QS stands for “Quickshot”, a series of short form review/preview/opinion articles.
I was feeling a bit nostalgic this past week, so I decided to pick up the Super Mario Galaxy 1+2 combo pack that released for the Switch a few months back, to coincide with the feature film release. These games were both hugely impactful when I was younger, so it didn’t take much mental convincing for me to be onboard with the chance to revisit these games in 2026 with a fresh coat of paint and some refined controls.
Actually, for a little aside here, I still remember the day I purchased Super Mario Galaxy 2 with my own hard earned money saved up over a decently long period of time. It was a special bundle deal available from Toys R Us that came with the game’s strategy guide (I think there might have been two parts of that sentence there that some people reading this might not even know about, RIP). My mom took me to the store to pick up the game, and I devoured it eagerly for weeks and weeks afterwards.
Anyway, I just wanted to spend a bit of time this week praising both of those games, especially the first one. As I’ve said a few times on this blog before, the original Super Mario Galaxy is the best Mario game ever made, probably the best 3D platformer of all time, and just one of the standout masterpiece video games ever. And while Galaxy 2 can’t live up to those loft heights (considering it’s little more than a glorified expansion level pack), it’s obviously still a very high-quality product that is a ton of fun too.
For the first game, though, there’s just something inherently special about it all. This extra level of ‘oomph‘ that I feel like we haven’t seen ever since in the Mario series (which isn’t to say that subsequent games are bad).
There’s a prolonged opening to the original Galaxy that has permanently engrained itself into my memory. There are so really cinematic cutscenes of Bowser’s fleet destroying the Mushroom Kingdom, a giant UFO pulls Peach’s Castle out of the ground to steal it, and Mario gets launched away into space. He then wakes on a lonely, melancholy planet, meets a mysterious space princess, finds a big power star, and ends up at a seemingly-abandoned and desolate space station known as the Comet Observatory. This all happens within the first thirty minutes.
I think ‘atmosphere‘ is a good word to describe the feeling of the first Galaxy game, or perhaps ‘vibes‘. The game really leaned into the ‘Galaxy’ part of its title rather than the ‘Mario’ part, and I love it all the more for it. Many of the planets you explore are big and open, empty in a technical sense yet still fun to run around in and explore. Many of the galaxies are weird, strange, or a bit desolate. The enemies and bosses can feel a bit off, some of your adventures are quiet and strangely peaceful, and it just has this immaculate vibe.
I feel like it’s the sort of thing that becomes more apparent when you revisit the first game after you’ve spent some time playing Galaxy 2.
See, as the history goes, Galaxy 2 was just going to be an add-on to the original game. I’m not exactly sure how the developers would have done it (since you can’t really do DLC with the Wii, at least not conventionally). But the creators ended up having so many ideas that they decided to make a straight-up sequel instead. And befitting the philosophy of “we have a ton of new level ideas and that’s the main thing we want to show you“, Galaxy 2 cuts out a lot of what the first game did in favor of a streamlined experience that cares about gameplay over anything else.
In contrast to the original, the sequel is a game that values the ‘Mario‘ part of its title much more than the ‘Galaxy’ part.
There are no cinematic cutscenes to establish the story. The levels are smaller and more packed with stuff, decreasing the atmospheric emptiness and exploration of the first game. The hub is much smaller and less inspired, and the level select menu is simplistic and straightforward. There’s no fluff, no extra details, no tiny secret surprises. It’s just more fun levels. And, of course, they are a ton of fun, and I really love a lot of the experiences in Galaxy 2. I just think it’s a lesser sequel and a weaker overall game, even if it’s also not a less-fun game.
The first game also had the infamous Rosalina’s Storybook, which is an engaging, well-written, and shockingly sad children’s storybook that you unlock chapters to read while collecting power stars. It tells the backstory of Rosalina, and despite the overall silliness of a Mario game (although Galaxy‘s ending is also a little bittersweet), the storybook is quite emotional. It really will most likely wring a tear or two from you, whether from the twists in the storybook or the beautiful music that plays throughout.
Galaxy 2, in comparison, doesn’t have a storybook at all, which is yet another point against the game in favor of the first game’s structure, storytelling, and vibes. Well, to be fair, they actually did retroactively add a storybook in for this Switch version of the game, but it’s release on the Wii didn’t have one. It’s fine, though it can’t hold a candle to Rosalina’s tragic tale.
Since I mentioned music two paragraphs ago, I suppose this marks a fine point to transition into the soundtrack. Rather notably, Super Mario Galaxy marked the mustachioed plumber’s debut into fully-orchestrated music, and it’s something magical. The soundtrack to the first game (and the nearly-as-good soundtrack for the second game) is one of the greatest video game soundtracks of all time. Each and every song is just effortlessly beautiful, mesmerizing, and fantastic to listen to. It’s seriously special stuff, and a soundtrack I could listen to infinitely without growing tired of it.
Here’s my favorite song in the whole game (though it’s hard to choose), if you’d like to listen to just a small sample of this entire game’s orchestrated bliss: STAFF ROLL
Switching back to gameplay, I really don’t think that these two games get enough credit for just how inventive they are. I mean, it’s kind of mind-blowing how incredible the concept of gravity manipulation is, and how awesomely Nintendo pulls it off throughout both titles. The simple act of running around a spherical planetoid never gets old, but even on top of that so many varied galaxies utilize the concept in unique and creative ways, over and over. Gravity flipping, spinning, rotating, flying…these games cover it all, and until the credits roll it feels like the developers will never run out of ideas.
I also have to give a huge and specific shoutout to Mario’s spin ability. And I don’t just mean the creative ways that the level design uses the spin ability to damage enemies, reflect projectiles, grab shells from afar, or flip switches and enemies. I mean the simple act of giving Mario what is essentially a double-jump.
I cannot understate how much a platforming game’s experience is elevated through the existence of a double jump. The height you gain, the distance you travel, the platforming challenges you can overcome…it’s all awesome, but it all pales in comparison to the simple capability of redirecting your momentum. Mario’s spin allows him to leap in one direction and either use his spin to gain a bit of height and distance, hesitate in the air for a second (perhaps to dodge an enemy), or re-correct back in a different direction from where he jumped the first time.
And the fact that you can activate your spin out of a normal jump, backflip, triple jump, long jump, and every other maneuver? It ends up being a super versatile skill that I actually find myself missing when I go and play other Mario games after I’ve played Galaxy for a bit. I mean, there’s a reason the spin has persisted through the series to this day in various forms, such as being a move Mario and friends can use in the New Super Mario Bros series, and being Rosalina’s exclusive skill in Super Mario 3D World.
At the end of the day, both of these games evoke what the Mario franchise has always been good at, which is just being really fun. Are there a few levels that aren’t as good as the others? Sure. Are a few of the challenges more annoying than exciting? Yep. Is it crazy that each game expects you to, essentially, play the entire game a second time in order to get 100%? Yeah, that’s nuts, although I prefer the first game’s execution of having you replay the game as Luigi with a few changes to the levels, as opposed to the sequel’s version of hunting through old levels for tiny little green stars.
Regardless, I still think the original Galaxy excels enough to be considered a masterpiece, and the sequel is near about as good. My specific preferences for ‘atmosphere’ and ‘vibes‘, aside, both of these games are titans of the gaming industry that many platformers still take heavy inspiration from (such as 2024’s Astro Bot).
10/10 and 9.5/10
The Contrarian Corner 