Super Mario Galaxy for Wii: Controls, Co-Star Mode and Reviews

Super Mario Galaxy is a 2007 platformer for the Wii in which Mario travels through galaxies of small planets, each with its own gravity. Nintendo EAD Tokyo developed it, Nintendo published it, and Metacritic prints a score of 97 out of 100.

Overview

The premise is simple to state. Bowser lifts Princess Peach’s castle into space during the Star Festival, and Mario follows, collecting Power Stars to restart a ship called the Comet Observatory, which serves as the hub. Rosalina, the caretaker of the ship, and a star-shaped creature called a Luma explain the situation early on.

What sets the game apart is the ground itself. Levels are made of planetoids and drifting structures, and each has gravity of its own, so Mario can walk around a sphere, upside down included, then jump to the next one and fall toward it. Some areas flatten into a two-dimensional plane. Wikipedia counts 42 galaxies spread over six domes, and a second run as Luigi unlocks after 120 stars as Mario.

A last challenge unlocks once both characters have 120 stars, and finishing it earns a 121st star and a commemorative picture that can be posted to the Wii Message Board.

How it plays

The controls are the Wii Remote paired with the Nunchuk. Most of Mario’s moves come from Super Mario 64, including the long jump and wall jumps, and a spin attack handles melee, vines, switches and launch stars. Pointing the remote at the screen shows the Star Pointer, a cursor that picks up Star Bits and fires them at enemies or at hungry Lumas. In some stages shaking the remote does the work, for example when Mario balances on a rolling ball or rides a manta ray.

Seven power-ups change what Mario can do for a short time, among them Bee, Boo and Spring Mushrooms, the Fire and Ice Flowers and the Red Star, which lets him fly. Health is a three-piece meter.

Co-Star mode lets a second player use a second Wii Remote as a pointer of their own. That player cannot move Mario, but can stall enemies and add height to a jump by pressing A together with the first player.

Release and credits

Nintendo EAD Tokyo started on the game after Donkey Kong Jungle Beat in late 2004, with Shigeru Miyamoto suggesting a large Mario project. The spherical platforms trace back to Super Mario 128, a GameCube demonstration shown at Nintendo Space World in 2000. Yoshiaki Koizumi directed. The score by Mahito Yokota and Koji Kondo was the first in the series to use a symphony orchestra.

Japan received the game on 1 November 2007, North America on 12 November, Europe on 16 November and Australia on 29 November. Metacritic lists the same North American date and gives the age rating as E.

Reception

Metacritic prints 97 out of 100 based on 73 reviews. Wikipedia reports that GameRankings, before it closed in December 2019, held it as the highest-rated game with at least 20 reviews, at 97.64 percent.

Critics singled out the visuals and the gravity design. Chris Scullion of Official Nintendo Magazine said the graphics pushed the console to its limits, Jeremy Parish of 1UP called them impressive, and Eurogamer’s Margaret Robertson described the look as an explosion of inventiveness. IGN, GameSpot, Nintendo Power, Kotaku and Yahoo! Games all named it game of the year for 2007, and it took the Game of the Year prize at the 2009 British Academy Games Awards. By the end of March 2020 Nintendo had sold 12.80 million copies.

Can you still play it?

The disc is a normal Wii release, so it runs on a Wii, and on a Wii U through Wii Mode. Wii Mode on the Wii U needs a Sensor Bar for most software, which matters here because the Star Pointer depends on aiming the remote at the screen. Discs are region-coded, so a North American copy suits an NTSC-U console.

The Wii Shop Channel closure does not touch this title, which was sold only on disc in its original release. Nintendo later put a remastered version on Nintendo Switch on 2 October 2025, according to Wikipedia, with extras such as an assist mode, so the Wii disc is no longer the only route.