PixlBit

The PixlBit staff loves HD and wants to see some of their favorite franchises get the treatment.

Mario Galaxy Collection

O, wise Nintendo, how we mocked you for maxing out the Wii’s resolution at 480p and predicted an abysmal failure.  It turns out you nailed it.  The Wii is approaching 100 million consoles sold and most of the top selling Wii games feature the bubbly Miis that would look the same no matter the number of pixels.  But then, there are games where a lack of high definition is a real shame, leaving us to wonder how great things could be.  Thankfully, the Super Mario Galaxy games sold enough copies that we’re hoping you might consider re-releasing them on the Wii U in full high def.

Your Nintendo intelligentsia worked some real techno-magic when making the Galaxy games such that it was often easy to forget that we were playing in lowly standard definition.  Wizardry aside, it’s easy to tell that if those same luscious low-res graphics were polished up, poured through HDMI cables, and blasted out of our 240 Hz LED TVs straight into our eyeballs, that we would reach a new stage of visual nirvana.  Those playful environments would look fresh and new, drawing us back to play through the cosmos adventures one more time.   

Those beautiful visuals would be the biggest improvement by porting the Galaxy games to the Wii U, if it was coming from any company other than you.  With Nintendo geniuses doing the upgrade, however, there are sure to be some innovative additions that use the tablet peripheral.    Just as you came up with a great way for the second player to help out by collecting star bits and freezing enemies in the original games, there’s sure to be a way to use the tablet to get a friend involved in Mario’s adventure.  Maybe the tablet could present an overhead view of the galaxy and allow for some frantic tapping to collect star bits. Or perhaps use some augmented reality capabilities and allow the second player to rotate with the tablet in the living room to keep Boos frozen behind Mario as he charges ahead. Most likely, Miyamoto and his crew will come up with a way to use the tablet that we can’t even imagine yet.  Heck, we’d be happy if you just stuck in a few more green stars for us to hunt down.

Critics loved both Galaxy games, and they sold extremely well.  For some reason, though, the games just don’t stick in the hardcore gamer conscience like high definition best sellers do. Perhaps the lack of graphical punch is what kept many gamers from obsessively exploring every inch of the cosmos.  Even if bumping the graphics up doesn’t draw in the hardcore, those of us who have already explored every corner of the galaxies would love to do it all over again, but in a higher state of graphical ecstasy than ever before.