Nintendo's flagship mascot arrived on the Wii attempting to showcase how great a game could be on the little white box. Did it succeed? Well there's no point in asking really; welcome the true successor to Super Mario 64.

Mario games have never been known for their deep stories, and Galaxy is really no exception here. The Toads of Mushroom Kingdom are having a festival when the great and powerful Bowser returns in all his glory to once again steal away Princess Peach. Only this time he has a fleet of ships rip the castle itself with Peach inside it from out of the ground and takes it out into space. Surviving the attack, Mario arrives on a spaceship and meets the ever beautiful Rosalina. There's an entire side story on who she is and why she's there, but it's completely optional for you to explore and for the most part there's no reason to. Mario is about platforming, saving Peach, and stopping Bowser. There's a colorful cast of characters both new and from the Mushroom Kingdom of old. It works just as well as any other Mario game, if not better.

Unlocking a consoles potential usually takes many years of tweaking and experimenting. There's proof on every console in history; all you have to do is compare the launch games to the final AAA games that came out before the system shut it's doors. A prime example is God of War 1 & 2; nobody ever thought that Playstation 2 was capable of those kinds of visuals. Thankfully for the Wii we didn't have to wait until the end of it's existence to find out it's true potential; Super Mario Galaxy is jaw droppingly gorgeous and puts every other game on the system to shame.

Screenshots really can't showcase how good the game looks. Character animations are all smooth and fantastic, little details show in every corner of the galaxy (bad pun intended), particle effects showcase some incredible moments, bloom is used in the most perfect ways as to not distract you from the already beautiful art design, and it all runs a silky smooth framerate that never dips.

Each and every level has a distinct style and theme, and despite the title of the game there is a ton of variety in the levels. Yes, you're in space. But the levels are nowhere near limited to that style. There's water levels, land masses, no-gravity areas, 360 degree orbs to run completely around, moving platforms, snowy mountains, deserts, beaches, exploding volcanoes, and much more. And in these levels there are certain moments where you are sent soaring through the air (or space) with some incredible camera angles to give you some of the most epic (for lack of a better word) views you can get to make the moments that much more awesome to be apart of. In particular there's a lava level that sends you soaring just above a lake of lava as explosions and lava are spewing through the air around you as you spin through the air; it made me and everyone else in the living room say 'wow' out loud. When you play video games as much as I do that 'wow' moment from visuals doesn't come very often folks.

As I'm sitting here writing this I'm trying my best to think of blemishes in the visuals of Galaxy, but there's little to nothing I can think of that I can blame on the game itself. I could say, 'If this game ran in HD..,' but that would be a Wii issue. The only actual visual glitches I found was when you're sliding down a ramp, Mario's arms clip into the ground when he leans left or right. Thankfully though you don't slide often enough to care much. The other glitch only happened once. I was walking up a small staircase and ran into a Goomba at the top of the stairs, flew back, and landed on the railing and got stuck there in a looping falling animation for about 10 seconds until I eventually fell all the way down the railing to the floor. An odd bug but again, it only happened once and won't likely happen to you.

You could also complain that Mario's animations, with the exception of his new spin attack, are all identical to his previous 3D outings. But honestly that ends up being a good thing for players who played those games; you understand perfectly how he moves and that makes playing easier to get into. Besides, why mess with something that isn't broken?

It's taken Nintendo a very long time to move it's top tier franchises into the next gen when it comes to music, but Galaxy is shining through with some incredible orchestrated music scores both old and new. Not all of them sound orchestrated (they either got lazy, didn't have enough time, or my ears are lying to me) but they still all sound good. In addition there are some remixed themes from previous Mario titles like Super Mario 64, the original Super Mario Bros, and even Super Mario Bros 3. Hearing the remixed Dark World theme from Super Mario 64, and the remixed sidescrolling ship level theme from Super Mario Bros 3 will send a nostalgic chill down older gamers spines.

All of the classic bops, bleeps, and bloops from Mario of old are in here but of course modernized. Explosions are depicted in a Nintendo-esque way that sounds just perfect for the style of the game, and generally everything works well together as a whole.

There is some occasional voice acting but it's usually a few brief words. The actual dialogue of the game isn't all that long so why they couldn't go the extra mile and put in full voice support is beyond me, but again do we really care about voice acting in a game based on fun platforming? Not really. You do hear Mario's signature 'wee-hee-hee!' and his other classic slogans of speech which is nice but generally expected; it just wouldn't' be the same without hearing him.

I again sit here trying to think of any negatives in this department as well but fail to come to any concrete problems. If I do have a gripe it's that some of the new music isn't all that memorable, while some of it like the first Galaxy theme is very memorable. Of course some themes are going to stick out more than others, and I wouldn't actually have a problem with this but for one exception; the haunted house galaxies. The music for them just doesn't stick in my mind at all, and with remixed music showing up in other parts of the game you'd think it would be obvious for Nintendo to bring back the haunted house theme from Super Mario World. A friend of mine said they think they recognize it from Luigi's Mansion on the GameCube so maybe that's correct. But really, if you had a choice between a remixed Luigi's Mansion song and a remixed Haunted House song from Super Mario World, which would you choose?

Having only played Wii Sports and Mario Kart Wii I hadn't really had a chance to understand how the unique controller of the Wii would handle the hardcore games I enjoy playing. So