Super Mario Galaxy

I'm 19 years old and Super Mario Galaxy was one of my first Wii games as a child. I don't think i'd be understating if i said this changed my life. i'm definitely a little blinded by nostalgia, but i feel like everything about this game is so finely tuned; with respect to the aesthetics of the game, I fondly remember staring out past Good Egg Galaxy onto the massive planet below, where the sun breaking over the horizon permanently illuminates yellow power stars drawn into the ground like Nazca lines. The stripped back, skeletal, synth backing that plays as Mario selects a level in the fountain; spinning the screen to get a better view at said levels triggers perfectly spacey and massive sound effects that rise and fall as the galaxies spin around the comet observatory's view. The ever changing music (on which essays could be written), design philosophy, and look of Galaxy in every selected level, even in the observatory as the game progresses. Of course a 3D Mario game would be a fun game to play; playing 64 or Odyssey made it so that was never really in doubt. But something about Galaxy has such ephemeral beauty, in every aesthetic choice and, for me, every game design choice (though I could understand criticism on that front – lookin' at you, spring suit & Loopdeloop Galaxy). Galaxy remains a luminescent example of what video games could be: bold, experimental, and really beautiful and wondrous.