Story: 8
The storyline isn’t all
that new. Bowser kidnaps Princess Peach while the toad Todyguards do nothing,
and Mario has to save her. Then when Mario is on the verge of getting to
Peach, a Magikoopa blasts him off of Peach’s castle and into space. Then
he awakes on a distant planet, meets Rosalina, learns what he has to do,
and starts getting Stars. However, there is a twist this time. Instead
of simply kidnapping Peach and trying to escape, Bowser is now trying to
create his own galactic empire at the center of the universe with Peach
and his little brat of a son at his side. Also, once you get to a certain
point in the game, you get to have a storytime thing where you get to learn
about Princess Rosalina’s past. This is not incredibly interesting, but
I’d say it is worth listening to if you are one of those people who are
interested in the storyline. It’s a good storyline and I like it much better
than Super Mario Sunshine’s.
Gameplay: 9
The game is very fun to
play. There is a lot of flying around, and like Super Mario 64 and Sunshine,
if you get stuck on a Star, you can simply go to another world (or galaxy
in this case) and try one of the Stars there. What I find very interesting
is that there are 2D parts in the game. While the graphics make it look
very 3D, those parts are obviously 2D because you can’t go forward, only
left/right and up/down. There is not much to say here that I will not say
in later sections, but the reason it is not a 10 is mainly because the
game is overall too easy. Don’t get me wrong though, it definitely has
its challenging parts.
Graphics: 10
The graphics are phenomenal
all throughout the game. You definitely can’t miss the incredible amount
of detail put into the high-resolution videos. In the low-resolution gameplay
that 98% of the game is, there still is great detail. The colors are bright
and vivid. There is simply nothing that I can find wrong with the graphics
on this game.
Sound: 9
The sound is done better
than you would think for a game like this. There is music that matches
the scenarios, and the music for the worlds is nicely played. Now this
may be in other games as well, but during all of the Bowser battles, the
music is more dramatic and sounds nicer than you would expect. It inspires
you to play harder and want to win more. Also, when you BEAT Bowser for
the final time, there is this peaceful, dramatic, sad music that plays.
The music is not the best I’ve ever heard and there are not any incredible
songs in the game, but the way certain songs are placed in certain clips
and worlds makes the whole game seem better by far.
Difficulty: 7-8
The difficulty is quite
disappointing once you finish the game and look back on how easy it was
to get all of those Stars.
The reason for the rating of 7-8 is because it depends what your goal is.
If you are that gamer who gets a game, beats it, and are done with it,
first of all you are not a real gamer, and second this will not offer a
good enough challenge. The amount of work put into getting only half of
the Stars compared to getting all 120 is a big difference. There are Stars
that are very hard and there are some that require a good amount of patience,
too (the patience ones being the hardest for me). As in many games, it
starts out easy and gets progressively harder. At the beginning, all of
the Stars are very easy to get, but at the end, while an experienced gamer
would still find them easy, they are undoubtedly harder.
Something that might be good for some of you but annoying to others is the fact that it is way too easy to get lives. A mail Toad gives you 5 lives every time you get on, there is a total of 5 lives around the space station that reappear every time you come back, and you get a life for every 50 Starbits you get in a stage. For those of you who never played the game but saw gameplay, the health circle with only 3 health does NOT make the game harder. Unlike in 64 and Sunshine, everything that can damage you does either one damage or kills you in a single shot. Also, a yellow coin gives back one health out of three, while before it was one out of eight. The game compensates for this by including far fewer coins in the game.
Unlike in Super Mario 64
and Super Mario Sunshine, you can use what you collect. While coins are
still solely for getting health back, Starbits have two roles: shooting
them at enemies or saving them to feed them to hungry Lumas and watch them
turn into another planet or a whole galaxy so you can get an extra Star.
(I congratulate anyone who was willing to read this entire section without
getting bored.)
Moves/Controls: 10
For those of you who haven’t
read my Super Mario 64 Review, I combine moves and controls because one
affects the other and vice-versa. Anyway, the controls are flawless. There
were moves in Super Mario 64 that were great and have been brought back,
and the spin that can be done with the Wii-mote helps tremendously. There
is nothing to say about the controls really because they run very smooth
and are flawless. I know that there are many people who think that the
Wii cannot possibly keep up with some player movements; those people would
be surprised by how smooth this game, along with every other Wii game,
handles.
Worlds: 10
There are way too many worlds
to describe in the game, but the way in which the Stars are spread throughout
the worlds are great. There are the basic kind of worlds (known as galaxies),
which have 5-7 Stars in them. The average is 5 before you beat the final
boss, and it turns into 6 after you beat him because of the Purple Comets,
which make you collect 100 purple coins. (Sound familiar?) The galaxies
with 7 Stars are the ones that have a Green Star. There are only 2 of these
galaxies in the game. The other kinds of galaxies have only one Star because
they are not big enough to change for another Star. The only exception
is one that has 2 including a Green Star..
Other: No Rating
(I list the things that
make no or little sense here.) The only thing that bugs me is that it refers
to galaxies in the game as being a little cluster of a few planets that
are only as big as a house. Even the bigger galaxies are freakishly small
compared to what a real galaxy is. The planets in the game are by far too
small to hold Mario down with gravity. Even though Mario is flying through
the universe at breakneck speeds, this game makes much more sense than
Super Mario Sunshine did, for sure.
Recommendation: 10
This game is a must have
for any Mario game player. The whole game is fun, despite it being a little
too easy, but its difficulty is too small of a factor to make the recommendation
any less than a perfect ten.
Overall: 9
It has great controls, beautiful graphics and sound, a nice storyline, and has a difficulty suitable for anyone with a few seconds of patience (which unfortunately some people don’t have). However, I don’t feel that this game can be given a perfect 10 as an overall grade. There are definitely parts that can get you frustrated in the game, and if you have a bad temper, may make you stop playing it for a while. Some of the purple coin Stars are really tedious, and may not grab your attention enough to finish the game. Even so, Nintendo has outdone itself with another spectacular game for the Nintendo Wii.
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