It’s a good testament to a game when it’s fun right up to the very last star, when getting every star is fun and fulfilling rather than simply an exercise in obsessive collecting and completionism. I have to agree with what I’ve heard others say though that while I like the star challenge nature of the game for it’s pick up and play ease — the game would have a much more epic feel if it were a seamless linear adventure. At times, the extreme randomness and disconnect between the levels works against it just a bit, but that’s just the nature of modern Mario games.
I’m still not one to replay games very often though, and looking at Luigi he just doesn’t seem different enough for me to want to go for another play through. It’s great for the people who do want to go through it again, but I’m rather satisfied after the first 120 run. As far as overall thoughts go, I can only echo what others have said about the sheer mind-bending awesomeness of gravity defying platforming. What I find particularly impressive is that often times when you’re flying between planets in a level, entire stages can often be seen just floating around in the background — just because they can.
Unsurprisingly, Mario Galaxy is easily the game that most defines the Wii so far. It doesn’t make nearly as much use of the controls as it could since there’s little here that couldn’t be done with a Gamecube controller, but frankly I don’t think Nintendo really knows what they want to do with the Wiimote most of the time. I still enjoy games that control primarily in old school methods, but I wish Nintendo would make up their minds on how they want to use their new control methods apart from just mini-games.
