Topic: User Impressions/Reviews Thread

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Xenoblade Chronicles: Future Connected (Switch).

An all new adventure bundled with Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition. While you can jump straight into it, for narrative reasons it's recommended you play through the main game first (I'll try writing this as spoiler free as possible).

Gameplay:

• Like XC2's Torna expansion, Future Connected is a shorter adventure (I'd guess 10 - 15 hours, which is even shorter than Torna's 30 - 40 runtime) that features a completely new area, plus a returning area from the main game. The new area in question is the Bionis' Shoulder, which was a nearly complete area developed for the original game but cut due to thematic redundancy with a few of the game's earlier locales such as Colony 9 & Bionis' Leg (in short, it's a grasslands area). Gussie it up a bit and you've got yourself a brand new area for a story expansion. For spoiler purposes I won't reveal the returning location, though I will say it's one of the game's smaller locales, and you really don't spend a whole lot of time with it here.
• Returning party members include Shulk & Melia, and they're joined by two new Nopon characters in Nene & Kino (two children of Riki, the main game's Nopon party member). Basic combat is the same as the main game, with Nene & Kino even taking the abilities/roles of Reyn (tank) & Sharla (healer) respectively (sorry Melia, I'm putting you on the side lines again, lol). Fitting that it takes place shortly after the events of the main game, you don't start out at level 1, but instead level 60 (with all your arts already at level 4 or 5). Of course the area's enemies are levelled accordingly.
• There are 4 big changes to combat.
  1. There is no more future vision mechanic in place to counter killer blows, with nothing to replace it. This means you really don't have a need for most of the special Monado arts, though I did find a use for a couple. I never particularly found this to be a problem however, so enemy special attacks must have been relatively nerfed to sort of balance it out.
  2. Across your journey you'll run across a group of Nopon adventurers known as "Ponspectors" who'll join up with your party. There are 12 in total and mention this here as they ever presently follow your party of 3 while out adventuring & in combat (like active Blades do in XC2). During battle they'll randomly heal or buff party members & attack & debuff enemies (4 carry blue flags and have restorative effects, 4 more have red flags and attack enemies, and 4 others have yellow flags & debuff enemies). This is all AI controlled & involves no input from the player.
     
     I hope you're not tired of Nopon.
  3. The Chain Attack mechanic has been removed (where you expend your whole talent gauge to chain an art from each party member into a combo). It is replaced with a mechanic where you instead call upon all Ponspectors to strike in unison. Performed under the same conditions as a Chain Attack, you'll have the option to have them heal all party members & provide a litany of buffs, do massive damage to an enemy, or automatically Daze & debuff the enemy. The effectiveness of the strike depends on the total number of Ponspectors you've joined with as well as a little 3 prompt QTE (I think it's the same one used when performing certain arts in XC2). You'll occasionally get an "Extra Chance", which lets you immediately choose another strike (though you can't pick the one you've already used again).
  4. Another new aspect is the presence of "Fog Beasts". These are regular monsters who have fallen under the influence of the "Fog King" (the big bad of the expansion who is brought up in the first hour, so not really a spoiler). They have a black aura around them & when engaged send out a shockwave that attracts the attention of all nearby monsters (& levels them up). They sound annoying, but in practice I never had any particular issue with them (all other enemies return to their regular level if the Fog Beast is killed beforehand).
     
     There's something not quite right with these guys.
• Adventuring is largely the same as it is in the main game (you gain EXP from discovering new locations & landmarks, the latter act as warp points, harvest points are random blue dots everywhere, etc), though there are a few nagging issues. First off, given that they've had to cram an entire adventure into this one location, it's entirely possible to take a few steps off the beaten path (particularly early on) and wind up in a space with enemies too strong for you (& I don't mean the occasional random super strong enemy you're supposed to tip toe around you'll get in the main game, just a space with enemies generally too strong for you early on). Secondly, the landscape can be quite "layered" in spots, and yet the map is depicted as one "floor". This means you'll probably run into the issue where you'll go to a quest marker only to look around and see it's on a plane above or below you (a problem with XC2 occasionally, but not one I had with XC:DE proper). Granted, these are small problems in the grand scheme of things (death is just as un-punishing as ever, and you'll know the entire area by the back of your hand before too long), but they are there.
• Otherwise the game is streamlined in many aspects.
  1. The Skill Tree & all Affinity related systems (including all the charts) have been completely wiped. The "Heart-To-Heart" conversations scattered around the map (previously locked off by affinity requirements) have been replaced with "Quiet Moments". These are fully voice acted interactions between party members that are only ever locked off by story progression. Honestly this is a big load off your back as you don't have to worry about some obscure affinity requirement locking off a side quest or some such.
  2. While they can drop better weapons, enemies no longer drop armor (and the armor you obtain from quests is largely cosmetic). Better armor is exclusively obtained by buying it from one of the two shops in the game.
  3. There is no more Gem crafting system. An upgrade to your Ether Deposit mining gear near the start of the game means you harvest ready to go equipment Gems from Ether Deposits instead of crystals (enemies no longer drop crystals either). At some point you can do a side quest that improves the quality of Gems you mine as well (you start out mining level II & III Gems, and get level IV Gems afterwards) You still get a few Gems from side quests or treasure chests too, though.
• 3 - 4 NPC side quests usually open up after every other story event, and while (almost) none of them reward EXP, they all reward large amounts of money (which is important, since you can only buy better armor as previously stated). Each Ponspector also requires you to complete a side quest before they join you, and while (almost) none of them reward money, they all reward large amounts of EXP. You run across the first Ponspector as part of a scripted event, and after that he'll give you the locations of a few others. Ideally after you get more to join they'll reveal the location of a couple others, so on so forth, but it's important to note they all load in after you meet the first one, so it's entirely possible to get them out of order (I got a few this way), though be aware one may give you a quest you're not ready for if you're not "supposed" to meet them yet. Unlike the main game none of the quests get locked off due to story progression, and unless I somehow completely missed it during my entire playthrough of the main game, another new aspect is that it'll tell you what level they recommend you be at to take them on.
  
  Ready for duty!

Story/Characters:

• A year after the main game ends, Shulk & Melia are taking a trip to [insert returning location here] to see how things are going, when a big laser fires upon their ship & they crash land on the Bionis' Shoulder. Joined up by Nene & Kino (children of the previous game's Riki) who had stowed away on board, they soon meet up with refugees from [insert returning location here] who were driven out by a foe they've dubbed the "Fog King", an etheral being who seems immune to all physical & ether (magic) attacks, which phase through it. To make matters worse is that racial tension has caused the military class to leave the civilian camp unguarded, meaning Shulk & Co. have their work cut out for them.
• Despite the serious nature of the narrative, the game is a lot like XC2 in that it seemingly always balances out the more sombre moments with something a bit more light hearted, and that's largely where Nene & Kino join in. Yes, they're Nopon with all the speach & personality quirks that come with that, but they're also actual children, so the whole schtick comes off as much more genuine from them & they never fail to bring a smile. Despite the short run time of Future Connected, I probably care more about them than some party members from the main game.
  
  A surprisingly heartfelt duo.
• By and large this is Melia's story though (kinda ironic considering I sidelined her, lol), as she was the party member with the most baggage left over at the end of the main game, and it provides a nice conclusion for her (and some expanded roles for characters around her narrative).
• However, a lot (read: practically all) of the phenomena surrounding the sudden appearance of the Fog King is left unanswered, and I can't help but think that in that regard, this is as much prologue for where they want to take the series next as it is epilogue for where it's been. Unfortunately, unless some eagle eyed fan has noticed something that flew over me, there was nothing here that seemed to tie things back into XC2 (which I assumed there might be). Whatever the case, while the main game had a satisfying end & I shouldn't be itching for more after playing this cart for nearly 140 hours, that's exactly where Future Connected left me, wanting more.

Graphics/Audio:

• While you'll largely be spending your time in one location, I think they did a pretty good job of bringing the Bionis' Shoulder to life, and there's just enough diversity to keep it feeling fresh (though in terms of native monsters, it kinda feels like they jammed a bit of everything in there, feeling a bit more of an ecological mishmash than the locations in the main game).
  
  
  
  
• While you can't carry over any equipment from the main game (for practical gameplay purposes), you can still use the appearance of armor you collected in the main game for cosmetic reasons (once you clear it you can set the appearance of Shulk's weapon too).
• When you first load into an area (after warping or some such) or when things get really, really busy, I noticed the occasional dropped frame, which I imagine had to do with your little Ponspector army flailing their little flags about everywhere. It's not something that bothered me, but I figured I should mention it for transparency.

Conclusion:

• It's brief enough that it's probably not worth buying XC:DE just for this, but if you've never played the original game (or are looking to re-experience it) this is definitely a nice bonus that sweetens the deal.
  
  A dessert worth digging into.

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Super Mario Galaxy HD Remaster (via the Super Mario 3D All-Stars package)

Platform: Nintendo Switch

Completion status: 200% completion across two separate playthroughs; roughly 35 - 40 hours playtime total

Yasss Space Queen!

The third game in the Super Mario 3D All-Stars collection, Super Mario Galaxy ("SMG" or "Galaxy" henceforth), is the one I was most eager to revisit when it was first announced. I've mentioned this before, but it's a game I have a special history with, because I attribute my current love of Nintendo and video games in general to my experience with that game. I'd been a moderately-engaged gamer as a youth, but, as time wore on, I found myself becoming less and less enchanted with the hobby, and that interest bottomed-out in the dreadful seventh console generation. Nintendo games were gimmicky and cheap, and the HD twins at the time felt like they were filled with boorish Western AAA blockbusters that mostly didn't appeal to me. That all changed one sleepy Sunday when I chanced to finally play Galaxy and was, frankly, blown away by it. The incredible orchestral soundtrack! The playful platforming mechanics! The gorgeous art design! Afterward, I pulled out my long dormant GameCube, started playing on my PS2 and NDS more, and, a few years later, ponied up the money for a Nintendo 3DS, and the rest is history. I'd fallen deeply in love with the medium again, and particularly with Nintendo, who I'd fallen out with after the NES in favor of Sega and Sony's consoles. Anyway, you can imagine my enthusiasm when I found out one of my all-time favorite games was getting an HD re-release on my favorite platform of the generation, the Nintendo Switch.

Galaxy's release on the Wii in 2007 mirrored my own experience with it, in some ways, because after the explosive entrance of Super Mario 64 in 1996, the plumber went into a bit of a dormancy period when it came to hype new mainline releases. Super Mario Sunshine released on the GameCube, of course, but it wasn't the sort of universally acclaimed, blow-out success that SM64 had been. It wasn't until Galaxy released that the gaming masses fell fully back in love with our titular hero again. As with SM64 on the N64, his new adventure was a streak of brilliance that used exciting new hardware to tremendously successful effect. I've long contended that Galaxy's controls were one of the few almost fully perfect utilizations of the odd Wiimote & Nunchuk controller combination.

The challenge with its re-release, then, was adapting a game heavily reliant on pointer controls and motion gestures to entirely new hardware can could be played on the TV like a home console or off the TV like a Game Boy. I'll admit that, until this point, I never would have thought Super Mario Galaxy could work in portable form, but I had to try it out and judge for myself. The good news there, spoiler alert, is that, yes, it does work fairly well as a portable game in most regards (more on that in a bit). The bigger question, then, was if the game was still as wonderful in 2020 as it was in 2008 or so when I got around to playing it. And it... mostly is. It's still an absolutely wonderful experience. There are some flaws, though, that had been papered over in my memory. This is also the first time I've fully, 100% completed the game, and I'm going to talk about that as well, because the "post-game" content in Galaxy is extensive, but perhaps not in the way one might wish for.

When the game first begins, right at the title screen, it is immediately apparent to the player that the atmosphere and music in this title are going to be significantly different from what you might have encountered in your daddy's Mario game in the past. As mentioned previously, Super Mario Galaxy was the first game in the series to deliver a fully orchestral score, and good lord did Nintendo go all out with it! Galaxy's soundtrack is one of the most unique in the series, as it ditches the reliance on happy-go-lucky tunes and catchy ditties to deliver something more complex, varied, and emotional. A large part of the game's by turns melancholy, adventurous, and playful mood draws from this score. Throughout the review, I'm going to be linking and alluding to various pieces of music that crop up throughout the game, starting with the promised title screen theme above. Music is a big part of this game's identity, and I think it makes good backing audio to my discussion of it.

SMG transitions to a charming introduction where we learn about a Star Festival that takes place once every hundred years when a particular comet passes over the planet. Much as with Mario 64, Princess Peach has invited Mario to the festival, because she has "something she wants to give him." More of the same, er, "cake" that required an intimate trip to the Princess' castle back in '96, perhaps? Either way, the action picks up immediately with Mario arriving in the midst of the enchanting Star Festival, where the music immediately above begins to play. It's an interesting way to begin the game, although the carefree, magical atmosphere doesn't last for long.

Listening to the music above, you might be forgiven for expecting Darth Vader to appear, but it's just a far more menacing iteration of the Bowser airship theme that was first introduced back in Super Mario Bros. 3. Bowser's fleet of airships surrounds Peach's castle and chaos ensues as cannon fire rains down on the terrified crowd. Bowser boasts about creating a new galaxy before a UFO under his control cuts the ground out from under the castle, and the castle, along with the chunk of land immediately under it is literally lifted away. The koopa king's kidnapping game just went up a few notches! Mario attempts to hitch a ride and rescue the princess as Peach's castle is dragged off to space, but, after leaving Earth's orbit, he's hit by enemy fire and goes blasting off into space, unconscious.

It's actually all a fairly quick sequence, but it's incredibly cinematic for a Mario game. Mario awakens on tiny planetoid in the Gateway Galaxy (levels are called "galaxies" in this game, whether they're entire planets or small collections of platforms and space debris), surrounded by strange, rabbit-like creatures, who challenge him to catch them. This is when the game first introduces the player to the spherical level design that go on to define many of the game's levels. As Mario, the player will run around the tiny sphere in all directions, and, if he long jumps at the right points, can even start swirling around entire sections of the environment as the gravity well generated by the cosmic body draws Mario back to land. It's a largely danger-less playground that allows the player to start becoming accustomed to the controls and feel of the game. After catching the star bunnies, they are revealed to be small, star-shaped entities called "lumas," who tell you to go talk to their "mama" at the top of the level. This is where we first meet the mystical, possibly immortal Rosalina, who informs Mario that he will need to travel through the universe to save his "special one." She gives Mario a luma to keep with him, who enables him to use an invaluable technique Mario will need throughout the game.

Perhaps this is a good time to discuss Mario's moveset in this game. Super Mario Galaxy foregoes the complex assortment of movements of its 3D predecessors and offers players a smaller but perfectly balanced moveset. The long jump, somersault, side jump, triple jump, and ground pound all return in this iteration, alongside one new but extremely useful addition: the spin attack. Thanks to the luma who accompanies him on his journey, Mario is able to engage in a dynamic spin attack to knock back and/or defeat enemies, as well as break fragile objects in his environment, and it works out brilliantly. Even as someone who thought the punching and kicking in Super Mario 64 was pointless, I simply couldn't imagine playing this game without a melee attack. It feels great, and, to be honest, it makes controlling the italian plumber in any of his other 3D adventures (other than Galaxy 2) feel just a little bit worse.

In the Wii original, the spin attack was triggered by making a flicking motion with the remote. As someone who isn't typically a fan of waggle, I still found it to be reliable control-wise. Thanks to the gyrometer in the Switch, that functionality remains viable here, but, in one of the biggest control alterations in the Switch port, the spin attack is also now mapped to a face button, which makes precision movements much more viable with the Pro Controller, or especially in handheld mode, where the player would be forced to shake their entire machine.

The other primary alteration comes with regard to the game's ever-present use of pointer controls. In the Wii original, the wiimote pointer would create a cursor on the screen. This cursor was used to both interact with certain on-screen objects (more on this in a bit) as well as to scoop up "star bits," which are tiny, crystal-like objects that rain down from the heavens, explode out of enemies, and generally litter the game's various levels. These star bits are collected throughout the game and can be used both as a form of currency to unlock new levels (specific lumas will eat them, and when satisfied, will generate new, optional galaxies for the player to find) as well as a defensive tool that can be used to stun enemies by shooting at them.

Anyhow, this cursor long struck me as the almost sole reason SMG wouldn't work on future Nintendo consoles, but where there's a will, there is a way. Nintendo found two new ways to replace the wiimote pointer cursor in this HD re-release. The first method, in docked mode, is using the Switch's gyro functionality to emulate pointer controls, and it works... surprisingly well. Granted, the on-screen cursor will often become de-synchronized and wander across the screen after a period of time, but, as with Nintendo's own Splatoon series, one of the shoulder bumpers on the player's controller is a dedicated re-centering button, which realigns the gyro cursor with however the player happens to be holding the controller at that moment. While it's not as immediately intuitive as the Wii's pointer cursor solution, it quickly became instinctual for me to re-center the gyro right before gently shifting my controller to collect star bits. If anything, it avoids both the literally tiresome activity of pointing a remote directly at a sensor bar in front of the player and the issues that would crop up at times where I would have a hard time finding my cursor on-screen because the remote was pointed too high or too low, making this workaround my preferred control method.

In handheld mode, the game forces an entirely different method for collecting star bits. Gyro is abandoned in favor of touch controls! It's so rarely utilized that sometimes it's hard to remember, but the Nintendo Switch features a fully-functional capacitive touch screen. In place of shifting one's hands around, then, the player will literally use their finger to swipe across the screen. It can take some getting used to, given that it requires moving one's hands away from sticks and buttons temporarily, but it works about as well as one could possibly imagine, and even made certain levels easier to complete. I do wish, though, that the player was given an option to opt for gyro or touch controls in handheld mode, as this design choice will be alienating or uncomfortable to some.

Anyway, after initially meeting Rosalina, Mario encounters his first launch star, which, when triggered by a spin, will send him flying to the first real challenge in the game. This initial area, where Mario will have to rescue a Grand Star that is being used to power some enormous and presumably space-bound machine, functions as a sort of extended tutorial for the larger game, as the player will encounter various new mechanics that will keep popping up later in the game, such as collecting star chips that, when all collected, will form new launch stars, freeing lumas frozen in crystal, and triggering flip-switches (panels that alternate between binary states when stepped on; all the flip switches in a given area need to be activated simultaneously to trigger something in the environment, but obstacles, shifting platforms, and variances in gravity will all stand as challenges in these sections).

After freeing the first Grand Star, Mario is taken by Rosalina to the Comet Observatory, Rosalina's starship and what becomes the main hub area of the game, equivalent to Peach's Castle in Mario 64 and Delfino Plaza in Mario Sunshine. We learn that Bowser attacked the Observatory during the Star Festival, causing its power sources (Power Stars and Grand Stars) to spill out across the universe. With the returned Grand Star, a small portion of the Observatory regains power, allowing Mario to teleport to a small number of nearby galaxies to retrieve missing power stars.

This very basic piece is what greets the player when they first start the game proper and explore the small chunk of the Observatory available to them after collecting the first Grand Star. This piece changes and grows in complexity over the course of the game as the player finds more Grand Stars and unlocks more of the starship until, finally, the multi-tiered complexity of the game's hub level is unlocked in full, and the piece full evolves into something more complex and grand.

Super Mario Galaxy is reminiscent of Mario 64 in terms of how its levels are wildly diverse and thematically distinct zones disconnected from the hub area. It's worth talking about the increased focus on linearity at this point. Let's start with the hub area. While atmospheric and lovely, the Comet Observatory is probably the shallowest hub area in the series to date, as there are only a few (very significant) 'secrets' to find, versus the much more multi-faceted complexity of Peach's Castle, which hid all sorts of hidden areas, secret stars, shortcuts to different sections of the castle, and so on. In general, there's rarely much of a reason to explore Rosalina's starship, and it primarily functions as a bit of window-dressing when going between different galaxies.

This focus on straightforward area design and lack of exploration extends also to the game's levels as well. Outside of a few particular levels, where the player will be able to find hidden lumas who will be able to unlock alternative power star challenges, each star mission in a galaxy is an incredibly straightforward affair, reminiscent of 2D Mario games in that there's usually an unambiguous path toward a Power Star at the end of the level. This has disappointed some, who had to wait until 2017 to get another sandbox Mario game. It's pretty much unquestionable that Galaxy's approach to progression and level design, and especially its even more linear and streamlined sequel, anticipated the direction of the 3D games in the Wii U era with Super Mario 3D World.

This focus on linearity isn't really a bad thing, though. What Mario Galaxy lacks in exploration it makes up for with incredibly creative level design, unique platforming mechanics, and fantastic set-pieces. One that struck me immediately about Galaxy is how varied and its level themes are. Nintendo has been pilloried in some quarters in the past for not really experimenting with the types of levels that show up in these games, but the standard fire, ice, field, etc. levels that even littered Mario 64 aren't really present here, or, when they are, see massive twists or alterations. There are ice-themed galaxies, for example, but they are usually built around Mario manipulating both fire and ice to progress through the levels, and, with the ice flower power-up, Mario often ends up skating like a gymnastic professional across larger sections of the levels, or using his ice powers to selectively freeze spouts of water in order to get where he needs to go. There are levels themed entirely around gigantic space toys, or raids on Bowser's airships, or even interacting with a race of massive, sentient bees. It's a creative streak that has largely been absent in the series since Super Mario World.

The music also helps to make these galaxies feel distinct. Individual galaxies can lean hard on the 'epic space music' thing as well. For example, I love the sweeping theme that plays in the Battlerock Galaxy, linked above. Amazing music, but, again, VERY unusual for a Mario game. There is also a lot of music in this game that evokes a sense of adventurous grandeur, as with the deservedly famous theme that plays in the Gusty Garden Galaxy (linked below).

It's also worth mentioning that, while levels are broadly linear insofar as the land tends to direct you one way, many of the levels are very "wide linear." In that sense, Mario Galaxy is less Uncharted 2 than it is Uncharted 4: there's only one place to really go, but there's often a lot of space around you regardless, making it feel more like navigating actual terrain and less like being on rails.

The platforming itself is primarily about interacting with gravity. One common features in more futuristic levels where you're running around gigantic structures or machines in space, for example, is the use of artificial gravity zones, where Mario will be forced to up walls, across ceilings, riding platforms that move across a shifting spectrum of gravity zones while you're made to dodge obstacles, etc. I alluded to this before, but you will also bounce between different spherical bodies, where you'll need to jump high enough to get caught in the gravity wells generated by different platforms. The gravity manipulation gives the Galaxy games a feel that's unlike any other Mario game in the series.

In terms of how levels are distributed, Galaxy is, again, reminiscent of Mario 64. In Mario 64, you'd unlock rooms with power stars to access a variety of paintings, which you could tackle in semi-non-linear fashion. But to access later levels, you still needed to hit certain star thresholds, which helped to direct the flow of the game. Mario Galaxy does something sort of similar. Every time you unlock a new section of the Observatory with a Grand Star, a new set of galaxies will be made available to the player. As long as they hit the requisite number of Power Stars (presumably, the reasoning behind this is you need a certain number of stars to have the power to be teleported out to specific galaxies, which gives progression a nicely organic flavor missing in Mario 64), players can often play these galaxies in any order. Like in 64, though, the game will require the player to complete boss stages in order to unlock further sections of the game (bosses seem to be the ones who are holding the Grand Stars).

This is a good opportunity to talk about the bosses in this game. Mario games have a... rough history with bosses. The boss variety and difficulty in all of the 2D games, and in Super Mario 64 as well were pretty pathetic, honestly. Super Mario Sunshine went a bit further in terms of having more varied boss encounters, but Super Mario Galaxy does a particularly good job of regularly distributing these encounters and making them feel like proper setpieces, whether you're using rock hard boos to smash up a rock monster or pounding the ground at key moments to flush out an enemy that's hunting you from underneath the ground. They're still easy, mind you, and they don't possibly begin to compare to the bosses in series like Donkey Kong Country or The Legend of Zelda, but they still represent another area of clear improvement from preceding Mario titles.

In terms of improvements from previous 3D Mario games, it should be noted that Mario Galaxy features one of the widest range of power-ups in the series (before Mario Odyssey made every object and enemy in the game a potential power-up, at least!), including new additions like Ice Mario, Bee Mario (Mario dresses up in an adorable bee costume and can flitter around), Spring Mario (Mario turns into a spring and can bounce around), Boo Mario (Mario turns into a ghost, hovers around, and can even turn temporarily translucent), and even a form of Mario (unlocked via one of the Observatory's few secret stars) who can fly around. It's like the Wing Cap from Mario 64, except using it's actually fun and easy to use.

There's still a lot to be said about the levels in this game, though. I'll start with a discussion of Prankster Comet challenges. Specific levels in this game, once completed, will unlock the chance for comet challenges to appear. Prankster Comet challenges award power stars and remix aspects of galaxies you visited previously. Speedy comets will require the player to speedrun levels they previously completed, sometimes giving them only a couple of minutes to reach the end goal, which requires a familiarity with the level design. Daredevil Comets will require the player to complete levels, and sometimes even more challenging boss levels, while capped at one point of health (if you're hit even once, you die and have to start over from the beginning of the level, essentially). Fast Foe Comets are exactly what they sound like: you play through the level again, but this time with enemies that move super-fast. Often these comets appear in levels filled with giant enemies that will kill you in one hit.

Purple Comets unlock purple coin challenges, which function very much like red coin challenges in previous games, except now you have to run around some of the more expansive levels in the game collecting 100 purple coins. Some of these are just time consuming, but the timed purple coin challenges can be incredibly difficult, and there's at least one notoriously difficult comet challenge that tasks the player with collecting 100 of these coins in a level where the ground permanently disappears out from under Mario when he steps on it. The most interesting of the comet challenges, though, are the Cosmic Comet challenges. In these challenges, a shadowy clone of Mario very much like the one from Super Mario Sunshine will challenge you to a race to the end of a level. Whoever grabs the power star at the end of the level first is the victor.

That brings us to... sigh... the motion controlled levels. To start with this discussion, I'll link a piece of music. Listen to it, and I think you'll begin to get a sense of where we're going here.

Yes, it's this game's version of the slide theme, the wacky, infuriating, carnival-esque music that portends something terrible. Y'see, Nintendo can never just make a perfect masterpiece. They always, always, always find something annoying to introduce that drags it from the heights of excellence just that little bit. I guess Nintendo thought the price we pay for this game's fantastic platforming is pure game design trolling in the form of motion-controlled vehicle levels.

These were created, I suppose, to show off the capabilities of the Wiimote. The manta ray challenge races task the player with using gyro to control a manta ray as it races down a stream of water suspended over space. This is about as fun as it sounds. Interestingly enough, though, it's the most merciful of these level types, since you have to hold a button to accelerate, which allows you to kind of inch along at your own pace (although still fast enough to get to the goal in time to collect the power star), and it actually works as well or better in portable mode than it does with a Pro Controller on the TV. You, of course, twist your controller or game console to change the direction the manta ray is going.

Now listen to this theme. It's basically insanity in musical form. That's appropriate, given the levels it plays during.

The far more infuriating motion controlled levels are these ones where Mario is balancing on a ball. Holding the controller flat is the default position, and then angling it upwards or downwards sends Mario flying through the course on an unstable ball. Of course, in order to make it as painful as humanly possible, hitting enemies will make your ball elevate, which can easily send you flying off-course. There also aren't any checkpoints in these levels, so, ah, have fun with that. The motion control detection is wonkier here than it was on the Wii, where I believe you held the Wiimote upright when controlling it. There were points where I felt like I was having to turn my Pro Controller almost entirely upside down, and, in general. I must have looked like a tremendous idiot when I was attempting to get through these exercises in suffering.

While we're at it, there are also pointer cursor (or, in the case of the Switch version, gyro cursor) controlled levels, where you have to point at specific points on the screen with the cursor and have Mario navigate to them. Not a problem normally, but then you get these challenge levels where you're navigating obstacles with gyro cursor-controlled movement, and it's just kind of awkward. It works about as well, if not better than it did on the Wii, at least.

Thankfully, these terrible levels make up a very small number of the game's total level count. They stick out a zit on an otherwise clear and beautiful face.

I guess I should mention the in-game camera as well. It's very reminiscent of the camera in Super Mario 64 insofar as it often can't be adjusted, and the game just of positions the camera where it thinks it needs to be. In SM64, this was a nightmare because it would get stuck at odd angles/behind objects/etc. Super Mario Galaxy's camera is what Mario 64's camera wanted to be when it grew up. 95% of the time, despite not being adjustable, it gives you the perfect angle to see what needs to be seen and avoid obstacles. And, in fairness, a full 3D camera would work VERY poorly with this game's focus on smaller, spherical platforms. But 5% of the time, the camera works poorly, and it's what led to the bulk of my deaths in the game, whether through not being able to judge distance adequately, or just getting stuck on the scenery. It's still a mostly excellent in-game camera, but, while I'm complaining, I figured I'd address it.

Super Mario Galaxy is a game full of epic sweeps and adventure and quiet beauty, and a big reflection of that change in atmosphere can be attributed to Rosalina. I haven't had much to say about this game's now iconic new character, but she really was one of the best additions to the entire franchise, for a number of reasons. For one thing, in a series with frankly terrible female representation over the years, she really stands out, insofar as she is a powerful and (by Mario game standards) complex character who stands as Mario's partner in this game. What really made her stick in the memory, I imagine, is her backstory.

Throughout the game after the library section of the Observatory is initially unlocked, Mario will be able to find Rosalina reading a story book to her star children. It quickly becomes apparent that this storybook is actually Rosalina's backstory, and it's... well, I won't dwell on it much, except to say that it's gorgeously illustrated and extremely emotional. It adds a surprising amount of depth to her character, and it's the closest a Mario game has ever come, and likely ever will come, to frankly exploring themes related to love, longing, loneliness, and death. It's a completely optional thing, and interestingly, was never originally planned to be in the game. One of the developers apparently wrote it on their own and just sort of smuggled it in without calling too much attention to it. I'm glad they did, though, as it adds a welcome layer of depth and emotional resonance to the game that simply don't exist in other Mario titles.

I'll link some of the music from the storybook sections below, which should give you a sense of their tone:

I should also mention that the game's climax, after the final boss, is surprisingly powerful and resonant as well. I won't describe it, but it's another very cinematic section of the game, and, while unusual for a Mario platformer, which are usually fairly low-stakes, it fits with the wider cosmic scope of the game. Needless to say, this is likely the only Mario game that will ever touch on ideas related to self-sacrifice or the origin and meaning of life.

Rosalina isn't the only new character introduced by the game, though! Super Mario Galaxy made another great contribution to the larger Mario franchise with the intrepid explorer, Captain Toad, who would play a larger role in Super Mario 3D World before finally getting his own (very cute) spinoff game on the Wii U. With that said, his role in Galaxy is pretty tiny; he primarily shows up in the background a finds a power star or two.

Luigi has a surprisingly large presence in the game, especially if you decide to 200% it. Throughout the game, Luigi will send letters to Mario showing him trapped somewhere in a level, and, to collect the relevant power star, the player will have to figure out what level he's hidden in and rescue him from whatever predicament he's in. Once the player has collected all 120 stars in their initial playthrough and beaten the final level twice (you have to beat it initially after collecting 60 stars to unlock some of the late-game content, and then beat it again to officially 100% a run), a small cutscene will play after the credits, and Luigi will be unlocked as a playable character.

So, if you want to see and do everything, you have to beat the entire game again as Luigi (which gets pretty weird when Luigi starts sending letters to a copy of himself, which is acknowledged but never really addressed in-game, lol). I was excited to see what would be different, but... it really isn't. Luigi is only the tiniest bit more slippery than Mario, so he doesn't really work as a hard mode. So, for all intents and purposes, you're just playing through the same game again.

For my second playthrough, I played entirely on my Switch Lite, which the game works surprisingly well with. It's not often I can play games that run at a locked 60fps on my Lite, and while I wish Nintendo had given me the option, only using the touchscreen to collect star bits still worked out well. I'm not much for replaying games, especially after beating them initially, but I do love this game, and having it on the Switch Lite meant it was easy to play through the game a second time while watching TV and/or listening to podcasts, which helped me to grind through it all again more easily.

And... what is the game's reward for going through this trouble? You get a secret unlockable level, but it's really lame. It's just the star festival, but this time you're running around collecting purple coins. That's it. No challenge whatsoever. It's a bit of a letdown considering how much goes into unlocking it. And it's in this one area where I will grant that the sequel, Super Mario Galaxy 2, is roundly superior: the Grandmaster Galaxy from that game is BRUTAL, and it started the great tradition of Mario games rewarding full completion with incredible gauntlets that test every skill players have learned in those respective games. Alas, the tradition didn't start here, and as much as I enjoy this game, I have to admit that it's not worth completing two full playthroughs. The ideal Super Mario Galaxy playthrough is one 120 star run. But it was fun to do absolutely everything in this game at least once in my life.

I noted that the perfect performance was a highlight of my experience with the game in portable form on my Switch Lite, and this is characteristic of the entire experience, frankly. Super Mario Galaxy was the first 3D Mario to run at 60fps, which set a new standard for the series (Galaxy 2, 3D World and Odyssey both run at this framerate as well). It really is difficult to go back from the locked, smooth framerate of Galaxy to the frame-y performance of previous games. This, of course, carries over perfectly from the Wii original, and performance is basically perfect in the Switch port of the game.

As with the other releases in the Super Mario 3D All-Stars collection, not a lot has been done to touch up this game, with the primary improvement being that it runs at a significantly higher resolution on Nintendo Switch, generally aiming for 1080p output when docked and a native 720p output in portable mode. This would be a pretty damning indictment for a port of virtually any other game released back in 2007, but the truly impressive thing is that Super Mario Galaxy, which was an absolute stunner on the Wii, still holds up extremely well on a modern system. It's the only games in the collection that doesn't look or feel old, and it wouldn't take much work at all for it to stand alongside Super Mario Odyssey visually. Most of that is likely down to the game's gorgeous art direction, but character models and environments are extremely clean and reasonably detailed as well.

For a lot of franchises, going to space is a last-ditch effort to revive flagging creative efforts and restore relevancy where it has all but disappeared. It turns out that sending Mario to space was exactly the thing Nintendo needed to do to give the series a new lease on life, though. I can't quite give it a perfect score due to some notable flaws that slightly damage the experience, but Super Mario Galaxy is still one of those touchstone games that remind people why they keep buying Nintendo consoles in the first place. It's a brilliant and creative 3D platformer filled with fun level design, perfectly balanced mechanics, gorgeous music, and ranks as one of the italian plumber's finest outings on any system. It was brilliant on the Nintendo Wii, and it's just as brilliant on the Nintendo Switch. It gets the strongest possible 9/10 from me.

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Super Mario 3D World - Bowser's Fury

Platform: Nintendo Switch

Completion Status: 100%, with 100 cat shines collected, and Fury Bowser defeated in his final form

Bowser's Fury is an oddity in the world of Mario and Nintendo games. While it's tethered to a purchase of the recent Switch port of Super Mario 3D World, it's such a mechanically and structurally unique experience that it works better considered on its own merits than as a part of the larger 3D World package. As such, I'll be treating it as a full game (which it is, even if it's shorter than your average 3D Mario platformer). It's worth mentioning from the start that, while it controls similarly to 3D World, it doesn't seem to have any other connections to that game, and can be played before ever touching the main game.

As usual for most Mario games, the context leading up to Mario exploring the new setting in this game is puddle-deep. Mario happens upon a strange bit of graffiti one day, which opens into a portal that sucks him into another world. After being isekai'd into a strange new world, Mario is thrust into a storm-ravaged, oceanic setting and is immediately confronted by a rather wild sight: a demonic, Godzilla-sized Bowser, who wastes no time in attacking Mario. This opening setpiece, as per usual for a Mario game, wordless teaches the players essential aspects of the gameplay. Fury Bowser summons gigantic spikes that block terrain around Mario, guiding him to a wall adorned with Bowser symbols. When Bowser belches out a stream of fire, the player's natural instinct is to hide behind the wall. We quickly learn that Bowser's breath destroys these bricks, which becomes essential throughout the game, and Mario is able to collect a cat sprite. Doing so activates a nearby lighthouse, the light from which wards off Bowser, who goes back to slumber in the black muck filling the harbor.

After this rather scary series of events, Mario happens upon Bowser Jr. He reveals to Mario that his father is out of control and pleads with his arch-nemesis to help him find a way to return his father to normal (we know from other Mario and Paper Mario games that, for all his evil plotting and kidnapping of princesses, Bowser is, if nothing else, a loving daddy). Mario agrees, of course, because Mario's a hero and would never turn away someone in need of aid. And he also happens to be stuck in this new world with no apparent means of escape himself. In an interesting turn, Bowser Jr. actually accompanies Mario on his adventure.

The most immediately distinguishing feature of Bowser's Fury is the way it's structured. This is the first Mario game to take place entirely across one giant map, which appears to be loaded into memory all at once, leading to no load times across the game. Islands dot the map, separated by large expanses of water. Thankfully, the friendly aquatic dinosaur Plessie from Super Mario 3D World returns to help Mario navigate the world of Bowser's Fury. He'll pop out of the water nearby anytime Mario nears the edge of an island, and a significant chunk of time is spent using him to ride between islands, engage in racing challenges for cat shines, and even take on the final boss.

Bowser Jr.'s role in the game is interesting. The player can change his AI, directing him to help attack enemies and collect items or to stand back and only intervene when the player needs him to reveal hidden pipes/items/etc. For my purposes, I set the AI to only activate when I tell it to, since it felt like his interventions took some of the challenge out of the experience. Bowser Jr. can also be controlled by a second player in local co-op, but I tried this out, and it's genuinely not recommended, given how often Mario leaves him behind. For a serviceable comparison, play as Tails in a 2D Sonic game, and you'll quickly get an idea of how frustrating and limiting it is to play as Bowser Jr. here. Co-op just doesn't work well for this particular Mario game.

Fury Bowser awakens after a set period of time throughout the game, and, as you're adventuring, you'll be able to look into the distance and watch as his enormous spiked shell slowly surfaces out of the water and begins spinning, eventually spinning fast enough that he flies into the sky and awakens. It's a very cool real-time element that helps to maintain a sense of tension throughout, as Fury Bowser will wake up regardless of what Mario is doing at a given time. While this isn't particularly troublesome when Mario is out in the water, it can be incredibly troublesome when Mario is in the middle of a difficult platforming challenge, and is forced to avoid Bowser's projectiles and fire breath on top of the obstacles he's already dealing with. The presentation for these attacks by Fury Bowser is phenomenal and ominous, as the skies blacken, rain begins pouring down, and honest-to-goodness metal plays as an enormous, demonic Bowser lumbers around the stage, dwarfing the islands you're traversing.

As the old cliché goes, though, familiarity breeds contempt, and while I never really grew to dislike these segments, you quickly learn that, for all the sound and fury, to quote the bard, they signify nothing. Or, if not nothing, at least very little. Fury Bowser's attacks are pretty easy to dodge, and it's so easy to regain health in Bowser's Fury that he's never more than an annoyance. As with the blood moon cutscenes in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, these segments quickly stop being scary or thrilling after the second or so time they happen. In fact, so many cat shines are tied to blocks that Fury Bowser needs to destroy with his breath that you'll oftentimes be waiting impatiently for the big lug to do his thing.

When the game begins, only a small section of the full map is accessible. Black goo coats most of the ocean and damages the player if they dare to venture into it. Mario is tasked with collecting a certain number of cat shines by completing various goals, and, once he hits that number, an enormous cat bell will activate alongside the next Fury Bowser attack. Touching this cat bell transforms Mario into a kaiju-sized version of himself in the cat suit, and he'll do battle with Fury Bowser. It's quite wild the first time this happens, because suddenly you're twice the size of the level you were just navigating a few moments before, and you're throwing Bowser's mountain-sized projectiles back at him.

Anyhow, defeating Fury Bowser will open up more of the map, and the player will be tasked with collecting more cat shines before they can engage in this process again. Wash, rinse, and repeat. 50 cat shines are needed over the course of the game before the player can face Fury Bowser in his final form. This only really comprises half of the game, though, because, upon beating Bowser's Fury, the player is able to jump back in and collect 50 more cat shines in the post-game. Although it should probably be said that the game doesn't really reward the player for fully completing it, aside from a very slightly more difficult final boss fight the second time around. No extra cutscenes or story or anything. You're doing it because it's fun, which, honestly, should be reason enough for anyone.

The map, taken as a whole, isn't particularly large compared to something like Skyrim or Breath of the Wild, but the sense of scope is pretty wild compared to even a Mario game known for its large landscapes like Super Mario Odyssey. With that said, it's worth pointing out that, level design-wise, for all its openness and non-linearity, the actual islands housing most of the cat shine challenges are almost exactly like levels you'd encounter in the main 3D World game: linear obstacle courses. It's just that, instead of separating the levels, they're all connected via one overworld. Thankfully, after beating the game initially and going back in to find the rest of the cat shines, the game adds a warp feature that allows you to instantly fast travel to any of the islands you previously visited (and I mean INSTANTLY, which is what leads me to believe the entire world is loaded into memory at once).

Control-wise, it's almost identical to 3D World as well, and this is arguably 3D Mario at his least spry, with only a few basic moves in his repertoire. Also like 3D World, and unlike other 3D Marios, there's a run button. With that said, Mario gets around fine without most of his fancy platforming moves, and, like in the main 3D World game, he's a joy to control.

3D World was notable for its introduction of the cat suit, but Bowser's Fury goes a bit overboard in the cat direction. Almost everything in this game is cat themed: outfits, enemies, the environments are themed around named after cats, etc. There are also these adorable wild cats running around everywhere. They'll ignore Mario when he isn't transformed, but, once he dons a cat suit, they chase after him and nuzzle him if he stops. It's adorable, even if you get the sense that somebody at Nintendo perhaps loves cats a bit too much.

I want to briefly mention difficulty, power-ups, and the role of coins in this game. There's no lives system in Bowser's Fury, so collecting 100 coins randomly rewards the player with a new power-up. Unlike most Mario games, though, the player is able to hoard up to five power-ups of each type at a time, and there's six different power-ups to collect in total. There's also a particular transformation that gives the player a ton of coins when they ground pound from a high distance. In short, this game is SUPER easy to break if you spend even five minutes grinding coins by jumping from high surfaces, and even if you don't, there's almost no fear of death most of the time, because you usually have so many transformations on you that you can take countless hits from enemies (considering a fully transformed Mario takes three hits to kill before he can die, each new power-up used gives him three more hits to tank, and you can store five of each power-up). Interestingly, the lava kills Mario instantly, so there are still obstacles to stymie progress, but, in general, the only challenge here is actually finding and collecting all of the shines. Although it's worth pointing out that hard Mario games are usually hard for the wrong reasons. My favorite games in the series are almost all ones that could be considered easy overall. Still, the ability to abuse power-ups here is particularly egregious, although it can be used to sequence break certain shines by muscling your way through the damaging black muck that surrounds sections of the map that are supposed to be inaccessible at first.

Probably the most damning criticism of the game is that its challenges tend to be fairly repetitive over the course of the adventure. Not that this is unique to this particular game, as Mario 64 and Mario Odyssey had the same issue, to some extent, but a LOT of cat shines involve completing the same basic task across different islands. There are also way too many of these tedious shines that require Mario to track down baby kittens and return them to their distraught mother cat, which recalls the horrible missing Penguin star from Mario 64. Although, unlike that game, the basic act of moving from point A to point B isn't infuriating, so that certainly helps. Six of the 100 total shines also only appear when Fury Bowser does, so that can involve a lot of tedious waiting around if you accidentally leave them until last like I did. There are also a number of interesting shine challenges, though. One of the more memorable ones baffled me for a while. I was tracking a challenge marker on the map for a cat shine challenge, but it kept popping up on different parts of the map, and I never saw anything. Finally, surmising it must be moving, I climbed to the tippy-top of a volcano and, sure enough, watched as a giant floating island slowly inched its way across the sky. Once it passed close enough to the island in its rotation, I was able to climb up the side of it as Catsuit Mario and collect the shine. Instances of discovery like this are what kept me coming back to the adventure.

Musically, the game isn't going for any best-in-series awards, but it plays some really nice pieces as you explore. I already posted the Fury Bowser metal theme that plays when he shows up, but consider some of these charming compositions as well.

Every single OST for a 3D Mario game has been strong since the original Galaxy, and this game is no exception.

One of the more interesting aspects of Bowser's Fury is how rough the game is performance-wise. When docked, the game targets 60fps/720p, but there are some really mad drops when things start kicking off all at once. If Fury Bowser and all of his particle effects show up, and there's enemies surrounding you, and stuff is moving everywhere, the game just slows to a crawl. It's super reminiscent of those old NES games where everything would just slow down and almost feel like it was going in slow motion. Bowser's Fury does this, and it's absolutely fascinating. The game often feels like it was designed to be a stress test for the system, with its huge, interconnected environment, taxing visual effects (it IS a very pretty game), and willingness to throw multiple challenges and moving parts at the player all at once.

In handheld mode, the average framerate drops like a rock. It's playable, but it feels like the game is running at 25fps most of the time, even before the taxing setpieces and whatnot show up. It's surprisingly lacking in polish in this regard, as Mario games on Switch almost always run beautifully.

Oh, and this game actually has a decent photo mode! You can adjust the direction of the camera, zoom in or out, and apply some fun filters for neat screenshots. I'm not the most creative person in the world in this regard, but I could see some really delightful screenshots coming out of this game.

Bowser's Fury is a fascinating reimagining of Mario game design, as it marries 3D World-esque linear challenges and obstacle courses with a huge open environment and a sense of exploration that calls something like Super Mario Odyssey to mind. Some of its challenges are rote and tedious, but others are inspired. What ultimately ends up defining it for me is its creative abandonment of typical Mario tropes in favor of something more experimental, which I suppose Nintendo can do, since the game is really just an add-on to the main course that is Super Mario 3D World. As a supplemental extra in a larger package, it's hugely impressive, as this is so fully realized an experience that it absolutely wouldn't be out of place as a smaller budget experience like Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker. The entire game only take 5 - 7 hours to 100%, and half that time to beat it, but, despite its performance hiccups and flaws, I came away fairly satisfied with the experience, even if I'm not ultimately convinced that a level-based approach isn't still the best way for Mario games to be designed. Bowser's Fury gets a solid 7.5/10.