But there’s something more. And it’s this: freedom isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Super Mario Sunshine’s worlds were inadvisably modeled on real-life. Port town, beach, docks, fairground, bloody hotel. Beautiful, coherent places for sure, with a scale that really impressed at the time - but the wide-openness of it all meant that the Mario magicness was missing. What area does everyone remember best about Sunshine? Yep, it’s those linear levels made of psychedelic floating wood - which were built around a specific, run-forward-and-jump challenge, rather than real freedom to explore and experiment.
Think your way through Galaxy - from Freezeflame Galaxy’s lava platform run to Bowser’s snaking gravity-messing - and you’ll realise that everything has been scaled down compared to Sunshine. Geometric platforms. Linear paths. Manageable, contained areas. That’s why it’s got that special Mario 64 feeling. 64 kept things small(ish) and angular(ish) because that was all the Nintendo 64 could do. But what no one’s twigged in the ten years since, is that that was also the best way. Hopping from miniature planet to miniature planet in the Gusty Garden Galaxy is almost a step backwards for game worlds and progression - no gigantic beach/mountain to explore at leisure here. But it feels like Mario, it feels like Nintendo - and it feels brilliant. In fact, Galaxy’s sprawling playgrounds – e.g. the Honeyhive Galaxy - are arguably the game’s weakest bits.
