Super Mario Galaxy

Did You Know?

• The game's soundtrack used a symphony orchestra for the first time in the series.
• The centennial Star Festival is held to watch a comet pass by the Mushroom Kingdom.
• The game won the BAFTA Award for Best Game, the first Nintendo title to do so.

Development

The conception of Super Mario Galaxy traces back to late 1996 after Super Mario 64's release, when Nintendo staff observed that 3D games caused a separation among players, with some finding them too difficult. Assistant director Yoshiaki Koizumi believed this difficulty stemmed from depth misperception and motion sickness, and the camera controls meant to mitigate these issues became cumbersome. After Super Mario 64, Shigeru Miyamoto assembled a team to develop a successor tentatively titled Super Mario 128.

The gameplay principles originated from ideas in Super Mario 128, shown as a tech demo at Nintendo Space World in 2000, featuring spherical platforms. Koizumi wanted to use these platforms in a future game but was held back by technical concerns. In mid-2003, before Nintendo EAD Tokyo began work on Donkey Kong Jungle Beat, a staff member expressed interest in combining skills to make the next Super Mario game; Koizumi agreed after working on Jungle Beat.

Miyamoto suggested working on a large-scale Mario game after Jungle Beat's completion in late 2004, pushing for the spherical platform concept.

Reception

Super Mario Galaxy received critical acclaim, with a Metacritic aggregate score of 97 out of 100 based on 73 reviews, making it the fourth-highest-rated game on the site. On GameRankings, it held a 97.64% ranking based on 78 reviews, the highest among games with at least 20 reviews before the site shut down. Critics praised the visuals and presentation; Chris Scullion of Official Nintendo Magazine said the graphics pushed the Wii to its full potential, while Jeremy Parish of 1UP.com called the visuals absolutely impressive despite the Wii's limitations.

Andrew Robinson of Computer and Video Games thought Nintendo got both gameplay and graphics perfect. Margaret Robertson of Eurogamer described the visuals as an explosion of inventiveness. Andrew Reiner of Game Informer approved of water and particle effects but noted similar detail to Super Mario Sunshine. Patrick Shaw from GamePro said the game takes full advantage of the Wii's capabilities in presentation and control.

Legacy

In the 1,000th issue of Famitsu, Miyamoto expressed interest in making a sequel. Originally called Super Mario Galaxy More during development, it became a full sequel, Super Mario Galaxy 2, released in 2010 to similar acclaim and selling 6.36 million copies worldwide as of April 2011. Super Mario Galaxy was rereleased for Nvidia's Shield TV in China on 22 March 2018, running via emulator with 1080p resolution and remapped controls due to lack of motion support.

The game was included in Super Mario 3D All-Stars for Nintendo Switch on 18 September 2020. An enhanced version for Nintendo Switch was released on 2 October 2025, available as part of a collection with its sequel or separately on the eShop; it runs at 1080p resolution, up to 4K on Nintendo Switch 2 via free update, and includes an assist mode and a new chapter of Rosalina's storybook. A pair of Amiibo released on 2 April 2026 can be scanned for items.

A hardcover book of Rosalina's storybook was made available separately. The sequel to The Super Mario Bros. Movie, titled The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, was released on 1 April 2026.