Two of the most anticipated games for the Wii are here at last, so which one is better?
Storyline
Super Mario Galaxy: 8.3/10
In the Mushroom Kingdom, a comet passes in orbit once every 100 years, and a festival is held to celebrate its arrival. Mario is invited to the festival, and comes to it as there are lots of Star Bits raining down. But soon after, Bowser arrives on his airships to crash the festival. Once again, he wants Peach, so he uses a UFO to tear the castle from the ground and lift it in to the sky. (Paper Mario, anyone?) Mario is taken with the castle, but a Magikoopa shows up and blasts Mario off the castle into the depths of space. When he wakes up, he finds himself on a small planetoid near a star-like creature called a Luma. The Luma turns into a rabbit, and leads Mario to 2 more of its kind. They say that if he finds all of them, they'll tell him where he is. Upon finding them, a big structure appears in the middle of the planet. On the top of it is Rosalina, a protector of the galaxies. After introducing herself, she gives Mario a white Luma that absorbs itself into him, giving him the Star Spin ability. After disappearing, Mario shatters some nearby crystals to find a Launch Star, which takes him to his first level, the Gateway Galaxy. Near the end of it, he rescues 2 trapped Lumas that lead him to a vault on a metal planetoid. In the middle of it is an odd machine, powered by a large Star called a Grand Star. A Luma begs Mario to rescue it before its power is drained. By solving a short puzzle, the machine is powered down and the Grand Star is set free. Mario collects it, and he soars over to an area in space called the Comet Observatory. The Grand Star he collected flies into an object in the middle of the observatory. The object is called the Beacon, which grants the observatory power. Due to the Grand Star's power, the Observatory partially lights up, revealing Rosalina and a black Luma named Polari. They explain to Mario what's happening; The Comet Observatory once had the power to fly through space, powered by the 6 Grand Stars, but Bowser came along and stole them, taking away the power. If they can get the Grand Stars back, the Observatory can fly over to Bowser's quarters so Mario can confront him. The Grand Stars are being held at enemy bases, which Mario cannot normally access. In fact, at the moment, he can only access 1 Galaxy. But there are Power Stars in this galaxy that, once collected, will allow Mario to fly to more galaxies. To be able to recollect the Grand Stars, he first has to collect more Power Stars to be able to get them all.
It's kind of like a normal Peach gets kidnapped plot, but there's more of a story gradually added on to it. The element of having to collect the Grand Stars helps to increase the depth, and it is further increased as the game goes on. Soon, you'll learn what Bowser is truly up to.
Super Smash Bros. Brawl: 8.3/10
In a big, open arena, Mario and Kirby are battling each other while Peach and Zelda watch. You choose who to play as, and you fight the opposing character as the one you chose. Upon beating the other, they turn into a mere trophy. The winning character touches the base of the trophy, which restores the other to its original state. After this, some clouds begin to gather near the arena. Meta Knight's Halberd from Kirby Super Star flies in, releasing many strange, purple blobs of matter called Shadow Bugs into the arena. These shadow bugs form into odd creatures called Primids, and Mario, Kirby, Peach, and Zelda fight them off. After that, the main villain of the game, the Ancient Minister, comes down with something called a Subspace Bomb. He drops it and two R.O.B. minions come and activate it, with its timer at 3 minutes. These Subspace Bombs, if successful, will explode and suck anything in the blast radius into a dimension called Subspace. Mario runs very quickly to try to stop the bomb, but is blasted out of the arena by something behind him. It is Petey Piranha, who has trapped Peach and Zelda in cages, forcing Kirby to fight him off alone.
That's as far as I'll go, as the beginning
story is quite lengthy. Now normally it would be a great storyline, but
there's a big stumbling block; a lot of the time you won't know what is
going on. Some parts of the story greatly confused me, and didn't seem
to be relevant to the main story. Maybe if the game made some use of text,
it would be able to better explain it, but that does not appear to be so.
Gameplay:
Super Mario Galaxy: 10/10
Anyone who's played Super Mario 64 or Super Mario Sunshine will probably teach themselves how this game is played with ease. However, there are some changes made to it. The main aspect of the game is the Star Spin; it replaces punching and FLUDD, and is primarily used to get rid of enemies. But it has even more uses, like reaching high ledges or flipping switches. This is Mario gameplay at its very best since Super Mario 64, never before had I thought it was possible to cram this much gameplay into 1 game. The level design, it's just superb. In Sunshine, the levels were giant, but they lacked variety. It's the exact opposite in Galaxy. There are a whopping 40 galaxies, but they're smaller than levels in the past 2 games. They vary greatly, and not just in environment. While some galaxies are rather linear, involving simply moving from planetoid to planetoid, there are others that feel more like Super Mario 64, with the element of exploration more heavily implemented. Some galaxies even break away from the genre, as there are some levels where you surf on water atop a Manta Ray in a racing mission. Most galaxies consist of 3 Power Stars, 1 Secret Star, and 2 Comet Stars, which I'll cover later. But some Galaxies have only 1 Star, and they're, well... puny. That's not a bad thing though, you'd be surprised at how good and well-designed they still are.
Now Comet Stars, these are a brand new feature. Throughout the game, types of comets will come in orbit of the galaxies. These grant access to a new Star. There are 5 types of comets: Speedy Comets, which make you complete a level in a set amount of time; Daredevil Comets, which make you complete a task with only 1 hit point; Cosmic Comets, which summon a doppelganger called Cosmic Mario to race Mario across the course for a Power Star; Fast-Foe Comets, which significantly speed up the enemies on the field significantly; and Pur- Ah, I shouldn't mention these last comets, as they only appear after the game is beat. While I would have preferred more unique missions, comets are still a pretty nice feature. I'm quite fond of Cosmic Comets and such, but some of them like Fast Foe Comets are more irritating. That aside, in addition to coins in the game, which heal a life unit, Star Bits are also included. These little chunks of Stardust can be collect by pointing your Wii Remote at them. Afterwards, they can be shot at enemies to stun them. It's a decent feature, but a little useless, especially since they have a more important feature. The leftover Star Bits you get from a level are transferred to your separate Star Bit count at the Comet Observatory, the hub of the game. These Star Bits are used to feed hungry Lumas. These Lumas are symbolized by their color and size, and monstrous appetite. If you feed them enough Star Bits, they'll transform into secret galaxies. But their food demands can range from 100 to 1,600 Star Bits, so be prepared.
Super Smash Bros. Brawl: 8.5/10
Like Galaxy, Brawl's gameplay will be familiar to anyone who's played the past games in the series. But there's a main twist on the fighting style- very powerful moves called Final Smashes. When used, the player will unleash a strong attack depending on who their character is. For the most part this is a good feature, but something I want to note is there are some underpowered Final Smashes: Zero Suit Samus, Kirby, and some other secret characters' Final Smashes really don't have much potential, putting the player at a disadvantage. Some can be overpowered as well and can be easily abused. However, there is always the option to turn Final Smashes off. A new adventure mode called the Subspace Emissary is also in the game. It's much like a sidescroller with Smash Bros. elements. It's probably better than Melee's adventure mode in most cases, but it's almost as repetitive. Most of the time, it follows a similar process - go right, open a door, go right further, stop, fight a hoard of enemies, continue, go right, level complete. I was really quite disappointed by this.
Now that the 2 major new elements of
the game are covered, I'll tell of perhaps the game's greatest flaw - it's
much too similar to its predecessors. I was quite shocked by this. Even
with new features, its feels way too similar to Melee, especially outside
of the Subspace Emissary. There's not much innovation at all, and besides
the two aforementioned major new features, I might go so far as to call
this a remake of Melee. That's where this section lost its majority of
points. Off the topic of major elements, there are some smaller features
as well. You've got some new characters as well, but some of them are quite
questionable. For example, they took out Young Link, a clone of Link from
Melee, only to put in another Link clone; and the Ice Climbers, characters
who didn't even deserve a spot in Melee, are back despite that they only
starred in 1 obscure game. A few good character choices have been added
though; Meta Knight is not only an awesome character in general, but he's
also got a great moveset. And Wario's finally made it in with his WarioWare
garb. A Stage Builder is also added in, which I had high hopes for. It
IS a nifty feature, but it's pretty shallow. There aren't many parts you
can choose from, and the inability to turn them 90 degrees is troublesome
at times. The Lottery from Melee is now converted into the Coin Launcher,
which depends more on skill than luck finally, a significantly improved
feature. This makes getting trophies easier the more skilled you are. Despite
this, though, in terms of gameplay, Brawl severely lacks innovation.
Graphics:
Super Mario Galaxy: 10/10
Simply the best graphics on Wii. They are very polished and detailed, and with some amazing special effects. Specific objects with outstanding graphics would be fire, dark matter, ice, black holes, and water; pretty much any of the elements look like Nintendo put their full graphical knowledge into them. Not to mention there are some fabulous-looking bosses, enemies, and items. On rare occasions, you may encounter a brief slowdown, but that's usually unlikely. Ever since the game was announced, it has been far and away the best-looking of all Wii games, and it remains that way at release. The Wii has not been known for its graphics, and that just makes Galaxy's even more impressive.
Super Smash Bros. Brawl: 8.7/10
A common complaint from critics on the
Internet and in magazines is that the graphics haven't evolved much since
Melee. Although that game had great graphics, this is the next generation,
there are new standards. That's not to say ALL the graphics are sub-par.
The characters models are probably the best in the game, with a lot of
detail and slick animation. Some haven't gotten much of a makeover thoug.,
Kirby, for example, looks like he hardly even changed 1 pixel. The same
case goes for a certain unlockable character. Some characters, on the other
hand, got tremendous makeovers. The Legend of Zelda characters have their
newer, more detailed, more realistic models from Twilight Princess now.
The Mario characters look great too, especially Yoshi, who I always thought
looked ugly in Melee.
Music and Sound Effects
Super Mario Galaxy: 10/10
... The best video game soundtrack ever? It's a likely candidate for sure. Unlike past Mario games, Galaxy's musical score is strictly orchestral. It doesn't seem very Mario-esque of Nintendo to use an orchestra, but that doesn't mean the compositions can't be godly. The Good Egg Galaxy, which might as well be considered the main theme of the game, is excellence among excellence. The Bowser battle theme is just epic, it sounds like it came from Legend of Zelda. A cool feature with the music is its ability to change with the environment. For example, let's say you're in a galaxy with a body of water and some land. If you're on land the music will stay the same, but if you go underwater it will adjust to remix of the tune. Not that it's a vital detail, but those slightly pointless little touches are always nice. The sound effects are pretty good and sound quite realistic like the splashing of water or the eerie sounds of a black hole. The Wii Remote also produces a few sounds, like Star Bits and Launch Stars as well.
Super Smash Bros. Brawl: 8.5/10
This game consists mainly of remixes
of previously composed Nintendo songs, some remixed and some original.
Some of them have received great makeovers; Legendary Air Ride Machine
speaks for that. Unfortunately a lot of them have also been remixed for
the worse. Against Marx, a track from Kirby Super Star that I considered
one of the best soundtracks ever, doesn't sound quite as good mostly due
to the fact that it's slowed down significantly. The 02 Battle remix...
ugh, they managed to make one of the most epic songs ever just annoying.
Additionally, some tunes are highly unfit for a heated battle. Delfino
Plaza, for example, is here in its original state, and its not really a
fitting song when everyone is beating the daylights out of each other.
Other music choices are just... stupid. They've included songs from games
so obscure or so unfit for the game, it was pretty much a wasted effort.
Tracks that were composed in this game itself are also included, mostly
in the Subspace Emissary. They're decent, but they're nothing to rave about.
A new feature to the game that I did like is one called My Music. In Melee,
some stages had 2 possible songs that would play on them, but one was much
more unlikely to play than the other and there was nothing you could do
about it. My Music allows you to choose how often a certain song can be
played for certain stages. You can turn off the lousy ones, heighten the
likelihood of the good ones, and customize them however you want. It gives
you much more control of what you want to hear while fighting instead of
having to reset over and over again until a certain song plays.
Controls:
Super Mario Galaxy: 9/10
As the Wiimote and Nunchuck is quite an innovative feature in videogame history, the controls in this game could be a bit weary for some. In the first few minutes of anti-gravity platforming, chances are you'll find it somewhat dizzying. But if you're like me, you'll mostly have the controls down after you beat the first boss. Once you get used to these you may think you have it down- but then you see water. You hop in and press the Nunchuck down and think you'll sink, but rather it makes you go south. Instead, the Z button makes you go underwater. This feature is a tad irritating and may make you feel uneasy in the water at first. But like the normal controls, they just seem to grow on you- basically, controlling Super Mario Galaxy is like riding a bike, once you do it right, you have it down for life... probably.
Super Smash Bros. Brawl: 8.8/10
Brawl offers 4 different controller
variations: The Wiimote, the Wiimote+Nunchuck, the Classic Controller,
and the GameCube controller. The Wii Remote is surely the worst of the
bunch. Not only is there no analog stick control, but you have to press
up to jump, which makes it even more frustrating. The Wii Remote + Nunchuck
is okay, but various buttons seem too far out of the way and it's kind
of hard to get used to for a while. The Classic Controller’s just about
the same. The GameCube Controller feels the best. Melee had easy controls,
and with this control, it's just like that. Surprisingly, this game literally
makes no use whatsoever of the Wii's motion sensing controls, even when
selecting characters, yet another ignoring of innovation.
Length:
Super Mario Galaxy: 8/10
60 Stars are required to beat this game at the minimum. That's about 10 less than the past games and of course, is a fairly easy quest. But collecting all 120 Stars... that's a much bigger challenge. While some Stars you can just lead yourself to and get them in a matter of minutes, some require great skill and reflexes to be able to get. Collecting 60 Stars will take you about 2 or 3 days, while collecting all 120 will take around a week. The 120 Stars challenge is much more pleasing, but the game is still a bit on the easy side for the most part, part of that due to the bosses. No matter how large or intimidating they may look, a lot of them aren't quite as strong as you'd think. Fighting some of them with Daredevil Comets is another story...
Super Smash Bros. Brawl: 7.9/10
The Subspace Emissary consists of...
oh, maybe 20 or 25 areas, many of which are filled with puzzles and brutal
fights, though some of them are used strictly for boss battles or even
just an enemy fleet, so you can get through some of them very quickly.
Most of the game is much too easy, and I was disappointed even further
by this. However, the last area of the game is very large and long. This
will probably take the same amount of time as it did to complete the rest
of the Emissary. Unfortunately, that time was only 1 day for me, so 2 days
in total. And that's it, the Subspace Emissary is beat. Oh dear, this new
Adventure Mode seems to be rather high on the disappointments. But while
it is short, it's difficult at times as well, and you can select the difficulty
of the levels as well.
Replayability:
Super Mario Galaxy: 9/10
Like 64 and Sunshine, Galaxy consists of few but long sidequests. I suppose you could count the 120 Stars as a sidequest, even if I did classify it under length. Some are easy Stars you can get without trouble, others will be very difficult challenges only a truly hardcore gamer could accomplish without a large amount of deaths. But surely you will be happy to see that Star collecting has a fabulous reward, and after that comes even more replay, though it should take you a bit less time than the main quest itself. But it's a feature I've been waiting for in the main Mario series ever since it was taken into the 3D realm. Once you've done that, there's still one more sidequest, collecting a massive 9,999 Star Bits. However, doing this can get tiring and the reward for it really isn't much worth your effort. But we all liked to just goof off in levels in the past 2 Mario games, and that's just as fun as ever in Galaxy. You could do it to find hidden chambers or 1-Ups, or just to explore the beautiful environments. I'm still playing around even today.
Super Smash Bros. Brawl: 8.9/10
You've beaten the Subspace Emissary,
so now what? Well, a lot. Of course you can just battle CPUs, but it's
much better fighting other people instead. But that's not the only thing
you can do with the game, there is a new feature called Challenges. It
displays various rewards you've unlocked by accomplishing tasks, and gives
clues on how to unlock others. These rewards can be trophies, stickers,
CDs, stages, and other things. There is a huge amount of them, but the
thing is that a lot of them are rather tedious and unrewarding. Stages
and other such things are always nice, but a lot of times you'll find yourself
unlocking trophies of characters you could care less about or finding useless
stickers. Some of them are even just to inflate the replay, and these are
tedious beyond compare. The most ridiculous - play 100 hours of Brawl.
If you accomplish that without just leaving the system on overnight a few
times, you obviously can't detect whether something's boring or not. Did
they have to make some of the Challenges THIS long? Nintendo, some of us
have lives outside of this game to tend to as well.
Fun Factor!:
Super Mario Galaxy: 10/10
Wow, I think this is the most perfect scores I've ever given a game. Even if the game is a little on the short side, I can guarantee you'll enjoy almost every second of playtime. A huge variety of levels are packed into this huge game to keep you entertained with it, along with gorgeous-looking environments. And as for simply goofing off in levels, that's just as fun as it was in 64. A slew of new gameplay mechanics and tons of different setups, whether it be linear, exploration-based, or just a mini-galaxy, are all a joy. Even today, I still play this game just because it's so fun.
Super Smash Bros. Brawl: 8.5/10
Yeah, this is a pretty cool game, but
as I said before the big lack of innovation just makes it feel like there's
nothing new. Melee was fun because it was such an improvement from the
N64 edition of the series. Brawl isn't much of a step forward for the series
and it feels too much like the last one, but that doesn't stop it from
being fun. Besides, you've got some new selections of characters, more
item choices, increased control over the music, the ability to build your
own stages, and more. Plus, if you've got some friends or siblings to play
the game with, the fun can reach its peak.
Overall:
Super Mario Galaxy: 98/100
Even with some fabulous other titles to compare to, Galaxy currently holds the crown for the best Wii game, and is likely to hold that spot until the end of the system's life. It's also in a tie as my 2nd favorite game of all time, alongside Super Mario 64. This should make up for the disappointment quite a few fans suffered from Super Mario Sunshine (... I liked it >.>) and will have them talking about it for years to come. Some minor flaws may mildly plague the game, but those flaws are made up for in other categories. Plus, this is a rare game that not only lives up to its hype, but exceeds it. Nintendo, you've created a Mario game for the ages, an excellent game in the Wii's heavily casual library, and perfectly mixed old and new elements. Owning a Wii without Galaxy is as ridiculous as owning Galaxy without a Wii, and I can give it nothing less than my highest recommendation.
Super Smash Bros. Brawl: 81/100
I wasn't expecting much out of this game, I thought all it would be was decent but nothing special; but when I bought it, it turned out to actually be a pretty good game. Despite this, though, I would deem this the most overrated game of all time. Come on, let's be honest, it's a good game but it's FAR from the best game ever. While it's got a new adventure mode, more characters, and other such things, it's barely different from Melee, there are some stupid character choices, and it has just too many major flaws to be one of the best games for the system. As for recommendation... I would most suggest you buy it if you either haven't played Melee or have a lot of friends or siblings to play the game with. Otherwise, you won't be seeing much you haven't seen before.
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