Kotaku’s Bashcraft loves (most of) Mario Galaxy
Thursday, November 1st, 2007 at 6:23pm by Derek
According to a 2004 census, there are approximately 127 million people living in Japan. We can logically assume roughly half of them own a Wii.
In addition to hogging the global Wii supply, they also get Super Mario Galaxy eleven excruciating days before it reaches North American shores, more than two weeks before Europe and - ah, poor Australia - almost a full month before our friends down under.
Obviously, the Japanese are a very privileged people. Forget that they also have one of the strongest economies in the world, beautiful uninhabited forests and an effective system of universal healthcare.
Galaxy is reason enough to relocate to Tokyo.
The ridiculously-anticipated game was released in Japan today, and Brian Ashcraft of Kotaku has posted some brief hands-on impressions of the final Japanese retail copy of Super Mario Galaxy. But surprisingly, all is not perfect in Mario’s latest outing; at least, not in outset of the adventure.
“Yes, the Wiimote controls are still tight, the graphics are still great and, yes, it’s still a helluva good time. Well, once you begin the adventure part. Everything leading up to that is a bit of a drag.”
Ashcraft has some interesting qualms with the introductory elements of the game; they are needlessly long, too dialogue-reliant and overly simplistic. Perhaps Ashcraft is merely scraping the very bottom of the Complaints Barrel to find something negative to say about Galaxy; after all, both Twilight Princess and Corruption are also very slow-moving in their opening minutes before their incomparably immersive plot and gameplay finally begin to unravel.
But given the recent influx of “casual gamers” into the Nintendo community, Ashcraft may be on to something. From Nintendo’s perspective, a slow-moving tutorial session in Galaxy might be an efficient means of ensuring that the Wii Sports crowd is as comfortable with controlling the game as the Mario faithful. For Miyamoto, it may have made sense to design the introductory minutes by essentially holding the player’s hand, though experienced Mario fans will want to pull away and get to the classic platforming action.
As has seemingly everyone who has played the game, however, Ashcraft’s initial gripes cannot mask his overall giddy praise.
“The first ten minutes were unnecessary, dull and not fun. But once you clear that, damn is this game fantastic.”
In other news, Super Mario Galaxy grants players three wishes, clothes and feeds the homeless and, if completed without warp-pipe assistance, resurrects Robert Goulet for an impromptu a cappella of the Mario Brothers theme.
Maybe not. But at this point, would any of that come as a surprise? Given the absurd levels of praise Super Mario Galaxy is earning from practically every hands-on and preview to this point, those are about the only three good things the game doesn’t do.
November 1st, 2007 at 7:27 pm
Sounds hot!
November 1st, 2007 at 7:38 pm
Some guys would consider that pic a spoiler, not me anyway.
Man, i´m so pumped for this game!
November 1st, 2007 at 7:39 pm
New game get!! (if only I were in Japan right now)
November 1st, 2007 at 7:55 pm
Is it as tedious as the beginning of Super Paper Mario? Because after that, anything’s tolerable.
November 1st, 2007 at 7:59 pm
@Josh:
lol. that was kinda boring, but the game does pick uo after, the humor is the best part of that game.
November 1st, 2007 at 8:21 pm
Can…not…wait…
November 1st, 2007 at 8:46 pm
I played the demo at Gamestop. I’ll gladly sit through the beginning “drag” to get the goodness thereafter.
November 1st, 2007 at 9:21 pm
I played the demo too. The only downside was that, for some reason, the HD TV the Wii was hooked up to did not have component(?) cables, making the game look really jaggie and rough, but it looked great, regardless.
November 1st, 2007 at 9:24 pm
Doesn’t almost every game have 10 minutes of tutorial and/or exposition?
November 1st, 2007 at 9:31 pm
Right now Im playing the backup of this game and its GREAT. The background music is orchestrated and its very good. Also, there are remixed themes from old Mario games, its simply amazing. Im going to preorder this game as soon as possible.
November 1st, 2007 at 9:47 pm
I’ve always thought that the writers at Kotaku go out of their way to make complaints. Maybe it’s just me, but I just don’t like it when writers try to be overly-snarky and cynical. It just comes off as demanding. I don’t think they understand that games (especially Mario games) are made for everyone, not just the people who have been playing them forever.
November 1st, 2007 at 10:49 pm
Too soon with that Goulet joke, Derek. Too soon.
Good article, though.
“That’s why I come up here.”
November 1st, 2007 at 10:55 pm
I played SMG at Gamestop the other day, and I have to agree. The introductory sequences are too long, too childish (sorry), and annoying. I felt the same with the beginning of sunshine, but this seems a little bit worse. Now after that… I have NO doubt the game is going to blow me away. None.
November 1st, 2007 at 11:00 pm
@ DonWii
Yeah, it seems that the Wii gets the worse setup as far as TV goes. They must be using the original composite cable and a low quality LCD screen. I played the Metroid Prime 3 demo there as well, and it looked dark and jaggy, but looked awesome on my LCD at home.
November 2nd, 2007 at 9:13 am
Titles like this are why I keep coming back to this site. ‘Bashcraft’ is spot on. The writers at Kotaku can be grumpy old men some times. If Bashcraft is referring to the introduction sequence featured on the official Japanese web site for Galaxy, then I would have to humbly disagree with him. I am loving the premise for this game.
November 2nd, 2007 at 9:47 am
If you aren’t happy with the first ten minutes of the game, just throw out your Wii.
November 4th, 2007 at 9:18 am
Living in rural northern Japan had its benefits today as there were plenty of copies (and Wii units) to be had in Aomori. I’m curious how demand is down in Tokyo.
Unfortunately I ran into a bit of trouble getting the game up and running. When I brought the game back home I was surprised to see that the game wouldn’t load in the main Wii menu. After checking with other games to make sure my Wii was OK I went back to the store and got a new copy only to find the exact same thing happen again. This time I clicked on the Wii game channel that had the “no disk” icon and to my surprise the Wii did a quick check and update. After that the game loaded up perfectly fine. I’m not quite sure what was going on as the menus went by too fast for me to translate the Japanese but if you find the game doesn’t load right away on start give that a try.
Anyway, I’m about 6 stars in and I agree with most reviews so far. It’s by no means the revolution that Mario64 was but I like it much better than Sunshine (where the environments just didn’t “feel” like Mario to me). Even though you’re often flying through space it feels like a proper Mario title. Plenty more to play so I’ll see how it goes from here.
I’ll admit I found myself feeling a bit disoriented for the first few minutes in space as I adjusted to Mario running upside down. However, this was my girlfriend’s first 3D Mario experience and she adjusted in no time. I think they nailed the controls fairly well although I don’t feel like the Wii controls are breaking much new ground.
I’d be interested to see some platformers take the Wii controls in riskier new directions in the future. Do things that really can’t be accomplished with a standard controller beyond simply making cursor pointing more intuitive.