Nintendo101

Nintendo fanatic and enthusiast. (You probably are too if you're looking at this page.) I'm otherwise an artist and an ecologist. Within my field, I specialize in wildlife and (currently, but not exclusively) insects. I've had an account here since 2012.

I wrote the character sections for Super Mario Odyssey. I contributed a lot to the articles for Super Mario 64, Super Mario Sunshine, Super Mario Galaxy (which is now featured - yay!), and Super Mario Galaxy 2, alongside many other people on this wiki who have contributed their time, energy, and passion to writing about video games.

I have been a fan of Nintendo since a very young age. My first Mario games (and three of the first video games I ever owned) were Super Mario World: Super Mario Advance 2, Super Mario 64 DS, and Mario Kart DS. These games were good company for a young kid who moved around a lot and had difficulty keeping long-lasting friends.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, I sequentially played some of my favorite games in the Super Mario series to 100% completion. This includes, in order, Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. 2, Super Mario Bros. 3, Super Mario World, Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island, Super Mario 64, Super Mario Sunshine, Super Mario Galaxy, Super Mario Galaxy 2, Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker, and Super Mario Odyssey. It's been really fun! These are great games, and I always wanted to marathon a series like this before but never had the time. It has been interesting to see where the series began and where it has ended up. The design philosophies, the characters, the art directions, world building, level design, narrative, etc. All good stuff. It might be fun to write something about it some day.

My favorite video game character is Yoshi.

For assets I have uploaded to the wiki, I suggest viewing them here.

Sandbox for current project

Prerelease

• Shiggy first mentions that there will definitely be a game for the Revolution during E3 2005 (I think - double check any earlier mentioning, maybe in Japan, though Ninty tends to do initial press announcements in English because their largest sale demographics are in the west)

Reception

• warmly recieved, considered the best Mario game in years
• People almost immediately entered the camp of this game being excellent, and folks seem to have largely stayed there over the years, if anything its reception has only gotten more positive
• Not everyone loves Star Ball and ray surfing

Sales

• 5th best selling console game (across all consoles) in 2007, but achieved greater lifetime sales than the other four in subsequent years (I think)

Awards and recognition

• IGN, GameSpot, Kotaku, Yahoo! Games, EDGE
• AIAS, BAFTA, GameInformer, Nintendo Power, TV Asahi
• Guinness World Records is currently mentioned, but GWR is a for-profit organization, not a passive recorder of records and Nintendo could have bought that record for promotion. Hmmm...
• I recall its success over Call of Duty 4 at BAFTA was framed by some as an "upset" or at least a surprise, based on then contemporary market trends for video games; look into that - is that just retrospective?
• Has SMG won any more contemporary awards?

Controversy

Super Mario Galaxy was the first Super Mario game to be officially localized to French for Quebec; that market had previously received Super Mario titles in English rather than French. This followed a deal between the Office québécois de la langue française and the video game industry to have every game available for that region in French by 2009. In the Quebec localization, NPCs (particularly the Lumas and the Toad Brigade) make heavy use of Joual accents and slang. This localization choice sparked a minor controversy, with representatives of the Office québécois de la langue française and the Union des artistes criticizing it for promoting poor literacy to children. A Nintendo representative responded that the localization was made with "localizing for the market" in mind, as the Quebec market made up 25% of sales for Nintendo of Canada at the time.

Following the negative reception to the localizations of Super Mario Galaxy and The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass (which featured a similarly Joual-heavy localization), later Canadian French localizations would be written in Standard French (with the exception of the similarly-localized Paper Mario: Sticker Star).

Themes

Super Mario Galaxy has been noted for its narrative themes, the very presence of which has been described as exceptional when compared to other titles in the Super Mario series. The game explores themes of isolation, grief, found family, acceptance, and rebirth.

The game invokes feelings of isolation and sadness through its outer space setting. Most galaxies are enveloped by vast, dark skies pierced by stars and distant suns. There are story scenarios, missions, locations, and musical queues interlaced in the game that intentionally draw attention away from its more vigorous, joyful elements to focus on the dispassionate coldness of space, amplifying Mario's relative insignificance to a vast, endless universe. Video essayist Jacob Geller notes that these conditions give the player a moment to decompress after action-orientated gameplay and foster contemplativeness. Such conditions are interpreted as existentialistic and sad, but not despairing. Grace Benfell of GameSpot describes the evoked feeling as an "existential, joyful melancholy."

Benfell also comments on the the integration of Lumas in the game. The childlike creatures are predestined to become celestial bodies at the end of their life cycles. The objects Mario directly interacts with are implied (and sometimes even directly demonstrated) to have once been Lumas themselves, with Launch Stars having once been yellow Lumas, Pull Stars once blue ones, and so on. As a gameplay mechanic, Hungry Lumas permanently transform into wholly new planets and galaxies once fed a requested number of Star Bits. These planets are already lush with flora and sometimes bear communities of people and creatures living on them. As Benfell argues, this mechanic implies everything in the game, from whole worlds to small objects, were once Lumas. This interpretation is confirmed directly in the game. The cycle of rebirth in Lumas likely derives from the life cycle of real stars and the knowledge that the majority of elements, including all the ones that make up living things, were created and distributed across the universe by dying stars. Benfell equates transformation with death, an often negative theme in art. However, she elaborates that it is in dying that new life comes to be, including newborn Lumas, so it is an essential component to how the universe functions in an entropic cycle of continuous rebirth.

The game's themes are most deeply and explicitly channeled through the characterization of Rosalina. As overseer of the domestic Comet Observatory and caretaker of the Lumas, she is widely perceived as a maternal figure that supports a warm, securing environment only amplified by the contrasting, cold backdrop of space. She is also presented as a figure of reliable support with godlike abilities. She is omnipotent, wise, and a timeless entity that has lived for centuries. Mario cannot be harmed on the Comet Observatory, and it is implied that she is the one who brings him back to safety if he falls off the side. No harm can come to the player as long as they are with her.

However, despite the security and warmth she radiates, she is simultaneously presented as reserved, longing, and melancholic. The context for this is not explained to the player unless they enter the library on the observatory, an optional element of the game not tied to any completion criteria. It is here that she reads a storybook detailing her past. Long ago, Rosalina lived on Mario's home world. Her mother died while she was a child, and she was still grieving that loss when she encountered one of the Apricot Luma's predecessors. He too had lost his mother before crash-landing on her world, and he was waiting for her to return to him. Rosalina befriended and chose to wait for her with him. After several years of waiting, they traveled into space to directly look for her. Ultimately, it is from processing the grief of losing a loved one and seeing how selfless the Apricot Luma was that Rosalina found her own purpose in life, taking on the role of mother for the Lumas, her new family, as her own mother did for her.

Ciara Cremin of the University of Auckland adapted philosopher Gilles Deleuze's analysis of cinema to Super Mario Galaxy, providing a foundation for how video games can be studied as a discrete artform. She understands it to be a "masterpiece" of the form.

Legacy

• heavily influenced subsequent 3D Super Mario games, especially SMG2, SM3DL, and SM3DW - but also SMO
• Rosalina would be incorporated into subsequent ensemble/spinoff games, Nintendo's marketing, have a direct presence or homage in subsequent main series games, and would become a largely beloved character
• Captain Toad would rise in prominence and be playable in his own title; distinguished from the Toad in coming years
• Lumas and Toad Brigade would also become less frequent but consistent elements
• Space-themed portions in subsequent ensemble/spinoff games would often incorporate allusions to SMG

Things to read

• 15 Years Ago, Super Mario Galaxy Made It Cool to Be a Gamer
• Super Mario Galaxy: In Space No-One Can Hear You Mamma Mia
• Super Mario Galaxy Showed Us Something The Series Hadn't Before, And Hasn't Since
• 15 years later, Super Mario Galaxy is still the series' most stellar entry
• Super Mario Galaxy Coming To Nintendo DS Thanks To Fan Project
• In Battle of Consoles, Nintendo Gains Allies
• E3 Interview: Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto
• E3 – 2006 : LIVE :: Massive Wii games ‘hands on’
• Halo 3 Arrives, Rewarding Gamers, and Microsoft
• Nintendo: Wii play now, but Wii ship later
• One on one with Nintendo at E3
• E3 2005: Shigeru Miyamoto Interview
• TGS 2005: Hands-on the Revolution Controller
• Super Mario Galaxy and the Videogame Aesthetic
• Super Mario Seriality: Nintendo’s Narratives and Audience Targeting within the Video Game Console Industry
• Redesigning Super Mario : Creating realistic versions of some characters and animations featured in Super Mario franchise
• The Fine Line Between Rehash and Sequel: Design Patterns of the Super Mario Series
• The evolution of the introductory section
• Molecular Mario: The Becoming-Animal of Video Game Compositions
• Impact of an Active Video Game on Healthy Children’s Physical Activity
• It's a-me Density!
• Super Mario 64: an exercise on freedom and style
• AusGamer Review
• Is the Japanese gaming industry in crisis?
• Nintendo defies recession with record profits
• Nintendo Wii: Lessons learned from noncustomers

Notes and references