You know, Mario Galaxy is really fucking good.

[Lama Himself]

If you want to finish by a nice challenge, do the Luigi's purpule coins in Toy Time Galaxy.

It's I think the most difficult level in the game, but it's so great to finish it.

[Roderick]

Today I finally finished the game with 120 Stars, so I've unlocked Luigi and can now start all over again with him Looking forward to it!

And yes, today I therefore also grabbed the courage to do the Toy Time Luigi Purple Coins level. It was utter madness, and you wouldn't believe the ridiculously lucky jumps I made when I, to my complete surprise, succeeded. The last few challenges: the purple coins, the daredevils comets and the trial galaxies, are all quite difficult. Even frustrating. But somehow, they never stopped being fun. I had to attempt some things 10 times, but I kept enjoying myself. I guess because the game showed me time and time again that my persistence was inexorably rewarded with success. And lo, in the end I completed everything, even though I don't consider myself a genius platformer. Having finished the game now, I feel confident to say that this is brilliance, an utterly unique experience that is in a complete league of its own. No title can touch Galaxy. They may be good in their own right, but they're not even playing the same game.

[Marek]

I'm finally digging into this game and boy it's great. Everything about it is great. GREAT.

But you have to give special mention to the music. Oh man. I only rarely notice music in this kind of way. I just did the first star in the Space Junk Galaxy and that music actually made me emotional. It makes that level so darn beautiful. It surprised me that Mario of all things could do that to me.

Also the little touches in the sound design are great, such as things changing tone each time you hover over them, so that it's like you're playing a little song. Amazing.

[lobotomy42]

Wow. Am I the only one disappointed with this game? I've been waiting for it for what seems like forever, and now I finally have it. But all I can think is "This is so insanely easy."

Don't get me wrong, it oozes with ideas and gorgeous imagery. My only real complaint is that the levels seem to fly by, rarely taking more than 5-10 minutes per star. Except that seems like kind of a huge complaint. (And to be fair, I'm only about 40 stars in...so I imagine the levels will get longer and more challenging as I progress.)

On the other hand, I just spent six hours playing non-stop and didn't even notice the time go by. So clearly the game is doing something right.

[Marek]

I love that it's easy. Love it. It's great. I want to make love to its easiness. Most games feel like you're wrestling a bear, this one feels like... dancing.

[Nappi]

I don't mind the easiness at all either. Actually, I probably wouldn't be able to play the game with my sister if it was a couple of notches harder, as the last time she has played anything was (if you don't count Twilight Princess) on the Snes era and she is, understandably, a bit confused about the 3D-ness and more complicated control scheme. And I enjoy the game immensely as well.

When I choose to play Galaxy, I'm not looking for challenge but plain entertainment. Granted, for some the game has to be challenging in order to be entertaining, but not necessarily for me.

In fact, I have noticed that I nearly always like the early missions the best when playing, say, strategy games. It's not that I get frustrated or my ass kicked in the later missions. It just feels a lot more rewarding to see everything going as planned and with minimal casualties because of your magnificent strategic eye, than to look at your defenses go tumbling down no matter what you do with the count down timer being your only hope and salvation. It might be that I enjoy having the upper hand, but that's only if I have earned it by careful planning or whatever.

But back to the topic. I love Super Mario Galaxy!

But I don't dare to continue playing it before my sister gets back from India...

[miffy495]

Agreed, the easiness is a major plus, especially for those of us (like myself and apparently Nappi) who are playing along with non-gamers. My girlfriend is just getting into it now. Her gaming experience up to now has been playing bass in Rock Band because she loves the soundtrack and a lot of Sonic 2 on virtual console because it reminds her of watching her brother play Sega when they were little. Before that she hadn't played since the aforementioned Genesis days. She's really loving Mario Galaxy, and the fact that it's easy is only helping this.

As for me, with many more years of experience and far more likely to be bored by an easy game, I don't feel that. It's like Marek said, a dance. Besides, there's the occasional hard bit just to keep me challenged enough. There are very few games I would say feel like they're perfectly difficult. This is one. I have never once been frustrated, but neither have I ever been able to let my focus drift. It demands attention in the best way possible. A gentle "look out!" rather than punching you in the chest if you look away for a moment.

...and for the record, I have about 90 stars at the moment. I fully intend to get the last 30.

[Thrik]

In all honesty, I don't even think it's that easy!

I've mentioned various times in the past that when new Mario games have come out, people have said they're really easy but I've still found myself getting bummed in the gob consistently while playing them.

I think I must just be pretty bad at platform games, yet have the persistence to keep getting through them. I die a lot in Mario games, including New Super Mario Bros.

I think the balance is just right in Galaxy. It's tricky enough to make me die plenty of times, especially in the intricate jumping bits (reminiscent of the 'secret' Super Mario Sunshine levels), but not so hard that I can't learn from what I did wrong without dying 10 more times.

[Noyb]

I felt the same way at that point, Thrik. I'm 84 stars in, and am now loving the game. That long stretch at the beginning did make me fear that all the levels would be that simple, but complexity and difficulty did come. Watch that video linked above about Luigi's purple coins if you don't believe me.

The most striking design decision I see is the whole lives system. Nintendo does give them out like *candy*. You get an extra life for every 50 star pieces within a level (cumulative over lives) or 50 coins (not cumulative over lives, so only infrequently). Whenever you reach a tricky section, there almost always is an extra life that's not difficult to reach about 10 seconds in. You also get 5 lives from Peach after each system boss. In a 4-5 hour session, I racked up a net total of 53 lives, and that's just in standard gameplay without actively trying to earn them.

What is weird, though, is that lives *reset* to 3 after quitting the game. The mostly linear mini-missions that make up each star encourage a casual approach -- playing through a few stars in each play sessions. However, resetting the lives encourages longer play sessions, but only slightly given how easy it is to accumulate lives. I wonder why Nintendo chose to include lives at all instead of popular infinite continues model -- which it essentially is. Throwback to the older games? Unnecessary justification of all the collectible doodads? Need of a reward for exploration that isn't another star?

[Roderick]

Yeah, the lives system is totally inane. I don't mind that there are one-ups to be had, because anything you can collect is usually a fun exercise. But resetting your lives to 3 or whatever is a completely ridiculous, artificial move. It undermines the desire to collect (because with every reset you lose it all) and makes the process tedious (you do want more than 3 lives before going into a level so you are forced to grind through the stupid hub to harvest the green shrooms). Along with the hub in itself, it is probably the weakest part in the design.

[n0wak]

I got my 120th star a couple of days ago. Don't know if I feel compelled enough to do it again

as Luigi

.

You know what annoyed the fuck out of me with the last few stars? I didn't know about the "Long Jump" technique because I never looked in the manual and it was never explained in the game and some of those last few purple coins challenges are impossible to do without it. After jumping (and failing) for that last couple of coins a few times in the Freezeflame Purple coin challenge I was ready to throw the controller. Then I actually paid attention to what the Toad said there and saw that "long jump" was highlighted, looked in the manual and, a-ha!, that Luigi Coin Challenge became that much easier.

[Thrik]

Teee, you mad bastard.

I'm could have sworn it was explained earlier in the game, though.

It's a move from Mario 64 so maybe they just forgot newer people might not know about it.

[Roderick]

Now that I fucking love. There are so many cool advanced jumps you can make that it really becomes a mastery after a while. You can arguably finish the game bare bones with just your everyday jump, but delving into the specifics and learning how to long jump, wall jump, backflip, homing butt stomp (!) and all the intricacies of the twirling... it's fantastic.

[lobotomy42]

Alright, I take it all back! I just took a break from work to go get a single star, and died 4 times in the process. The easiness and relative shortness of the missions is what made this possible at all, and clearly there was still enough difficulty to trip me up.

So I was wrong - this game is truly "just right." Maybe I've just gotten so used to difficult games that I can't appreciate balanced ones anymore.

[Jake]

In all honesty, I don't even think it's that easy!

I've mentioned various times in the past that when new Mario games have come out, people have said they're really easy but I've still found myself getting bummed in the gob consistently while playing them.

Also, if you had a time machine, and showed Mario Galaxy to yourself from say 15 years ago, that person would probably have just as much trouble with Galaxy as they do with, say, SMB3. I used to think that SMB3 was this disaster area of impossibility, but if I play it now I can cruise through most of the games no problem. Towards the end things get a bit tough, but Mario Galaxy isn't a walk in the park once you start getting up to the 90+ stars.