Super Mario Galaxy: Second look
I’ve thrown a few more hours into Super Mario Galaxy now, and I really like it. It’s the first game in the Mario 64 series that’s really true to its Mario roots – whereas the other games had a major focus on puzzle solving and scavenger hunting, Galaxy, insofar as I’ve played, appears to be mainly about jumping. There are some interesting things to jump on / over / around, and some odd jumping mechanics. The control isn’t 100% there in the "weird planetoid" sections (the parts with a very small planet of an odd shape – Ratchet & Clank’s "spherical worlds" except not necessarily anything like spherical), but it’s not far off.
There are, of course, the minigames. They’re pretty tiresome, but I must admit they do gain some entertainment value due to being Wii-ish and therefore not the exact same minigames I’ve suffered through in every 3D platformer ever. That’s well into "thank heaven for small favours" territory, though; it’d be much better not to have them at all. At least there aren’t many of them, and the normal parts of the game have some really enjoyable actual platforming, even if Mario’s inertia is still very high.
