Wednesday, April 1, 2026

Super Mario Galaxy (Switch)


Back in 2007, Nintendo released Super Mario Galaxy (Galaxy), an early release for their explosively popular Wii system and the third 3D platformer in the Super Mario series. During its lifetime, it sold nearly 13 million copies on its original platform and continues receiving critical praise, even against other modern Mario titles. Although I had heard about the game for nearly two decades, including comparisons made against other games like Sonic Lost World, I got hyped enough for the release of a 2026 film adaptation, The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, that I decided I should finally play the game and express my thoughts on it as the first Mario game reviewed on this blog. Fortunately, I can confidently say that it lived up to the hype, though Mario’s journey through the stars wasn’t entirely a smooth one.

Before continuing, I want to firmly establish that this review is based on the Switch version of the game as presented in Super Mario 3D All-Stars (which I played through a physical copy) and played with a Switch Pro Controller (due to suspected JoyCon drift). As such, I will not make any comparisons with the original Wii release or the later Switch compilation re-release with Super Mario Galaxy 2.

The version used for this review.