Super Mario Galaxy is a game that is an old idea, one that continues to be an old idea, and frankly is also the problem with the idea. While Super Mario 64 can claim a lack of historical context, Super Mario Galaxy is, while beautiful, a game that is too tied to its tradition. Some might argue that any platformer would be proud to call itself of the traditional Mario variety, but the truth is that the platforming genre has never fully transitioned to the 3D. The reason for this is actually because of Mario.
When Super Mario 64 arrived, there was a lot of positive thinking about what a game in 3D could be, but also about what a platformer in 3D space was. However, what turns out to be a platformer in 3D space is actually just a platformer in 2D space, mapped onto 3D. The same is true of Super Mario Galaxy, so true in fact that many segments of the game are physically 2D platforming with the depth of 3D. What’s more, the sort of isometry that’s explored within Super Mario Galaxy was, perhaps, more uniquely explored in Super Mario RPG.
The problem with Super Mario Galaxy’s exploration of 3D space is much the same as Super Mario 64’s exploration of 3D space, in that both explore something that was previously explored. Isometry and 2D platforming are being re-hashed, functioning on a construct level, but much of what could potentially be new about the added depth, that of deconstruction, is ignored, or at least not a focus.
In the original Super Mario Bros., and Super Mario Bros. 2-J, the focus was on deconstructing the expectations about the character and environment relationship. Destroying blocks was not always useful, picking up certain mushrooms could harm the player, spacing of blocks became an evolution of pixel precision. But in Galaxy, the difficulty and the driving force, is put to the side in favor of the player. The player becomes too powerful, effectively being able to easily manipulate the world and the world, for all its constructed beauty, seems out of touch.
Out of touch because the player can never really affect the world, out of touch because the relationship between the player and the game is disconnected. In Galaxy in particular, there is a sort of ultimate separation, where the player is a disembodied hand who guides Mario, rather than achieving a sort of proprioception of Mario. To truly link to the character, there is an eventual need to either fully separate the character from the player, or fully embody the character as the player. Mario has gone from being an embodied interactive entity to a separate, manipulated character.
A problem of our times, perhaps, a need to characterize that which never had character to begin with.
Recommended: No