Mario Galaxy Review

An in-depth review of Super Mario Galaxy for the Wii, the third in a series of reviews I'm doing on the Mario games. Galaxy runs at a higher framerate than the previous games so I recommend watching in 720p60fps for a better experience.

[GeekCritique]

23:44 - "Compared to the hovering ability of Sunshine, it feels considerably less fluid. *Insert laugh track*"

[TheDominitri]

"I'd say that deserves a gold star"
. . . 
. . .
. . .
. . .
"Anyway"

[authentic]

6:05 About the "visual feedback" on the ball's movement: there is actually immediate visual feedback, but a lot of players don't see it the first time playing. There's a thin gold ring surrounding the ball that shows the game's interpretation of the wiimote's orientation.

Of course, since players don't see this, it's still a problem. But I found the levels much more enjoyable after seeing that ring.

[Antiformed]

The Storybook was optional because Koizumi, one of Nintendo's best writers, was trying to sneak Rosie's backstory past Miyamoto, who was vehemently against using anymore serious plot elements in Mario games. When he found out about the storybook, he was apparently furious; during interviews regarding Galaxy 2, Miyamoto proudly declared that he had "successfully convinced" Koizumi to see things his way, resulting in G2 having basically no plot.

[FemtoFantasy]

You are the best video game reviewer on Youtube, hands down.

[Wyatt_James]

I'm surprised you didn't mention the stage where you get the choice between the bee mushroom and the boo mushroom. This one gives you a choice early in the level and you then get to complete the level in a different way depending on your choice. I wish this would have been used more times in the game, but it's cool that it's there.

[DrMcFly]

Some stray observations:

1) I don't agree with the "hub" argument. As I see it, the hub in SMG serves not only as a "safe" place to familiarize yourself with the controls, but also a point of rest from all the curvey gravity stuff.

2) Constant tutorializing is frustrating, agreed. My guess is it was mandated because of Wii target demographic at the time, which was "everyone".

3) One major design flaw with SMG that went unmentioned is how unforgiving it was to the newcomers. The actual "tutorial" first involves catching three rabbits, not the most fun you can have with SMG even if it does teach you basic controls and layout of the game levels, then navigating a small planet with bottomless pits, meteors and goombas, then a few more filler planets with finally a planet where you have to navigate the interior and turn on all the switches while avoiding goombas and electrified platforms. And all that with 4 lives. Now a seasoned gamer will breeze through this without problems, but someone not yet got used to the controls will fail.. only to be brought back at the very beginning, cutscene and rabbit hunt included. What's even weirder, later in the game there are very few instances where you see such long, checkpointless stretches (and when they do happen, such as Daredevil run on that lava planet, at least they do not include a bunch of dialogue and cutscenes).

4) Resetting to 4 lives. Why? Again, this is something that punishes beginners... but only those that like to play in many short sittings instead of fwe long ones. You know all those lives you collected while searching in secret places or doing daredevil stunts? Gone. Poof!

Still, even including all the things I've found lacking.. I still think this game is one of my all time favorites (coming close to even surpassing Mario 64).

[masters]

2 things

1. Mathewmatosis you are an amazing youtuber with outstanding content that always feel fresh

2.Thank You TB for introducing me to this youtuber 

[GuysVideo]

Childhood game here. This is one of the most emotional Mario games I have played because of the scenery and story

I really hope they make a Mario Galaxy 3

[PunchPerfectPlayer]

I like how you dont give number scores

[Bananapocolypse]

Hey, Matt. When you're talking about the lighting in the game around 19:00, you talk about how they used 'specularity' and 'ambient lighting'. Unfortunately, the examples you show don't support what you're saying. The grass doesn't look glossy because of specularity, but because of the Fresnel shader applied to them (wherein edges are automatically highlighted). I don't believe there actually is any specularity on that grass at all. As for the section where you talk about ambient lighting (18:20), you are correct that there IS ambient lighting, but the reason for the "flat" look is that the level is mostly flat geometry (a large flat sea of sand) and lit primarily by directional lights. When lighting is dominated by ambient lighting, there will be NO strong shadows. At 18:23 you can clearly see strong shadows being cast on the block shapes that Mario jumps on.

[GnomeAndHalflingEnjoyer]

Made my Saturday!

It'd be awesome if, at some time in the future, you gave the same treatment to an RPG series.  The Mario RPG games being the series that comes to mind, but I think a key point of the quality of these videos, is how much you enjoy the individual games, or the series.  So continue being awesome and doing the videos that you WANT to do.

[Therayevan]

god, just hearing the music of the storybook section made me tear up a little...

[intruder]

Well that was probably the most comprehensive and well written game review video I've seen in a long time.

[Pan_Z]

The problem with MatthewMatosis is that after each video, I always want more, and I've already watched each of his past videos... several times.

[unconsidered]

One thought on the Launch Stars, I don't really consider them cut-scenes, I consider them more evaluation of environment you will be exploring next.

[ABunchofJerks]

Glad to see the next chapter in your Mario series! Keep up the great work, I always love to see and encourage others to closely examine the things they hold dear, and this series in particular hits close to home. Looking forward to your next project!

[JoshKall]

Really amazing review. I love me some Galaxy.
I thought I should mention though, the original Wiimote doesn't use a gyroscope. It uses an accelerometer. It's the Wii Motion Plus that introduced the gyroscope.

[nerdofnow]

Good job on this series, but there are a few parts I would like to point out:

1. Yes, Mario 64's Wing Cap feels like flying, but so does Galaxy's Flying Mario, just in a different sense. Think of Flying Mario more as an airplane with a constant speed, rather than a glider with gravity-dependent speed. Such a design for flying was chosen so that the constant changes in gravity on a round planet, such as the one that is used for Flying Mario's tutorial, would feel much more natural. It would be pretty challenging to control in the air using Mario 64's mechanics.

I'm typing this as I watch.

[brokenscart]

These videos are so good. My whole evening has been watching them