slow down after awhile. Meet Rosalina, get a spin attack via motion control (Nooooooo) and then you get to learn some of the basic mechanics of the game. Shake to shoot out from star launchers, collect 5 star triangles to make a star launcher on a small planet, spin to break crystals, spin to knock over enemies, just a whole lot of spinning. Already, you can begin to notice a bit of disorientation with not being able control the camera. As you start running under a planet and the screen looks like it is upside down while you are jumping to attack a Goomba who is coming at you in another direction, you suddenly realize that jumping is going to be more tricky with having an odd perspective and there is no way to really right the screen or adjust the camera like in Sunshine. Anyways, go in a pipe, hit some flip-switches and it is off to the main hub, Roaslina’s Spaceship/Home.

Find stars to bring more power to the main hub and unlock new levels to get to Bowser. Standard enough fare and the way 3D Mario games have always operated. Now, as far as the opening goes, it does its job well enough. It goes through a quick story, gets you into some action showing what this game will be like and now lets you at it. I probably don’t really need to dwell too much on it. Still, when I think about it and the games that came before it, it just seems smaller and less original. That sounds nuts, right?

Well, let’s look at the other 2 games before it. Mario 64. All you get is a note from Peach to come to the castle. You chase a bunny in the castle grounds. Get some camera instructions from Lakitu and then a quick info dump from Toad stating Peach has been kidnapped and you can enter pictures and collect stars. That’s it. Not really much of story compared to the cinematics and action of Galaxy. And yet, in the end, both are effectively the same thing. One just explains why you are jumping into pictures and playing levels and the other explains why you are playing in space. Oh, and Bowser is going to reshape the galaxy/universe or something in the latter game but we never really see how or any sign of what that would mean for that point to be of significance and chances are you’ve forgotten it anyways and just think the mission is to help Rosalina and save Peach so why did the developers even bother to mention it.

Why would I like Super Mario 64 more? Maybe it has to do with the fact that the game recognizes it is about collecting and doesn’t need any real story. Even though the Castle Gardens is a big empty place for the most part, I love that the game just starts there and lets you just start exploring on your own. Walking up hills, climbing trees, diving into the moat, bouncing off walls. You were able to just experience the 3D space and move about at your own pace. The bunnies you have to chase in this game required a bit of a skill, you had to trap them and dive at the right moment. Not chase them until they began to sweat and slow down.

Super Mario 64 just basically lets you start playing right away. It takes very little time to begin the game and get to the first level. Truthfully, I had to look up and see what happens from the time Bowser captures Peach to when you arrive at Rosalina’s ship. I thought it happened right away the beginning is so forgettable.

With Sunshine, you are shown in the opening that Mario’s going on vacation, there’s even a little tease of the levels to come on a Delfino promotional video with Peach noticing a mysterious figure and then you start the game. You land on the air strip and that is your intro level. You are confronted with the mysterious paint goop. You have a bit of freedom to move around. You get the FLUDD device. Practice a bit with it and then fight the Paint Piranha and grab a shine. From there, the story unfolds some more. There is a mysterious shadow Mario defacing the Island. Who is the figure and why is he doing this and can you restore Delfino? Moreover, Peach isn't kidnapped at first. It gives the game a bit of mystery.

From there, you are launched into the main hub. What a difference this hub is compared to 64 or Galaxy. The Delfino hub is alive with activity and secrets. In some ways, it is almost a level of its own. The castle in 64 is pretty barren but at least it had some secrets to it. Still, I loved the size of it and the look and layout. The Galaxy hub only has the levels connected to it. There are no secrets except for the 1-up mushrooms you can find. Sure there are some Lumas and the Toad Brigade around but they stay pretty still and inactive compared to the movement and activity that goes on in the Delfino Hub. Moreover, it just looks nonsensical, ugly and smaller than the previous 2 game hubs. Right away, this game gives an impression of being a step back.

Good Egg Galaxy

Now, I am going to thoroughly going through the game's first world/galaxy as it brings up many of the issues I have with this game. Here we go!

Dino Piranha

The first time I played this, I’ll admit it was a thrilling and yet contradictory thing to do when you walked off the edge of a level only for the gravity to keep holding you to it so that you could walk all around and underneath it. However, that feeling soon wore off the first time I played this game and playing it a second time never brought it back. So, what's left? Let's look at how the level breaks down.

You go underneath the level to the dark scary part and go to a sling star which shoots you to the next little planet in the galaxy. This little planet has some rocks rolling around on it and you have to collect 5 triangle pieces again. SPOILER: It won’t be the last time you have to do this task. Once you've created another sling star from those triangles, you go to a smaller piece of planet where you kill a piranha plant to create a vine which you swirl to another planet. On this planet, you kill a piranha plant to create a vine to swing to the next. But this time, you do it by swinging some kind of ball plant into it so it’s different! (And it foreshadows what you’ll have to do at the upcoming boss!).

Anyways, on the next little planet/hunk of rock you get to from that second vine, you climb a bit of a block tower and break a crystal to reveal a sling star and shoot yourself off to the next planet where you fight Dino Piranha swinging at his tale to knock it back to him. 3 times and done. Since it is a first level, I can't really criticise it for being repetitive just because I've played the whole game and know what the other levels consist of. Judging this in a vacuum, it is basically showing a lot of original ideas and tasks during a level's progression. So, I'll move on having set-up this baseline.

Snack of Cosmic Proportions

Once again, go underneath the opening planet but this time you will leave it from a different point. This will be the first time you use the blue stars to pull Mario along a path from one to the next. But it sadly will not be the last. Pull Mario along to a sling star to go to the next little planet. Why’d you have to pull Mario on the blue stars to it instead of just skipping that and having the sling star shoot him in the first place? More fun? Maybe the first couple times but that idea soon dies. I realize this is something that could become very inflammatory and seem like I’m nitpicking. I mean, why not just start a game and immediately face the final boss instead of having to play through a whole bunch of levels? Isn’t that pointless too, Khushrenada? And other such kinds of responses.

The answer to those types of responses is obviously not. But for whatever reason, things like the blue stars and triangle pieces just came off as tedious after the 4th or 5th time of encountering them and seemed like a cheap way to lengthen a level. I can’t explain it any other way except to say I just stopped finding them appealing nor did I find them challenging. They would become a task that just had to be performed to keep moving on.

Now continuing on with the level, after activating the sling star, you end up on another small little planet. And now a quiz: Can you describe what planet I’m on? What does it look like? What sort of enemies are on it? Is it green, grey, brown, red? Can’t remember? That’s because so many of these small rocks are so non-descript and boring that the mind sees absolutely no reason to remember them.

Now let’s try a test.  Lethal Lava Land, Shifting Sand Land, Tiny-Huge Island, all 64 Levels. Can you immediately picture what they looked like? Can you picture exactly how to get to different stars in the levels? I can. Ricco Harbor, Pinna Park, Pianta Village. Remember what they looked like? Can you remember some of the ways you had to get different shines in them? I can do so easily for this as well. Space Junk Galaxy, Dusty Dune Galaxy, Deep Dark Galaxy. Can you remember what these levels looked like? I can recall some things about them. For example, having to collect 100 purple coins a few times in Dusty Dune means there’s a portion of the level I remember. Can you recall how to progress and get stars in those galaxies? I can’t. I can remember the ending task I had to do to get a couple of them but there is nothing else that sticks out in my mind about the progression.

This is another of the huge faults that drive me nuts about this game. Many times it is just this constant rocketing from one tiny piece of land that takes 30 seconds to look over to the next small planet on which you will do the same actions over and over until you get to the last planet with the star. It gets to be so very boring! People complain that the level design in Sunshine was lackluster but that is insanity to me. Maybe you think that taking different paths in Galaxy is a great idea but so many of these paths are unmemorable and, as will be shown further on, these galaxies are full of repetition that it is no different as playing a level over and over like 64 and Sunshine where the star/shine is in a different spot. At least the levels seem to stick out more in my mind in those games than nearly all in Galaxy.

But let’s get back to the level now. So, on this unexciting small rock, you have to break a crystal containing a sling star! Ooooo. Now, at this point, the level will allow you to shoot around to other tiny planets to get star bits so that you can feed 100 of them to a hungry Luma. The first couple of times you feed a Luma who gets excited from Snacky Happiness is cute and appeals to my Kirby sensibilities. But how is it that all the people who moan about having to find 30 Blue coins in a level in Sunshine have no problem with the collectathon of star bits this game requires? If you want to unlock other hidden galaxies in the main hub, you have to collect thousands of these things. Are people wagging the remote at the screen to collect so many star bits that it isn’t an issue? Scouring every part of a planet for star bits to keep banking them up? That’s what I did but I’ll be lying if I thought it was great fun or made a great addition to the game.

I am a compulsive collector in games so I "always be grabbin’ star bits" in levels and didn’t have much problem there. But I did grow so tired of collecting star bits. It was just a semi-conscious or automatic thing I’d do. And this is from a guy who has beat Donkey Kong 64 on 201% 4 times over. I have more fun collecting the assorted knick-knacks and crap in that game than collecting thousands of star bits in this game. Go figure. Maybe because they are more challenging whereas star bits are just everywhere and only about quantity with no challenge to them.

Alright, the hungry Luma/star bit complaint has been made. Let’s continue on with the level. We now get blasted to a new planet created by the Luma. This one requires the player jump up a few of its sides to another sling star where you are blasted to something interesting for once! The glass capsule which has you do a bit of platforming by jumping between different gravity pulls. And then you get to a sling star and go to another type of planet. But finally, this is the end of the level! It is a 5 pointed hollow star with 5 little triangles you must collect which will create some blue stars to pull you to the level’s star. Am I saying star a lot? Or you can just long jump to it. Whatever works best for you. Level over. Once again, though, the task here was just to collect little triangles to make a star something you did already in the intro.

King Kaliente’s Battle Fleet

So, from the starting planet again, you can go under the planet through a pipe to get to the house on top or just jump up on the top with advanced jumping techniques. On the top of the house, you get a sling star which blasts you to another small planet. Once again, I ask, can you remember and describe what kind of a planet it is? Swinging some coconuts into a spiky plant reveals a launching star to go to the next small planet. On this planet, you swing coconuts into Pokey to defeat him and reveal another sling star. This is original?

If you are still with me and reading this, have you not noticed how repetitive I sound in describing these levels? You could say I’m doing it on purpose but how would you describe them? There’s not much else to say about them and the only thing they do is present a task/requirement for you to fulfill to move on to the next task/requirement. In this case, having killed Pokey you've now been shot to a small barren planet with 2 chain chomps rolling around. You can either just blast off from this planet with the readily available sling star or you can go in a pipe, become invincible and then destroy the chain chomps for star bits and then use the readily available sling star. What else is there to say?

Leaving the chomp planet, we arrive on a bit of a bigger planet, for once, with a few more enemies than usual. Get to the up side of the planet and then get on top of the Bullet Bill gun to break a crystal with a star sling inside and launch yourself to a wooden airship. From here, you will knock back coconuts shot at you by some enemy octos on another ship. This lowers a bridge and you can cross to it. Climb to the back of it (I don’t know my nautical terms ) and break the crystal with the star sling and finally get launched to the boss which is an octopus you defeat by slinging the coconuts it shoots at you back to it. 3 hits and you get a star.

Which brings me to another complaint. The constant 3 hit and done aspect of bosses. I know it's long been a practice to have that with bosses since SMB2 but surely it doesn't have to be this way with every single boss. SMW2 had you hitting a boss until his pants fell down, hitting away at the uvula of a frog inside it's belly or bashing away at blocks to make them disappear from under a boss's feet because he was invincible himself. Yes, there were other bosses that took 3 hits to be done with but at least there were creative ones mixed in with these different objectives. And Galaxy seems to love it's bosses. You'll have to fight them all twice at least. Some 3 times over. They don't get better each time you face them. Rather, each encounter becomes more soulless and fun-draining as you play through the repetitive patterns and boss strategy over and over. Next level!

Dino Piranha Speed Run (Speedy Comet)

Play the first level over again but finish it in 4 minutes. This is better how?

Purple Coin Omelet (Purple Comet)

I never hear anyone really complain about having to collect 100 coins for a star in Mario 64 or Sunshine. Why is that? Is it because it is viewed as a legitimate challenge but collecting all 30 blue coins in a level is not? Is it because of our trained sensibilities of collecting coins in 2D Mario games that we view coins as important and are glad they’ve found a way to be of value in 3D games?

For this star, as you may recall or not, it reuses a portion from the Snack of Cosmic Proportions level. It is the area with the three to four planets where you can jump back and forth between them to get 100 star bits for the hungry Luma. This time, there are 100 purple coins in the area. Just collect them all. It’s great to be able to spend more time on these small rocks again. They were such a blast the first time.

Luigi on the Roof

This time, I don’t even have to leave the starting planet. So refreshing. Now, surprisingly, I’ve got something nice to say. I wish they had done more Luigi hide and seek in this game. I liked that. But the developers didn’t because they were too busy making you collect 5 more triangles in a level to make another sling star.

Well, that’s the first great galaxy in this game. 14 more to go! But lucky for you, dear reader, although I had planned to go through every level and galaxy of this game to show just how it is not that original, innovative, compelling or fun, doing it this way is almost like playing the game again for me and I do not relish that prospect nor do I feel like typing a vague underwritten walkthrough out of this. Plus, I feel I have well illustrated many of the issues I have with this game from this one galaxy alone. Therefore, I shall now just use bullet points to run through the rest of the game to highlight a few more things.

HoneyHive Galaxy

Overall impression:

I feel like this is one of the better galaxies in the game actually. Maybe it helps that it is a large landmass so there is actually more real platforming to perform in it. But I still think it is weaker than any world in Sunshine or Mario 64 so there.

Bee Mario Takes Flight

-The Bee Suit! It’s sort of like FLUDD’S hovering in Sunshine except you lose it when it gets wet. Don’t tell Ian Sane or he’ll think it is an example of Nintendo not knowing what to do with a franchise and shoehorning in an unnecessary gimmick.

-Some actual platforming to be done. No real complaints with this level although wouldn’t you know it? To help the Queen Bee you have to collect 5 triangles on her body to make another sling star.

Trouble on the Tower

A bit of platforming mixed with some useless planet hopping. Nothing to really praise and I've already criticized useless small planets.

Big Bad Bugaboom

-Get to the queen bee and then get launched to the Bugaboom boss. Like so many bosses, rather easy, 3 hits, and is just a larger version of the small enemies. Nothing here that makes me want to come back for more.

Honeyhive Cosmic Mario Race

Much like racing the Koopa Troopa in 64 or Il Piantissimo in Sunshine, you race a Shadow Mario to a certain point in a level. Nothing innovative here.

The Honeyhive's Purple Coins (Purple Comet)

Some actual platforming and collecting. I like that! More of a challenge than the Good seed Galaxy's 100 coins.

Luigi in the Honeyhive Kingdom

As mentioned before, I liked the Hide and Seek of Luigi. I’m sure the developers did too because then they didn’t have to put much more effort into making the levels bigger or more interesting. Oh. A compliment and then a slam! Boo-yah!

Space Junk Galaxy

Overall Impression:

It is another example of the Good seed Galaxy design of small task planets which leave no lasting impression. The name though could be used to describe the whole game. It's funny 'cause it's true!

Pull Star Path

-That’s what the blue stars are called. Pull Stars! I will adjust the rest of this criticism accordingly. Obviously there are many pull stars in this level which I’m told is fun but I actually know it's not.

-You will have to collect 5 triangles called Star Chips(!) as you progress through this level which is cool because that has only been done 6(?) times now. I will now adjust the rest of the criticism accordingly. Good thing I had to start looking up Galaxy information since so much of the game is forgettable.

-You unlock the Toad Brigade here. They really don’t do much but show up in levels for you to talk with.

- While I like how the path appears and disappears on you at the end, you can just move slow and be fine. And to get the star, you have to collect 5 silver stars. That’s doesn’t sound like anything that’s been done in this game already. After all, they’re silver stars not triangles!

Kamella's Airship Attack

Just moving from wooden airship to wooden airship. The Kamella boss was a bit more tricky because it required some aiming. Honestly forgot about this level being in this galaxy. You'd think I'd remember a boss where you have to grab an item they through and you and you have to throw it back to them.

Tarantox's Tangled Web

-Sling Pods are introduced! It’s sort of like a cannon in Mario 64 where you have to aim to correctly blast Mario to the next location although Galaxy has cannons also so this is clearly a totally different idea. I don’t think Sunshine bothered with anything like this. Maybe that’s what it was missing and why people criticize it. Sling pods are fun because you have to hold A and aim the Wii Remote but can’t adjust your camera angle to make the aiming easier. Of course, I think holding A and aiming with a joystick might have worked a bit better but I’m probably just a bitter old man at this point.

- I did like that Tarantox was more unique of a boss in the method to fight him and his attacks. Just wish my sling pod aiming was more precise at times.

Pull Star Path Speed Run (Speedy Comet)

Play the first level again but in under 4 minutes. What’s that? You already could the first time? Just shut up, and take another star for doing it again.

Purple Coin Spacewalk (Purple Comet)

Whoa?! A bit of a challenge for once? Nice. Sure you are just playing in the end section of the first level AGAIN but at least it is finally utilized in a challenging manner.

Yoshi's Unexpected Appearance

-Play the third level again but this time feed another Hungry Luma along the way to the boss so collect those star bits. Why is this game always praised as fresh when so much of its levels are repeated? It's no different than the other 3D games.

- The ol' kill all enemies on a planet trick

Battlerock Galaxy

Overall impression:

It sounds cool. It’s got some “on a mission” music. Unfortunately, it will break your heart like the rest of the game and has one of the worst of the worst parts in this game in one of its levels.

Battlerock Barrage

-Collect 5 star chips on five small metallic saucers with no individuality to create a line of pull stars to take you to a sling star. Again, I bang my head on my desk and wonder, why does no else see the monotony in this game?

- The ol’ shake the controller to turn a screw trick

- I do like the cannon dodging part of this level. Being able to run above and below the platform gives it a sort of Matrix cool. Mario is the One. Why couldn’t this have been the whole level?

- The ol’ make Bullet Bill chase you and lead him into a cage to blow up trick. Unfortunately, like so many things in this game it won’t be the last time you do that as the game will use this over and over again.

Breaking into the Battlerock

- The ol’ make Bullet Bill chase you and lead him into a cage to blow up trick. (I told you we’d see it again.)

- Pull star minefield! Not really challenging, not really fun!

- Hey! I had just talked about cannons a few levels ago and here they are. Use your aiming skill to get a star.

Topmaniac and the Topman Tribe

- This level has a 2D section where you can keep changing the gravity of the room. I like that. Of all the things to repeat over and over, why not more of this?

- This level seems awfully long to get to the bossfight. Then again, most of the game seems to suffer from an uneven pace and with the many other problems it has, why would I expect the pacing to be any good?

- Topmaniac is like Kaliente. Not that different from the regular smaller sized enemies. Thus, not that interesting to fight.

Battlerock's Garbage Dump

Oh goodness! Who likes this level? Who?! Identify yourself if you do so you can be publicly shamed for having poor taste. I’ve yet to hear anyone bring it up in civilized conversation about this games "great" qualities because I think (and would hope) that even fans of this game recognize this task/idea was a flaming turd. So, so, so moving on.

Topmaniac's Daredevil Run (Daredevil Comet)

Why is it that when I first face a boss and even buy a Life Mushroom, I’ll perfectly defeat him but when I play the boss again in a comet run, I’ll die a couple times first? Why couldn’t it count the first time I did it?

Purple Coins on the Battlerock (Purple Comet)

So-so level. Playing the platform portion of the first level again where you dodge the cannonballs is nice and it is a bit more challenging but it just further adds to the repetitiveness of the game for me since I already went through it before.

Luigi under the Saucer

-Hey! One more Hide N Seek. But this time, you have to play the whole first level over through to the end. How quaint.

-The ol’ make bullet bill chase you and lead him into a cage to blow up trick. (It only got old the second time you had to do it.)

Well, I’ve written over 5,439 words on this game in what equates to 10 pages in a word document. But I’m calling it a night on this Anti-Galaxy Manifesto. So consider yourselves lucky. I don’t think I could be much clearer at this point at how this game is sadly very tedious and uninspired. And this is coming from a guy who got all A-Ranks in Sonic Adventure 2 just to unlock the lousy Green Hill Zone and complete the game. And yet, I have fonder memories of that broken game and the tedious Chao upgrading than I do of Super Mario Galaxy. I just don’t see how anyone at this point can make a case for Galaxy being one of the all-time greatest games let alone even a top Mario game. But if you think can, come at me bro.

Super Mario Galaxy – 3/10

[Stratos]

Interesting read. You are making me want to revisit Super Mario Sunshine. My sister adores this game so much she still plays it off and on years later (she never gave back my game disc). Maybe she sees what you saw in your descriptions.


I want to revisit all of the previous 3D Marios so I may be experiencing it again soon.

[Mop it up]

Khushrenada, I cannot support you in this endeavor, but I still like you.

[Caliban]

So basically you prefer a 3D Mario that is prevalent to an exploratory experience than rather a 3D Mario that is pursuant to a linear experience. Fair enough. Do you have the same preference for 2D Mario games?

[Khushrenada]

Honestly, I think it is variety. Sunshine can be very linear if you want it to be. I started it yesterday and am still playing it today. I'm at 40 shines already. What I find interesting about it is that for each world, getting the shines can be done pretty swiftly in most cases and usually you just have to take one path to get to it. Collecting 8 red coins can be a little more open but even then, it is a pretty simple mission. It is in finding the blue coins or getting 100 coins in a level that brings out more exploration as you must examine every nook and cranny of a level and they present an extra challenge. While Sunshine does have some repetition like having to chase Shadow Mario every world in order to unlock Bowser or entering secrets to play in Galaxy like environments, there is still so much variety of missions and ways to acquire shines that it keeps me engaged and that when things are repeated, it doesn't feel like it is being done constantly. To me, it mixes both exploration and linearity together to create a special experience.

I have no problems with 2D Marios since even though you are going from left to right generally, as long as the levels offer a wide variety of experiences and challenges as well as some secrets, then I am a happy camper. I prefer NSMB Wii over Mario Galaxy. I have played Super Mario 3D Land and even though that is just as linear as Galaxy and also recycles some of its levels again in the Special Worlds, I thought that was the best Mario game I had played since Sunshine.

With a Mario game, it just comes down to the level design. To me, the levels of Galaxy just are not that interesting. Not being able to change the camera angle if I'd prefer it in a different position and finding very little enjoyment from motion controls it just added up to a big goose seed for me. The levels were you have to roll a ball with Mario on top via motion controls. I didn't have much trouble with them but did people like that? I'd have been just as happy to do that with a joystick than hope I was getting the gyros in my controller to adjust correctly. 3D Land also controls your camera but the levels are designed and it is programmed in such a way that it is never an issue. I just don't think a controlled camera in a 3D space works. The Sonic Adventure games have this problem also.

As of right now, there are only 3 mainline Mario games I have yet to play. Galaxy 2 (most people say it is better than the 1st which implies to me that people recognize Galaxy is a flawed game on some level but after the experience with 1 I'm not sure what this will be like) NSMB U/Luigi U and now Super Mario 3D World. I'm not sure what those games will be like but they are all a bit different and 3D World in particular seems to be a bit of a phenomenon so I am curious as to how it plays considering how I felt about 3D Land. Maybe I will find something better than Sunshine from those but right now at this moment in time, Sunshine is my favorite Mario game.

[Stratos]

Do you plan on trying NSMB/L U or 3D World anytime soon to compare them?

[Mop it up]

All right, since you took the time to write all this up, I'll say a couple things for you to pick apart.

First off, I don't like the purple coins in Super Mario Galaxy, nor do I like the 100-coin stars in Super Mario 64 or the blue coins in Super Mario Sunshine. There's no inconsistency because I dislike all the coin junk. That said, the blue coins in Sunshine are more of a hassle than the coin stars in those other two games, so it's even worse in Sunshine. Every Mario game has some stages I don't like, that's just the way it goes. Gotta take the bad with the good and all that.

Next, I actually had more trouble getting Sunshine's spin to work with the rotating stick than I did with Galaxy's shake spin. In fact, I never had an issue with the shake spin not registering, the only issue would be if I did a spin accidentally. But that was a rare occurrence and never messed me up. Even still, both of those actions are unnecessary and both should be a button, but stick-spinning is worse than waggle for me.

As far as themes go, I actually couldn't picture the specific levels based on the names you listed. But I'm sure it was the one with the beach, or maybe the other beach. Or maybe the coast line. Or maybe the water front. Oh! Or maybe the tropical setting! Now if you wanted to argue Super Mario 64 has more variety then that would make sense to me, but Sunshine's stages are all similar themes.

Now as for your specific examples, you're describing what you do in stages mixed in with some opinions about it being boring or repetitive or whatnot. Opinions are of course subjective, so no one can really “prove” what is or isn't fun. So a rebuttal would just say what you said, except say it was fun. Here's an example:

The first time I played this, it was a thrilling and such contradictory thing to walk off the edge of a level only for the gravity to keep holding you to it so that you could walk all around and underneath it. That feeling sill swells up every time I play the game. Once again, go underneath the opening planet but this time you will leave it from a different point. This will be the first time you use the blue stars to pull Mario along a path from one to the next. But it thankfully will not be the last, as these stars are a nice little use of the Wiimote pointer and are fun. Things like the blue stars and triangle pieces are enjoyable even after the 4th or 5th time of encountering them and seemed like a nice little break here and there in the stages.

So there you go. Just take similar comments and apply them to all your other descriptions. Surprise surprise, everyone's different and has a different view of what's fun. Nothing wrong with that and nothing to prove one way or another.

For the record, I still like Super Mario Sunshine and it is certainly not a bad game by any means. In fact, were it not for the blue coins and a couple other tedious segments here and there, it would be a great game. Unfortunately that isn't the case, and it remains the one and only Mario game where I never bothered with 100% completion because of how absolutely unfun parts of it are. I still enjoy a normal playthrough of the game because then I can pretty much ignore the blue coins and enjoy the fun parts of the game, but then I'll tackle Bowser as soon as he becomes available and quit after that battle. On the other end of things, Super Mario Galaxy certainly isn't completely great on every level, but the tedious parts of it are few and far between, and over in a couple of minutes, so it's a lot less to trudge through for 100% completion.

[PSap29]

Good Lord, could you have nitpicked the game anymore?

First off, stop bashing motion and pointer controls.  They work fine in Galaxy and it's not like you have to waggle like crazy to get them to work.  It's just simple flicks of the remote.

Second, there is nothing wrong with a game being linear.  For whatever reason, people seem to be complaining about this a lot lately, and I just don't get it.

Third, it's called the Good EGG Galaxy not the Good seed Galaxy, dumbass.

"it just looks nonsensical, ugly and smaller than the previous 2 game hubs. Right away, this game gives an impression of being a step back. "

Nonsensical?  Ugly?  Smaller than the previous two?  It looks like it's from another world, and considering it's a space ship, that makes sense.  It's very colorful compared to the castle from 64.  It is also much bigger than the castle as well.

"...blue stars and triangle pieces just came off as tedious after the 4th or 5th time of encountering them and seemed like a cheap way to lengthen a level."

And the red coins in 64 and Sunshine, the 100 coins in 64, and the blue coins in Sunshine didn't feel like a "cheap way to lengthen a level."?

"But how is it that all the people who moan about having to find 30 Blue coins in a level in Sunshine have no problem with the collectathon of star bits this game requires."

Because the Star Bits are literally handed out to you.  The 30 Blue coins are not.  Not to mention, you get a 1UP every 50 Star Bits, so it is worth it to collect them.

"The name though could be used to describe the whole game. It's funny 'cause it's true!"

Except it's not true.

"Pull star minefield! Not really challenging, not really fun!"

Challenge=\=Fun.  Just because a game is easy, doesn't mean it's not fun.  As someone who likes Kirby's Epic Yarn, you should know this.

"Oh goodness! Who likes this level? Who?! Identify yourself if you do so you can be publicly shamed for having poor taste. I’ve yet to hear anyone bring it up in civilized conversation about this games "great" qualities because I think (and would hope) that even fans of this game recognize this task/idea was a flaming turd. So, so, so moving on."

I will give you this, the Garbage Dump stars suck.  I wouldn't mind them if they didn't have the pointless time limit.

Galaxy is a fantastic game because it does so much with the series that hasn't been done before.  The gravity effect alone is amazing.  Exploring all the different galaxies is a ton of fun because of all the different ways the developers gave you to do so.  Blasting off from a launch star and flying through the cosmos is so satisfying.  Navigating through a pull star obstacle course is really fun.  All the new power ups (with the exception of the spring shroom.  **** that) are so much fun to use.  The Bowser battles have never been more epic.

It seems like you were looking for reasons to hate it the second time around.  With all due respect, you sir, are a dumbass.

[Khushrenada]

Good Lord, could you have nitpicked the game anymore?

Yes. I still might go through every galaxy and a few other elements. Don't tempt me.

First off, stop bashing motion and pointer controls.  They work fine in Galaxy and it's not like you have to waggle like crazy to get them to work.  It's just simple flicks of the remote.

If you enjoyed them and had no issues with them, I congratulate you. I wish I could be able to say the same thing. Unfortunately, Galaxy is the first time I played a game where I began questioning the use and reliability of motion controls. It did affect my enjoyment of the game and is therefore a legitimate source of criticism for me. Notice I'm not advocating that motion controls in general are a bad idea or that I hate every game that uses them. But I did experience some frustration at times from them in this game and therefore will bring it up since it is a factor in my not liking Galaxy. It isn't always just simple flicks of the wrist.

Second, there is nothing wrong with a game being linear.  For whatever reason, people seem to be complaining about this a lot lately, and I just don't get it.

And as I've stated in another response, I have no problem with linearity in games. That's what 2D Marios basically are. Kirby's Epic Yarn is linear. But each level is doing something different. For me, blasting from one little planet to the next and doing many of the same things over and over on those little planets, I just suddenly felt very aware of how much each level seemed to be having you do many of the same things over and over and it just got monotonous to me.

Third, it's called the Good seed Galaxy not the Good seed Galaxy, dumbass.

I guess you showed me. For you information, I noticed that right away. Problem is, one of the moderators made a joke awhile back where every time you type the word eg(g) into the forums, it will get changed to seed. I thought about editing the post the right word which would mean adding in the parenthesis or something to keep it from getting changed to seed but decided it wasn't that worthwhile. At least it finally resulted in a good laugh in the end. Even better is how you decided to throw in an insult my way when you didn't know any of this background information and then had the word change happen to you.

"it just looks nonsensical, ugly and smaller than the previous 2 game hubs. Right away, this game gives an impression of being a step back. "

Nonsensical?  Ugly?  Smaller than the previous two?  It looks like it's from another world, and considering it's a space ship, that makes sense.  It's very colorful compared to the castle from 64.  It is also much bigger than the castle as well.

If you think the look and design is that topnotch, I doubt I can point out much to deter you from that thinking. To me, it reminds me of when I was a kid playing with legos and I build a spaceship out of them with all kinds of room and colors. It is more abstract than other hubs that have come before it. Peach's castle in 64 looked like a castle both inside and out. Delfino Plaza looks like a real city. Rosalina's ship reminds me of a circus tent and does not look other worldy nor does it look like a spaceship. Since I do not have my copy of Mario Galaxy to compare, I'm not sure just how big the hub compares to Mario 64 but when I think of flying around outside that castle and zooming down to fly through the moat and go from one end of that space to the other, when I compare that with walking and flying around Rosalina's ship, my memory judges 64 as being bigger but my memory could be at fault. I will also mention that the size and space inside the castle where you can walk up and down all the levels to various rooms and paintings also adds space making the hub world bigger whereas with Galaxy, every dome is just a single room space.

"...blue stars and triangle pieces just came off as tedious after the 4th or 5th time of encountering them and seemed like a cheap way to lengthen a level."

And the red coins in 64 and Sunshine, the 100 coins in 64, and the blue coins in Sunshine didn't feel like a "cheap way to lengthen a level."?

Well, first off, you are comparing coin collecting to something else when Galaxy already has coin collecting itself in it. Most Galaxy's have a 100 purple coin comet star. Did that feel like a cheap way to lengthen a level? If not, why is it different in Galaxy compared to Mario 64 and Sunshine. If it is a cheap way to lengthen a level, than not only does Galaxy do it also, it adds in the constant use of moving along pull stars and collecting star chips and breaking a cage by leading Bullet Bill to it over and over again in levels with no great success of making that item or task more interesting from the last time you did it thereby making Galaxy the worst of the 3 games mentioned.

But I will discuss this point a bit more as it is often used as a counter-argument for why 64 and Sunshine don't compare or are boring. With Super Mario 64, you can pretty much go after every star in a level. There are a few exceptions like Jolly Roger Bay where you need to raise the ship up because having that ship up will allow you to get another star. But I would hazard a guess that 80% of the stars are available for you to get in whatever order you want when you enter any painting. That means that if you want to collect the red coins first in Tick-Tock Clock instead of climbing up to the top for a star there, you can. Now, I didn't really start using the internet and forums to find out what people were saying about games during the time of Mario 64. It was during the GameCube years I started doing that but from school and with people who did play it, I never knew anyone who complained of the red coins in 64. Not to mention, they were all in different spots in a level and had different challenges in collecting them. To me, that is a bogus argument that started around the time of Sunshine when people started to sour on it and it isn't one I buy into. Personally, I have no problem with getting red coins in levels in 64 or Sunshine. I dislike it more in Yoshi's Island games where you have to find all 20 in a level over and over.

Now, with Sunshine, I get why that might be more of a complaint since there are only 6 worlds besides Delfino Plaza (which is really a world of its own) and of those worlds, there are 8 episodes/levels for Shines. Thus, having a level of collecting 8 red coins would seem to diminish the variety of each world. Moreover, in levels that have you enter a secret cave where you play a Galaxy type abstract world to get a shine, if you go back in them for a second shine, the requirement is to get 8 red coins. Having to collect red coins so much isn't that as bad as getting star chips all the time? Clearly some people think so since there has been much complaint on it. I disagree because when it is done in Sunshine, the game has set them up as a challenge. A world in Sunshine is constantly changing. They way it begins in the first episode/level is not the way it will be in the last episode/level. Because of this, when there is a red coin Shine, the level will have its own challenge and uniqueness compared to another world or level. It will have require different platforming skills to accomplish. Even the secret levels are different. The first time you play it, you do not have your Fludd device. The second time, you do. Despite the greater mobility it gives you, you'd think it would be easier to play those stages but the developers place the coins in such a way that is just as challenging if not more so than the first time you played that level. That's the difference. It keeps you challenged and engaged by offering this variety in difficult and design in what could be a repetitive task of collecting 8 red coins for a shine many times. What were some of the more challenging moments of collecting Star Chips that stood out for you? What was your top 3 moments that stood out for you in doing it? Which time did you like having Bullet Bill chase you and lead him into a cage more? Was it in the first level for Battlerock Galaxy or was it in Buoy Base Galaxy where you had the underwater version (Torpedo Ted) chase to a cage to break?

As mentioned, Galaxy has 100 coin challenges so that is a wash unless you are going to somehow defend those as being better than doing it in 64 or Sunshine.

As for the blue coins, as I mentioned before, they encourage exploration of a world. To get Shines is a pretty linear affair. To get blue coins, you have to explore and experiment and be on the lookout for things. I'm going to do a write up on Sunshine once I finish it here again and have it fresh in my mind but one thing I'll mention and will most likely bring up on the write-up is that blue coins are sort of like hint coins in Professor Layton. With Layton, you pretty much have to tap every screen all over to try and find them. Blue coins are a bit like that. The game wants you to spray and test everything in a world to find them all. Because of this, sometimes the coins are easy to spot. Sometimes they are obtuse. Could they have been handled better? Definitely. I may like the game very much but I'm not going to pretend to be blind with some of its faults. Even in my write-up of Galaxy, I did acknowledge that there are things that are fine with the game. Nothing's really perfect. Even Metroid Prime could be improved a bit. I think Blue coin collecting does depend on the temperament of the individual however which may be why it bothers me less.

"But how is it that all the people who moan about having to find 30 Blue coins in a level in Sunshine have no problem with the collectathon of star bits this game requires."

Because the Star Bits are literally handed out to you.  The 30 Blue coins are not.  Not to mention, you get a 1UP every 50 Star Bits, so it is worth it to collect them.

So, if the blue coins were handed to you, you'd have been happy with that? Having to search and explore in a level is not what you look for in a 3D platformer? Star bits are not exactly handed to you. You still have to work a bit for them. But because they are so plentiful, the game then requires you to use plenty for hungry lumas. Moreover, if the game is going to just hand them to you, why bother with them at all? Why not just add those single star galaxies into the other galaxies then? Why not come up with a different way of unlocking or exploring them? Super Mario 64 just had all paintings and worlds pretty much available with only a couple requiring to be unlocked a certain way. Sunshine uses upgrades to FLUDD and Yoshi as ways to get to new little levels and find new Shines as well as platforming challenges. Collecting star bits? Meh. It just is another way to bog down the game. In the comet challenges where you have to beat a level in a certain amount of time, how much do you bother with them then? When you start flying through the level and don't bother with them, you realize how much they slow you down. Examing every little planet and collecting all the little star bits and moving on to the next and doing that again and again, the fun of finding star bits soon runs out of appeal and it just becomes an automatic thing you do and stops engaging me as a player.

"The name though could be used to describe the whole game. It's funny 'cause it's true!"

Except it's not true.

Oh.

"Pull star minefield! Not really challenging, not really fun!"

Challenge=\=Fun.  Just because a game is easy, doesn't mean it's not fun.  As someone who likes Kirby's Epic Yarn, you should know this.

Exactly. So then, I guess that just further makes me an expert if I can say it isn't fun even with the absence of any challenge.

"Oh goodness! Who likes this level? Who?! Identify yourself if you do so you can be publicly shamed for having poor taste. I’ve yet to hear anyone bring it up in civilized conversation about this games "great" qualities because I think (and would hope) that even fans of this game recognize this task/idea was a flaming turd. So, so, so moving on."

I will give you this, the Garbage Dump stars suck.  I wouldn't mind them if they didn't have the pointless time limit.

Whew. Thank you for that. I'm still worried someone is going to try and defend those stages as being great. It lets me know that you can be reasonable.

Galaxy is a fantastic game because it does so much with the series that hasn't been done before.  The gravity effect alone is amazing.  Exploring all the different galaxies is a ton of fun because of all the different ways the developers gave you to do so.  Blasting off from a launch star and flying through the cosmos is so satisfying.  Navigating through a pull star obstacle course is really fun.  All the new power ups (with the exception of the spring shroom.  **** that) are so much fun to use.  The Bowser battles have never been more epic.

Ok, now this I find interesting. This is the type of statement that most people seem to make about this game and as such I want to take a moment to address a bit of it. Now you start off by saying that the game does so many new and original things with the series that hasn't been done before. This is a statement that I really disagree with. I felt I showed how this game does a lot of the same things over in previous Mario games. It just disguises the fact by putting them in a new skin. It isn't all derivative. There most definitely are some new elements not found in other Mario games. But they either aren't utilized to great effect or are just not that compelling for me to weigh this game on the positive side of the enjoyment scale. But maybe I'm missing something. Would you like to do a top ten for me of specific new things you encountered in this game that you thought elevated it so much?

As for the gravity effect, it was definitely cool the first time I played it. But then it became business as usual. And sometimes it threw me off because you couldn't always walk all over every floating 3D object. Sometime, there was no gravity to hold you underneath and you fell to your doom like a regular platformer. Also, did you ever have any problems when trying to get Mario to walk underneath a planet or platform and then he'd turn around and go back up on you because the direction changed when he went underneath. I'm thinking right away of the 5 saucers that start out in Battlerock Galaxy. I'd have it happen a bunch of times where he change direction on me as the game when I wanted him going up or down. That stuff bugged me and would sometimes lead to hits on my health counter if enemies were around or if I was trying to jump on an enemy and miss because of it.

"Exploring all the different galaxies is a ton of fun because of all the different ways the developers gave you to do so."

This is too much of a generic statement to have any impact nor does it make a case for you. I can say that exploring all the worlds in Sunshine is a ton of fun because of all the different objectives the developers give you to do. If you don't like Sunshine, you'll disagree with that statement. Likewise, since I don't like Galaxy, I disagree with that statement. Saying it doesn't make it so. What's the evidence?

"Blasting off from a launch star and flying through the cosmos is so satisfying." Clearly you like the aesthetic and layout of the game and find it charming. I'm happy for you. Same reason why I like Kirby games or certain movies that others may not. It appeals to your sensibilities and that is a person's own emotional response so nothing I'm going to argue with. For me, launching from a sling star and flying to the next part of a level was no different than entering a pipe in a 2D game and waiting for the screen to change when you exit the pipe and continue on the adventure. I just don't have the emotional response to that action like you do.

"Navigating through a pull star obstacle course is really fun." Again, I said that doing this isn't fun. I doubt I'd convince you otherwise but at least I tried to give some reasons why. Why is it fun and I'm wrong?

"All the new power ups (with the exception of the spring shroom.  **** that) are so much fun to use." I didn't even get to the spring shroom in my complaints but at least we were in agreement there so it didn't matter. As for the other power ups, here's a quick breakdown:

Fire Flower - Not a new power-up but first time done in a 3D space. Are you really going to make a case for this being so much fun and new?

Red Star - This is the same as the Wing Cap in Mario 64 really.

Rainbow Star - Invincibilty which is the same as other Mario Games.

Spring Shroom - We both dislike it.

Bee Mario - As I mentioned in my analysis, this is a lot like the hover function of FLUDD in Sunshine. You can hover for a limited amount of time with it and gain a bit of height. You can even use it to walk and stand on clouds in just like FLUDD in Sunshine. However, Galaxy lets you also use it for a couple other things like standing on flowers or climbing a honeycomb wall.

Boo Mario - It's like a more advanced Vanish Cap from Super Mario 64. You could go through some fences and walls. This time, you transform into a Boo to do that and can float in the air a bit.

Ice Flower - You can freeze water or flames and walk/skate on them. Surprisingly, I can't think of any Mario game that does something like that but I'd hardly call it the most fun. I hated having to make some triple jumps with it in FreezeFlame Galaxy.

"The Bowser battles have never been more epic." It reminded me a lot of Super Mario 64's Bowser battles. Personally, I thought the Bowser battle at the end of New Super Mario Bros. Wii was the best Bowser battle I'd played in a Mario game since Mario 64. I even mention so in my review of the game on my Backloggery account. I think it is the music that makes it seem better than it is in Galaxy. I think that might be a big reason why people love Galaxy so much. I think music is a bigger factor than people realize. I like some movies that are probably sub-average just because of the music in them. Bond movies are a good example of this. I must say, the music in Galaxy is one of its greatest strengths.

It seems like you were looking for reasons to hate it the second time around.  With all due respect, you sir, are a dumbass.

Not at all. As I explained, I soured on it the first time and hoped the second time would be better. I wanted to like the game and when I realized I just didn't like it, I started asking myself why and that's when I started making a list of all the things, big and small, that just didn't work and I found myself disliking.

And respect means you do not purposefully insult a person. That's just Ricky Bobby levels of intelligence.

Ricky: “With all due respect, Mr. Dennit, I had no idea you’d gotten experimental surgery to have your balls removed.”

Dennit: “What did you just say to me?”

Ricky: “What? I said with all due respect!”

Dennit: “Just because you say that doesn’t mean you get to say whatever you want to say to me!”

Ricky: “It sure as hell does!”

Dennit: “No, it doesn’t–”

Ricky: “It’s in the Geneva Conventions, look it up!”

For Ricky Bobby and PSap29, “with all due respect” is a free pass to not actually extend any respect at all.



Game, set and match.

[Phil]

I'm very impressed with your write-up, Khushrenada. While I don't agree with most of your points, I very much respect how detailed your explanations for not enjoying Super Mario Galaxy are.

I'd like to talk about Super Mario Sunshine, though. I've broached enough about my love for the Galaxy games, so that's old news. Anyway, I find Super Mario Sunshine to be the one of the poorest mainline Mario games. I remember loving it when it originally came out, and back in that day I was much more patient with games. However, Super Mario Sunshine really possesses some of the most frustrating and/or poorly designed areas in a Mario game. I'm referring to the backside of Pinna Park's Ferris wheel, the Pachinko board, the river of death that you must pilot a lily pad across (or carefully use the hover pack of the FLUDD to "cheat" -- though that is still difficult), the Pianta-chucking bonus area, etc. Then there's the blue coins, which just pad the game, in my opinion, and some of which have insanely obtuse locations. I would have loved to have seen another level instead of a lot of the blue coins.

Speaking of levels, the diversity isn't Super Mario Sunshine's strong suit. As Mop it up mentioned, too many stages are based on the tropics, obviously because the same is set on an island, and while the attempts to distinguish each level from the others is admirable, there's simply only so much one can do with that setting.

Plus, Super Mario Sunshine has the most boring Bowser battle in a 3D Mario to me.

...I don't really have a conclusion to this post.

[NWR_insanolord]

No matter how blatantly and absolutely wrong Khush is on this topic, please refrain from personal insults on these forums.

[Phil]

*removes secret code from post insulting Krush (lol "Krush")*

[Khushrenada]

Do you plan on trying NSMB/L U or 3D World anytime soon to compare them?

I would like to. I knew I should have waited in buying a Wii U because a few months after I bought it, Nintendo released the NSMB U bundle and it was marked down to the price I bought my Deluxe bundle. I'd have preferred to get NSMB U over Nintendo Land since that is a more pricy game and NintendoLand is already seeing it's price value drop. Plus, after the positive experience of NSMB Wii and hearing how NSMB U is regarded as the best of the NSMB franchise, it's really peaked my interest.

The problem is, I try to be frugal in my game purchases meaning I try to buy them at low prices. Currently, I do not see any sign of the price for either of those games dropping. I was able to get Pikmin 3 brand new for 25 dollars though. That was an awesome deal. But it was so good that it is the price I'd want to pay for any other Wii U game so it could be awhile. Right now 3DS games are what I'm purchasing more and trying to keep up with. Believe it or not, I'm actually closer to playing Galaxy 2 for reasons that I already own it and have been playing through my Wii backlog. I've just beat Donkey Kong Country Returns and am halfway through Kirby's 20th anniversary collection. That makes Galaxy 2 one of the few top-rated games for the system I have yet to play.

In the end, I'll probably just get back into Animal Crossing: New Leaf with the month off I've had on it well spent playing other things. Games Galore!

[Stratos]

I get the price hunting. I have yet to pay full price for anything Wii U related aside from the system bundle. I'm sure it will all come down son enough. Only game I plan on buying full price anytime soon is Mario Kart 8 because I am sure that will be full price for a long time.


I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on Galaxy 2. I found that, while a number of the new mechanics like the power ups and Yoshi were great, I preferred Galaxy 1 overall. I liked the presentation, the added element of the Rosalina storybook and the hub. I did not like having a 'classic' Mario Bros overworld map in 2. I feel those are for 2D Marios and the hub should be for 3D Marios. I loved wandering around and exploring Peach's Castle and Delphino Plaza in 64 & Sunshine and I enjoyed the similar (although smaller) hub choice of Galaxy. I wish it was a larger hub in fact. I'd like a Mario Game with a hub-world the size of Banjo-Tooie's.

[Khushrenada]

Oh, another vote that the hub world is smaller. Careful, that's fighting words for some. But, despite your disregard for SPOILERS (it's fine actually), I am curious about Galaxy 2 using an overworld map and that looks like and works. Yes, an overworld map makes me excited about a game. It makes me wonder what other kinds of differences there are and now I am getting intrigued about playing it.

Back to Phil for a moment:

"I'm referring to the backside of Pinna Park's Ferris wheel, the Pachinko board, the river of death that you must pilot a lily pad across (or carefully use the hover pack of the FLUDD to "cheat" -- though that is still difficult), the Pianta-chucking bonus area, etc."

I have played the Pachinko board yet, I try and compartmentalize with Sunshine so that I don't forget anything. As such, I've tried to get very little shines/coins from the Delfino Plaza to make sure I don't miss anything. But I do remember that area very well compared to some other special areas. The question is because I also struggled with it or just found it very interesting. I guess I'll know when I play it.

As for the river of death, that one threw me for a moment and then I realized you must be refering to the first world of Bianca Hills where the pond area water turns into slime and you have to go into the cave at the far end. When I played that level, I just went along the path to the big Windmill, went behind the windmill and then jumped over and hovered into the cave. It took me no time at all and I never thought about using a lily pad. I'm not saying ths to brag or ridicule, I just find it funny how I had a totally different idea and method to get to that spot and never thought anything of it.

I can't think of what you mean by the Pianta chucking bonus area though and I've finished up the first 4 worlds. Maybe this a Delfino Plaza thing but nothing is ringing a bell for me on it right now.

Anyways, I'm definitely doing a write-up of Sunshine when I finish. There's so many things I want to talk about and mention that are occuring to me when I play this. However, I may have mentioned a lot of them already. Still, I'll put all of them into one easy to access place.

No matter how blatantly and absolutely wrong Khush is on this topic

And every other topic. Wait, what?

[Phil]

"As for the river of death, that one threw me for a moment and then I realized you must be refering to the first world of Bianca Hills where the pond area water turns into slime and you have to go into the cave at the far end."

No, the one I'm talking about is the bonus area that you enter via taking Yoshi on several boats in Delfino Plaza to reach an island with a pipe that needs to be sprayed with Yoshi goo to enter.

This fella makes it look easy!
http://youtu.be/ARKLb6PLJWc

Edit: This is the Pianta one I'm referring to.
http://youtu.be/J83eYtsK_Pg

[Ian Sane]

Since for the most part Galaxy and Sunshine are both great games I'll just share what I don't like about them.

Sunshine:
-I don't like FLUDD.  Obviously this was the big new idea that was supposed to make this Mario stand out but I didn't like having level design that relied on the water pack and I didn't like cleaning up paint.
-The tropical theme makes the whole game feel a little too similar.  I prefer having multiple themed worlds.  I think this was more of an annoyance at the time because the Gamecube finally had graphics that could do these different locales justice and it felt like Nintendo was depriving us by sticking to one theme.  Now I've seen enough ice and volcano worlds in Gamecube level graphics I probably wouldn't care as much.
-Something is seriously up with this game's camera.  I have never gotten killed so much in a Nintendo platformer from the camera just wildly deciding to re-orient itself on me.  This is probably the reason Nintendo ditched the camera in Galaxy.
-Let's bring back Yoshi but make him dissolve in water instantly in a game where water is absolutely everywhere.

Galaxy:
-It's a more linear game and it all depends if that is what you want.  At times I didn't like levels where it was all tiny little planets and wanted something more solid.  I think Galaxy 2 does that WAY better but the two games are so similar I tend to view them as one big work and often can't remember which game certain levels are in.
-Stupid waggle controls and they're at their worst when you have to ride some stingray or bird.  Those levels I consider to be unplayable and I've never completed them.  This is Mario Galaxy's greatest flaw and the element that will age the poorest.
-The starbits are stupid and useless and that whole concept comes across as Nintendo trying to justify the Wii controller by shoehorning in some pointer usage.  At least this doesn't really negatively affect the basic controls, it's just a dumb feature.

Personally I just think that Sunshine's flaws infect the game more.  If Galaxy had normal controls I probably would have no beef with it at all.  The old Mario games were largely linear obstacle courses that focus on jumping and I think Galaxy probably feels more like traditional Mario in a way that 64 and Sunshine did not.

What is a little annoying is that Mario 64, Mario Galaxy and Mario 3D Land approaches are all valid for 3D Mario and yet Nintendo seems to see them as replacements.  Once Galaxy showed up we no longer got anything like Mario 64 and since 3D Land showed up we haven't seen anything like Galaxy.  Is there a reason it has to be all or nothing?  Or why not make a game that had levels of all three styles?

Oh and the Super Mario Galaxy games' sidescrolling levels own the **** out the NSMB games.  Nintendo is clearly intentionally holding back with NSMB to attract a wider audience.

[PSap29]

Yes. I still might go through every galaxy and a few other elements. Don't tempt me.

People like you, who nitpick everything to death, can't be taken seriously.  Nitpicking is the worst form of criticism.

It isn't always just simple flicks of the wrist.

Except in Galaxy, it is, with the two exceptions of the Stingray and the Ball.  The Stingray controls are a little iffy, but I felt like that was more because of the water than the controls themselves.  As for the ball, the only thing I didn't like about that was that it was hard to slow down if you were going too fast.  Other than those two exceptions, it's all just simple flicks of the wrist.

It is more abstract than other hubs that have come before it.

So what?

With Super Mario 64, you can pretty much go after every star in a level.

Often times in Galaxy, you have a choice between getting two stars.  You can continue on through the level to get the star you selected or you can explore a little to get a secret star.

As mentioned, Galaxy has 100 coin challenges so that is a wash unless you are going to somehow defend those as being better than doing it in 64 or Sunshine.

In 64, the 100 coin challenges are a pain in the ass.  I can't tell you how many levels I had to painstakingly scour to get the last few coins for those stars.  In Galaxy, the challenge is still there, but there's never the problem from 64.  The purple coins are often grouped together or, in the case of some of the timed ones, laid out in a path.

Exactly. So then, I guess that just further makes me an expert if I can say it isn't fun even with the absence of any challenge.

You're missing the point entirely.  In your initial "review" (and I use that term extremely lightly), you said that it wasn't fun because it wasn't challenging.  Like I said in my first response, challenge=\=fun.  Just because a game is easy, doesn't mean it isn't fun.  Likewise, just because a game is hard, doesn't mean it's fun.

Would you like to do a top ten for me of specific new things you encountered in this game that you thought elevated it so much?

Sure.  In no particular order:

1. Bee Suit-The Bee Suit is a ton of fun to use.  Flying around is awesome.  I also love crawling around on the honeycombs and not being slowed down by blobs of honey.  There really hadn't been a power up like it in the series until this point.

2. Starbits-I like these because they are the key to the vast majority of the game's secrets.  I also like being able to collect a ton of them in earlier levels when I'm short on lives.  They are also fun to throw at enemies.

3. Boo Mario-This isn't just an enhanced invisibility cap.  Yes, you can float through walls and turn invisible, but you can do more than that.  You can fly around, talk to Boos, and even scare the crap out of Luigi.

4. Spin Jump-I like this because it is not only fun to use, but can come in very handy if you undershoot or overshoot a jump.  It can also power up your ground pound, sending out a shockwave to stun enemies.

5. Gravity-I love this mechanic because of the unique situations it brings about.  From running around spherical planetoids to running upside down, it's always a ton of fun to mess with.  I also love how the 2D sections used it, forcing you to switch the direction it pulls you or having to jump from one gravity field to another.

6. Characters-I love the Rosalina and the Lumas.  They give the game so much personality.  Not to mention Rosalina is so awesome, she's a playable character in the next Smash Bros. when she easily could have just been an alternate costume for Peach.

7. Star Launchers- I love how satisfying it feels to blast from planet to planet.  I also love it when things happen around you as your are in mid-flight, like crashing through a crystal to create a bunch of star bits surrounding you.

8. Green Stars-while stars unlocking levels is nothing new, the way it's done in Galaxy is.  When you collect the three Green Stars, three bonus levels are unlocked.  In previous games, stars never unlocked secrets like this.  They were just progression.

That's all I got right now.  I haven't played Galaxy in a long time, due to life and other games getting in the way.

This is too much of a generic statement to have any impact nor does it make a case for you.

The different ways to explore the levels include Star Launchers, Pull Stars, feeding Lumas, and level-specific things such as Slingpods.  There never was this much variety in the way you could explore levels in the previous games other than using power-ups.  When you blast off from a Star Launcher, you don't really have any idea what the next planet could be.  Whereas in 64, you could pretty much see the whole level the moment you entered it, so you knew exactly what to expect.

Again, I said that doing this isn't fun. I doubt I'd convince you otherwise but at least I tried to give some reasons why. Why is it fun and I'm wrong?

The fun from the pull star obstacle courses comes from the challenge.  Sometimes, you have to time your pulls between fireballs.  Other times, you have to let go of a pull star and let gravity pull you in line with the next one.  Still other times, there are certain challenges that you have a limited time to complete, which forces you to navigate the pull stars more frantically than you normally would.  In one instance, you have to use pull stars to race a Boo.  You are forced to quickly pull yourself from star to star while avoiding obstacles.  Yes, there are times where they feel pointless, but those are few and far between.

Personally, I thought the Bowser battle at the end of New Super Mario Bros. Wii was the best Bowser battle I'd played in a Mario game since Mario 64. I even mention so in my review of the game on my Backloggery account. I think it is the music that makes it seem better than it is in Galaxy

Except the final "battle" in NSMB Wii can barely be considered a battle as you spend most of the time running away from Bowser.  In Galaxy, it's straight up you/Mario vs. Bowser.  The music just adds to the epicness that is already there.

Game, set, and match.

[Khushrenada]

Yes. I still might go through every galaxy and a few other elements. Don't tempt me.

People like you, who nitpick everything to death, can't be taken seriously.  Nitpicking is the worst form of criticism.

What do you mean by "people like you"? That sounds like criticism rascism.

You're a bit new on these boards or at least I hadn't really noticed you yet until you engaged me. Welcome to the NWR forums by the way. I hope you stick around and join in being an active member of the community. The more people willing to input their views the better the discussions and topics can be. Being that you are a bit new, I'm not sure how familiar you actually are with me or any of my posts. I don't nitpick things that often. I made an exception in this case for a couple reasons. 1. So many people have posted about how this is a near perfect game and will only speak in generalities when describing why so I wanted to get into plenty of specifics of things that did not work for me and see whether it might make a change in people's view of the game. 2. When I played through the game as both Mario and Luigi, it brought all these complaints to mind. Everything I've been posting and talking about are actual complaints I formed in my mind as I played it and have posted them. 3. What would be the best way to explain what I like and dislike about a game? I thought I'd try this method and I'm not entirely dissatisfied with it.

I know it's true that if you are upset with or dislike something, you can be more apt and prone to look for any faults and things to complain about. Maybe I am guilty of this too but I'm giving my honest thoughts on it all. If you don't like it, that's ok. But other posters have mentioned that it was informative so it clearly isn't worth dismissing.

It isn't always just simple flicks of the wrist.

Except in Galaxy, it is, with the two exceptions of the Stingray and the Ball.  The Stingray controls are a little iffy, but I felt like that was more because of the water than the controls themselves.  As for the ball, the only thing I didn't like about that was that it was hard to slow down if you were going too fast.  Other than those two exceptions, it's all just simple flicks of the wrist.

This insistance that motion controls only consist of simple flicks of the wrist isn't doing you any favors. There are levels wher you have to guide Mario in a bubble. That is more than wrist flicks. Collecting star bits. Some of that is waving the controller around at the screen in the hopes of nabbing them and some of that is you deliberatly moving and pointing the controller at the screen for those star bits. The Pull Stars require you to move the pointer to them and press a button to pull Mario over. Sling pods require you to pull back with the motion controls and use them to aim. You click and point at menus or use the Wii remote to aim and shoot star bits at enemies. The only time you are really making quick wrist flicks is to activate the spin jump.

Now I'm not saying that all of that is broken controls or that you have to wave wildly at the screen to accomplish them but I'm just pointing out there is more involvement to the motion controls than a quick circle shake. Something else to remember with motion controls. They are always on. So, I've had misjumps from moving the controller in my hands or setting it down to wipe a sweaty palm and picking it back up. Sometimes, I didn't shake it hard enough. Even something as simple as using the red star in the hub world. I'd jump with Mario and then shake the controller and he fall back down to the ground. I hadn't shaken the controller hard enough I guess or maybe in time soon enough. That is another issue with motion control. A button press will be faster than performing a physical action.

As mentioned, I've been playing Sunshine and sometimes I have made a misjump or was moving too fast with Mario and he did a backwards flip on me. I love being able to slam down the R button instantly and have the FLUDD hover function come on. I've been able to recover many times from that. I'm very certain I'd fare much worse if I had to shake the controller to activate it since you have a very short amount of time to react when that happens. Now, if motion controls worked perfectly for you and you had no errors or problems with using them and you never questioned or wondered if maybe certain features would have worked better with buttons instead, then you'll never see my point of view just like I couldn't see yours. Having experienced examples of this, I am unable to believe any statement that they are all fine and issue free when I clearly know they are not from my using them.

It is more abstract than other hubs that have come before it.

So what?

So, that was a part of the answer in what I meant by it being nonsensical and ugly when you questioned me on that. I believe that paragraph you pulled that sentence from further explains why I didn't care for the abstractness. Again, if you think Rosalina's Spaceship is the pinnacle of a 3D Hub Overworld, then I doubt you'll ever see my point of view on it. I am curious though how other people reading this might rank the hub worlds of 64, Sunshine and Galaxy. Am I truly alone in feeling it is the weakest of the three?

With Super Mario 64, you can pretty much go after every star in a level.

Often times in Galaxy, you have a choice between getting two stars.  You can continue on through the level to get the star you selected or you can explore a little to get a secret star.

Ummm, are you sure you want to stick with that statement? Because the free choice in 64 doesn't compare with Galaxy. Sunshine is more comparable to and almost like the way collecting stars is done in Galaxy.

As mentioned, Galaxy has 100 coin challenges so that is a wash unless you are going to somehow defend those as being better than doing it in 64 or Sunshine.

In 64, the 100 coin challenges are a pain in the ass.  I can't tell you how many levels I had to painstakingly scour to get the last few coins for those stars.  In Galaxy, the challenge is still there, but there's never the problem from 64.  The purple coins are often grouped together or, in the case of some of the timed ones, laid out in a path.

Ok. I think you might be alone on the assertation that Galaxy made 100 coin collecting better. I certainly didn't look forward to those comet stars and Mop it up has posted earlier in this thread that she found the 100 coin challenges annoying in all 3D games. If your arguement is that at least it is faster to do in Galaxy, either by a timed challenge or having them together in a small grouping, that's true. I'm not sure how much time they saved as there were a couple like the Luigi planet 100 coins in Toy Time Galaxy that took some time playing over and over again to finally beat it. Battlerock Galaxy and Dreadnaught Galaxy had them on a moving path so if you missed one, you'd have to start over. At least in Sunshine and 64, you were always able to go to any part of the level to get coins in case you missed one. Finally, it should be noted that coins you collect in Sunshine and 64 will replenish your health but the purple coins will not in Galaxy. As such, I had to play some of those purple comets over because I died along the way. All in all, 100 coin challenges just aren't that fun in any game. For me, the positive in Sunshine and 64 is that I could usually complete it in one go of a level in a relaxed pace. For Galaxy, a couple of those I had to play over and over and so they were another thing I'd hate to see come up.

Exactly. So then, I guess that just further makes me an expert if I can say it isn't fun even with the absence of any challenge.

You're missing the point entirely.  In your initial "review" (and I use that term extremely lightly), you said that it wasn't fun because it wasn't challenging.  Like I said in my first response, challenge=\=fun.  Just because a game is easy, doesn't mean it isn't fun.  Likewise, just because a game is hard, doesn't mean it's fun.

I got your point. I was just misapplying your words for my amusement. I'm fun like that. Still, I will clarify something. I was not implying that challenging only equals fun. I was merely stating that it was neither challenging nor was it fun. What that was meant to imply is that it was another non-memorable use of pull stars and just something to be done to keep moving on. It if it was challenging or fun, than that portion of the level may have been memorable and stood out in my mind.

Would you like to do a top ten for me of specific new things you encountered in this game that you thought elevated it so much?

Sure.  In no particular order:

1. Bee Suit-The Bee Suit is a ton of fun to use.  Flying around is awesome.  I also love crawling around on the honeycombs and not being slowed down by blobs of honey.  There really hadn't been a power up like it in the series until this point.

2. Starbits-I like these because they are the key to the vast majority of the game's secrets.  I also like being able to collect a ton of them in earlier levels when I'm short on lives.  They are also fun to throw at enemies.

3. Boo Mario-This isn't just an enhanced invisibility cap.  Yes, you can float through walls and turn invisible, but you can do more than that.  You can fly around, talk to Boos, and even scare the crap out of Luigi.

4. Spin Jump-I like this because it is not only fun to use, but can come in very handy if you undershoot or overshoot a jump.  It can also power up your ground pound, sending out a shockwave to stun enemies.

5. Gravity-I love this mechanic because of the unique situations it brings about.  From running around spherical planetoids to running upside down, it's always a ton of fun to mess with.  I also love how the 2D sections used it, forcing you to switch the direction it pulls you or having to jump from one gravity field to another.

6. Characters-I love the Rosalina and the Lumas.  They give the game so much personality.  Not to mention Rosalina is so awesome, she's a playable character in the next Smash Bros. when she easily could have just been an alternate costume for Peach.

7. Star Launchers- I love how satisfying it feels to blast from planet to planet.  I also love it when things happen around you as your are in mid-flight, like crashing through a crystal to create a bunch of star bits surrounding you.

8. Green Stars-while stars unlocking levels is nothing new, the way it's done in Galaxy is.  When you collect the three Green Stars, three bonus levels are unlocked.  In previous games, stars never unlocked secrets like this.  They were just progression.

That's all I got right now.  I haven't played Galaxy in a long time, due to life and other games getting in the way.

Alright. I'm not going to sift through all that in some kind of mission to destroy your love of the game or tell you you're wrong. I actually find it interesting because it further confirms a sort of hypothesis or idea I have as to why Galaxy is more widely considered great compared to Sunshine. Since I'll get into that in my Sunshine analysis, I'm not going to say much more on the subject at this point so as to spoil that forthcoming project.

This is too much of a generic statement to have any impact nor does it make a case for you.

The different ways to explore the levels include Star Launchers, Pull Stars, feeding Lumas, and level-specific things such as Slingpods.  There never was this much variety in the way you could explore levels in the previous games other than using power-ups.  When you blast off from a Star Launcher, you don't really have any idea what the next planet could be.  Whereas in 64, you could pretty much see the whole level the moment you entered it, so you knew exactly what to expect.

See, that is not what I'd call exploring. If you were to say there's more ways to travel through a level then those examples would make more sense. But you don't really explore with a sling star. You enter it and it automatically shoots you to the next programmed destination. Likewise, most pull stars are made to take you along one path in which you start on one side and end on the other. For me, exploring means getting dropped into the world of Tall Tall Mountain and trying to locate the stars hidden in it. It means being told there are 30 blue coins in a world and I need to search to find them. That's what I consider exploring and consider Galaxy a let down in that department.

Again, I said that doing this isn't fun. I doubt I'd convince you otherwise but at least I tried to give some reasons why. Why is it fun and I'm wrong?

The fun from the pull star obstacle courses comes from the challenge.  Sometimes, you have to time your pulls between fireballs.  Other times, you have to let go of a pull star and let gravity pull you in line with the next one.  Still other times, there are certain challenges that you have a limited time to complete, which forces you to navigate the pull stars more frantically than you normally would.  In one instance, you have to use pull stars to race a Boo.  You are forced to quickly pull yourself from star to star while avoiding obstacles.  Yes, there are times where they feel pointless, but those are few and far between.

A couple things I'll just mention here. 1. You're missing the point entirely.  In your initial "response" (and I use that term extremely lightly), you said that it wasn't fun because it wasn't challenging.  Like I said in my first response, challenge=\=fun.  Just because a game is easy, doesn't mean it isn't fun.  Likewise, just because a game is hard, doesn't mean it's fun. Isn't it always fun when you can use people's own words against them?

2. You did acknowledge that sometimes they feel pointless. Well, for me, that is the feeling I had about using them pretty much all game. Even the examples you mention like racing Boo or collecting 100 purple coins with them, it didn't cause much joy in what must seem like a cold, soulless heart. Still, you clearly liked swinging Mario around with them and gave some examples that this was fun for you. People have different responses to different stimuli and this clearly worked for you and didn't work for me.

Oddly enough, when I think about them now, I suddenly think they are the videogame equivalent of the movie Gravity. What I mean by that is the moments when the astronauts in outer space would grab wildly for something on a space station before their momentum causes them to keep drifting by. The slamming of their bodies as they keep getting pushed in different directions from their momentum while trying to get a handle on something solid to stop it and change direction is a lot like the race with Boo and the Pull Star 100 Purple Coin challenge as Mario flails around. I felt like I was trying to keep grasping on to some point to puuuuulllllll him back and into another direction. And then I'd have to puuuuuullllll him into another way. I disliked fighting that gravity and momentum. It felt like climbing a mountain where I'd have to jam a pick-axe into the side and hoist my body up and then jam a pick-axe into the other side and hoist my body up that way a bit. Back and forth, left and right, lifting, lifting, lifting to the end. That isn't fun. That's work and effort. Now, call it analogy crazy all you want but, in my mind, that's the best illustration I can think of to convey to you of how a lot of the Pull Star sections felt to me.

Personally, I thought the Bowser battle at the end of New Super Mario Bros. Wii was the best Bowser battle I'd played in a Mario game since Mario 64. I even mention so in my review of the game on my Backloggery account. I think it is the music that makes it seem better than it is in Galaxy

Except the final "battle" in NSMB Wii can barely be considered a battle as you spend most of the time running away from Bowser.  In Galaxy, it's straight up you/Mario vs. Bowser.  The music just adds to the epicness that is already there.

See, I liked that the final battle in NSMB Wii was actually more like a platforming challenge or a level. I thought that was rather brilliant and was something new I'd never seen in a Mario game before. I thought the music helped make it a suitable epic clash along with this giant Bowser chasing you and destroying all in his path. The battle in Galaxy might have been more impressive had I not already fought Bowser twice before and defeated him in the same method in all three battles. Plus, it just seemed to be a combination of Mario Bros. 3 and 64 where Bowser tries to jump on you and you move out of the way like in 3 and get behind and attack his tail in 64. All those factors combined undercut the epic quality that battle was probably meant to have.

Game, set, and match.

I knew you'd like that.

[Phil]

Yes. I still might go through every galaxy and a few other elements. Don't tempt me.

People like you, who nitpick everything to death, can't be taken seriously.  Nitpicking is the worst form of criticism.

What do you mean by "people like you"? That sounds like criticism rascism.

You're a bit new on these boards or at least I hadn't really noticed you yet until you engaged me. Welcome to the NWR forums by the way. I hope you stick around and join in being an active member of the community. The more people willing to input their views the better the discussions and topics can be. Being that you are a bit new, I'm not sure how familiar you actually are with me or any of my posts. I don't nitpick things that often. I made an exception in this case for a couple reasons. 1. So many people have posted about how this is a near perfect game and will only speak in generalities when describing why so I wanted to get into plenty of specifics of things that did not work for me and see whether it might make a change in people's view of the game. 2. When I played through the game as both Mario and Luigi, it brought all these complaints to mind. Everything I've been posting and talking about are actual complaints I formed in my mind as I played it and have posted them. 3. What would be the best way to explain what I like and dislike about a game? I thought I'd try this method and I'm not entirely dissatisfied with it.

I know it's true that if you are upset with or dislike something, you can be more apt and prone to look for any faults and things to complain about. Maybe I am guilty of this too but I'm giving my honest thoughts on it all. If you don't like it, that's ok. But other posters have mentioned that it was informative so it clearly isn't worth dismissing.

It isn't always just simple flicks of the wrist.

Except in Galaxy, it is, with the two exceptions of the Stingray and the Ball.  The Stingray controls are a little iffy, but I felt like that was more because of the water than the controls themselves.  As for the ball, the only thing I didn't like about that was that it was hard to slow down if you were going too fast.  Other than those two exceptions, it's all just simple flicks of the wrist.

This insistance that motion controls only consist of simple flicks of the wrist isn't doing you any favors. There are levels wher you have to guide Mario in a bubble. That is more than wrist flicks. Collecting star bits. Some of that is waving the controller around at the screen in the hopes of nabbing them and some of that is you deliberatly moving and pointing the controller at the screen for those star bits. The Pull Stars require you to move the pointer to them and press a button to pull Mario over. Sling pods require you to pull back with the motion controls and use them to aim. You click and point at menus or use the Wii remote to aim and shoot star bits at enemies. The only time you are really making quick wrist flicks is to activate the spin jump.

Now I'm not saying that all of that is broken controls or that you have to wave wildly at the screen to accomplish them but I'm just pointing out there is more involvement to the motion controls than a quick circle shake. Something else to remember with motion controls. They are always on. So, I've had misjumps from moving the controller in my hands or setting it down to wipe a sweaty palm and picking it back up. Sometimes, I didn't shake it hard enough. Even something as simple as using the red star in the hub world. I'd jump with Mario and then shake the controller and he fall back down to the ground. I hadn't shaken the controller hard enough I guess or maybe in time soon enough. That is another issue with motion control. A button press will be faster than performing a physical action.

As mentioned, I've been playing Sunshine and sometimes I have made a misjump or was moving too fast with Mario and he did a backwards flip on me. I love being able to slam down the R button instantly and have the FLUDD hover function come on. I've been able to recover many times from that. I'm very certain I'd fare much worse if I had to shake the controller to activate it since you have a very short amount of time to react when that happens. Now, if motion controls worked perfectly for you and you had no errors or problems with using them and you never questioned or wondered if maybe certain features would have worked better with buttons instead, then you'll never see my point of view just like I couldn't see yours. Having experienced examples of this, I am unable to believe any statement that they are all fine and issue free when I clearly know they are not from my using them.

It is more abstract than other hubs that have come before it.

So what?

So, that was a part of the answer in what I meant by it being nonsensical and ugly when you questioned me on that. I believe that paragraph you pulled that sentence from further explains why I didn't care for the abstractness. Again, if you think Rosalina's Spaceship is the pinnacle of a 3D Hub Overworld, then I doubt you'll ever see my point of view on it. I am curious though how other people reading this might rank the hub worlds of 64, Sunshine and Galaxy. Am I truly alone in feeling it is the weakest of the three?

With Super Mario 64, you can pretty much go after every star in a level.

Often times in Galaxy, you have a choice between getting two stars.  You can continue on through the level to get the star you selected or you can explore a little to get a secret star.

Ummm, are you sure you want to stick with that statement? Because the free choice in 64 doesn't compare with Galaxy. Sunshine is more comparable to and almost like the way collecting stars is done in Galaxy.

As mentioned, Galaxy has 100 coin challenges so that is a wash unless you are going to somehow defend those as being better than doing it in 64 or Sunshine.

In 64, the 100 coin challenges are a pain in the ass.  I can't tell you how many levels I had to painstakingly scour to get the last few coins for those stars.  In Galaxy, the challenge is still there, but there's never the problem from 64.  The purple coins are often grouped together or, in the case of some of the timed ones, laid out in a path.

Ok. I think you might be alone on the assertation that Galaxy made 100 coin collecting better. I certainly didn't look forward to those comet stars and Mop it up has posted earlier in this thread that she found the 100 coin challenges annoying in all 3D games. If your arguement is that at least it is faster to do in Galaxy, either by a timed challenge or having them together in a small grouping, that's true. I'm not sure how much time they saved as there were a couple like the Luigi planet 100 coins in Toy Time Galaxy that took some time playing over and over again to finally beat it. Battlerock Galaxy and Dreadnaught Galaxy had them on a moving path so if you missed one, you'd have to start over. At least in Sunshine and 64, you were always able to go to any part of the level to get coins in case you missed one. Finally, it should be noted that coins you collect in Sunshine and 64 will replenish your health but the purple coins will not in Galaxy. As such, I had to play some of those purple comets over because I died along the way. All in all, 100 coin challenges just aren't that fun in any game. For me, the positive in Sunshine and 64 is that I could usually complete it in one go of a level in a relaxed pace. For Galaxy, a couple of those I had to play over and over and so they were another thing I'd hate to see come up.

Exactly. So then, I guess that just further makes me an expert if I can say it isn't fun even with the absence of any challenge.

You're missing the point entirely.  In your initial "review" (and I use that term extremely lightly), you said that it wasn't fun because it wasn't challenging.  Like I said in my first response, challenge=\=fun.  Just because a game is easy, doesn't mean it isn't fun.  Likewise, just because a game is hard, doesn't mean it's fun.

I got your point. I was just misapplying your words for my amusement. I'm fun like that. Still, I will clarify something. I was not implying that challenging only equals fun. I was merely stating that it was neither challenging nor was it fun. What that was meant to imply is that it was another non-memorable use of pull stars and just something to be done to keep moving on. It if it was challenging or fun, than that portion of the level may have been memorable and stood out in my mind.

Would you like to do a top ten for me of specific new things you encountered in this game that you thought elevated it so much?

Sure.  In no particular order:

1. Bee Suit-The Bee Suit is a ton of fun to use.  Flying around is awesome.  I also love crawling around on the honeycombs and not being slowed down by blobs of honey.  There really hadn't been a power up like it in the series until this point.

2. Starbits-I like these because they are the key to the vast majority of the game's secrets.  I also like being able to collect a ton of them in earlier levels when I'm short on lives.  They are also fun to throw at enemies.

3. Boo Mario-This isn't just an enhanced invisibility cap.  Yes, you can float through walls and turn invisible, but you can do more than that.  You can fly around, talk to Boos, and even scare the crap out of Luigi.

4. Spin Jump-I like this because it is not only fun to use, but can come in very handy if you undershoot or overshoot a jump.  It can also power up your ground pound, sending out a shockwave to stun enemies.

5. Gravity-I love this mechanic because of the unique situations it brings about.  From running around spherical planetoids to running upside down, it's always a ton of fun to mess with.  I also love how the 2D sections used it, forcing you to switch the direction it pulls you or having to jump from one gravity field to another.

6. Characters-I love the Rosalina and the Lumas.  They give the game so much personality.  Not to mention Rosalina is so awesome, she's a playable character in the next Smash Bros. when she easily could have just been an alternate costume for Peach.

7. Star Launchers- I love how satisfying it feels to blast from planet to planet.  I also love it when things happen around you as your are in mid-flight, like crashing through a crystal to create a bunch of star bits surrounding you.

8. Green Stars-while stars unlocking levels is nothing new, the way it's done in Galaxy is.  When you collect the three Green Stars, three bonus levels are unlocked.  In previous games, stars never unlocked secrets like this.  They were just progression.

That's all I got right now.  I haven't played Galaxy in a long time, due to life and other games getting in the way.

Alright. I'm not going to sift through all that in some kind of mission to destroy your love of the game or tell you you're wrong. I actually find it interesting because it further confirms a sort of hypothesis or idea I have as to why Galaxy is more widely considered great compared to Sunshine. Since I'll get into that in my Sunshine analysis, I'm not going to say much more on the subject at this point so as to spoil that forthcoming project.

This is too much of a generic statement to have any impact nor does it make a case for you.

The different ways to explore the levels include Star Launchers, Pull Stars, feeding Lumas, and level-specific things such as Slingpods.  There never was this much variety in the way you could explore levels in the previous games other than using power-ups.  When you blast off from a Star Launcher, you don't really have any idea what the next planet could be.  Whereas in 64, you could pretty much see the whole level the moment you entered it, so you knew exactly what to expect.

See, that is not what I'd call exploring. If you were to say there's more ways to travel through a level then those examples would make more sense. But you don't really explore with a sling star. You enter it and it automatically shoots you to the next programmed destination. Likewise, most pull stars are made to take you along one path in which you start on one side and end on the other. For me, exploring means getting dropped into the world of Tall Tall Mountain and trying to locate the stars hidden in it. It means being told there are 30 blue coins in a world and I need to search to find them. That's what I consider exploring and consider Galaxy a let down in that department.

Again, I said that doing this isn't fun. I doubt I'd convince you otherwise but at least I tried to give some reasons why. Why is it fun and I'm wrong?

The fun from the pull star obstacle courses comes from the challenge.  Sometimes, you have to time your pulls between fireballs.  Other times, you have to let go of a pull star and let gravity pull you in line with the next one.  Still other times, there are certain challenges that you have a limited time to complete, which forces you to navigate the pull stars more frantically than you normally would.  In one instance, you have to use pull stars to race a Boo.  You are forced to quickly pull yourself from star to star while avoiding obstacles.  Yes, there are times where they feel pointless, but those are few and far between.

A couple things I'll just mention here. 1. You're missing the point entirely.  In your initial "response" (and I use that term extremely lightly), you said that it wasn't fun because it wasn't challenging.  Like I said in my first response, challenge=\=fun.  Just because a game is easy, doesn't mean it isn't fun.  Likewise, just because a game is hard, doesn't mean it's fun. Isn't it always fun when you can use people's own words against them?

2. You did acknowledge that sometimes they feel pointless. Well, for me, that is the feeling I had about using them pretty much all game. Even the examples you mention like racing Boo or collecting 100 purple coins with them, it didn't cause much joy in what must seem like a cold, soulless heart. Still, you clearly liked swinging Mario around with them and gave some examples that this was fun for you. People have different responses to different stimuli and this clearly worked for you and didn't work for me.

Oddly enough, when I think about them now, I suddenly think they are the videogame equivalent of the movie Gravity. What I mean by that is the moments when the astronauts in outer space would grab wildly for something on a space station before their momentum causes them to keep drifting by. The slamming of their bodies as they keep getting pushed in different directions from their momentum while trying to get a handle on something solid to stop it and change direction is a lot like the race with Boo and the Pull Star 100 Purple Coin challenge as Mario flails around. I felt like I was trying to keep grasping on to some point to puuuuulllllll him back and into another direction. And then I'd have to puuuuuullllll him into another way. I disliked fighting that gravity and momentum. It felt like climbing a mountain where I'd have to jam a pick-axe into the side and hoist my body up and then jam a pick-axe into the other side and hoist my body up that way a bit. Back and forth, left and right, lifting, lifting, lifting to the end. That isn't fun. That's work and effort. Now, call it analogy crazy all you want but, in my mind, that's the best illustration I can think of to convey to you of how a lot of the Pull Star sections felt to me.

Personally, I thought the Bowser battle at the end of New Super Mario Bros. Wii was the best Bowser battle I'd played in a Mario game since Mario 64. I even mention so in my review of the game on my Backloggery account. I think it is the music that makes it seem better than it is in Galaxy

Except the final "battle" in NSMB Wii can barely be considered a battle as you spend most of the time running away from Bowser.  In Galaxy, it's straight up you/Mario vs. Bowser.  The music just adds to the epicness that is already there.

See, I liked that the final battle in NSMB Wii was actually more like a platforming challenge or a level. I thought that was rather brilliant and was something new I'd never seen in a Mario game before. I thought the music helped make it a suitable epic clash along with this giant Bowser chasing you and destroying all in his path. The battle in Galaxy might have been more impressive had I not already fought Bowser twice before and defeated him in the same method in all three battles. Plus, it just seemed to be a combination of Mario Bros. 3 and 64 where Bowser tries to jump on you and you move out of the way like in 3 and get behind and attack his tail in 64. All those factors combined undercut the epic quality that battle was probably meant to have.

Game, set, and match.

I knew you'd like that.

So what?

[Khushrenada]

Sooooo, I don't know. Stuff?

[Phil]

I should have put "Okay" instead. That would have been funnier to me. 

[Mop it up]

I guess maybe I should have also insulted Khushrenada to get a response...

The problem is, I try to be frugal in my game purchases meaning I try to buy them at low prices. Currently, I do not see any sign of the price for either of those games dropping.

Do you ever visit Cheapassgamer.com? I try to check there every day, it has a good community who tend to post every deal that happens. I've discovered some good deals through there, including New Super Luigi U for $15. I have also seen them post about NSMBU being $30 at times, and I think SM3DW has even been $30 at one point. So it's a good place to go to check deals, even if it is a little messy.

No, the one I'm talking about is the bonus area that you enter via taking Yoshi on several boats in Delfino Plaza to reach an island with a pipe that needs to be sprayed with Yoshi goo to enter.

Oh man, that is one thing I do remember from the game, and it is one of the most miserable experiences I have ever had with any videogame. And I've played Superman 64.

Speaking of, what in the world did they do with Yoshi in Super Mario Sunshine? Why is he vomiting everywhere?! That's just disgusting.

[Phil]

Call him Krush intentionally. He hates that.

[Khushrenada]

I guess maybe I should have also insulted Khushrenada to get a response...

I'm sorry. Who are you again? You're saying we've met before?

If you read through my walls of text, I did reference your post in another block of text somewhere. I never fully responded to your post since there wasn't much I felt the need to respond to. You offered your take on things, I understood it another really needed a further counterpoint from me. But quickly to rehash:

- You don't like coin collecting
- You prefer the spin method of Galaxy but a button press would be better in both games
- The names of Sunshine worlds didn't register with you like I thought they might
- Because of coin collecting, you lean towards Galaxy as being better and are willing to 100% complete that than Sunshine.
- You felt my description of going through a level was too subjective and could be changed to reflect something else. A point I made with PSap29. Of all the things I'd want to address, it is this point. As I mentioned after the first 6 levels, I didn't want to do a vague complaining walkthrough of the game. Rather my intention was just to convey some of the thoughts and feelings I had while playing through the levels especially by the time I played it through with Luigi. To be sure, someone who loved the game would probably write their description in a positive light compared to mine. I wasn't using that as my definitive proof or total argument although it would lead to other points which I'd pause and make. It was just to give a glimpse of how I saw the game through my eyes.

Do you ever visit Cheapassgamer.com?

I've known about it for a long time. Unclebob one time posted about a deal mentioned on it in the Gamecube days but I haven't visited in years. I suppose it might be a good thing to do but I never cared for the look and layout to try and be a regular.

Speaking of, what in the world did they do with Yoshi in Super Mario Sunshine? Why is he vomiting everywhere?! That's just disgusting.

Yes, it is odd.