Super Mario 3D All-Stars was intended to mark the series’ 35th anniversary, and it saw a limited release on both the eShop and as a physical print run. Physical copies are now scalped on the second-hand market, while the eShop listing is long gone. While it wasn’t a perfect collection, this was a solid package with three great games that spanned three generations of Super Mario.
When the collection went up in smoke, NSO would carry Super Mario 64 as part of its collection in the subscription. It’s expected that NSO’s GameCube support on Nintendo Switch 2 will eventually add Super Mario Sunshine to its library, which would leave Super Mario Galaxy unavailable, as well as its sequel, which was curiously absent from the All-Stars collection.
With Mario 64 and Sunshine (eventually) being on the Nintendo subscription services, that leaves Galaxy and its sequel unavailable for fans. With the next Mario movie having connections to Galaxy, it made sense for Nintendo to repackage Galaxy and to give Galaxy 2 its due. If you felt finessed from 3D All-Stars, is this new compilation worth it? Find out in our Super Mario Galaxy + Super Mario Galaxy 2 review!
Super Mario Galaxy + Super Mario Galaxy 2
Developer: Nintendo
Publisher: Nintendo
Platforms: Nintendo Switch
Release Date: October 2, 2025
Price: $69.99 (bundle) | $39.99 (separate)
Like always, Bowser crashes into the Mushroom Kingdom, but instead of just kidnapping Princess Peach, he rips her castle into space using a massive black hole-creating engine. With the help of Rosalina, a mysterious guardian of the galaxy, and her baby Luma companions, Mario embarks on a galactic quest to thwart Bowser, save the babe, and maybe get some cake along the way.
You’re not really going to play Super Mario Galaxy for its story (or any Mario game), but it must be said that the first Galaxy goes above and beyond with its cinematic presentation and sweeping epicness. The cutscenes are stylish, and the character animations are wildly expressive. The camera moves, effects, and edits are still some of the best the Mario games have ever seen.
If you play this version of Super Mario Galaxy on a Nintendo Switch 2, the presentation gets an even bigger boost to its resolution, making scenes more impactful and crisp. The specular highlights have an impactful contrast that looks great against the starry, spacey backgrounds.
Both Galaxy titles were the apex of visual polish on the Nintendo Wii, and while they may not look as impressive as Odyssey, their visual design holds up. This is pure Super Mario cartoon surreal whimsy. Characters are big and bouncy. Everyone almost resembles plastic figures, and stages feel like big toy playsets that you’d wish you grew up with.
Super Mario Galaxy 2 begins not that much differently than the first game, but it noticeably dials back on the cinematics and wastes less time getting started. The implication is that the sequel is some kind of cosmic reset or reimagining. Rosalina also has a much smaller presence, but at the end of the day, it’s still just Mario saving Peach and going from orbit to orbit.
The cornerstone of a good 3D Mario game is its controls. Compared to the prior and the more recent entries, Mario’s handling is much simpler and streamlined. Only having his triple jump, long jump, side jump, and back flip, you’ll find his handling has also been made deliberately slower and floatier in the air, to make it easier to correct while in mid-air.
Mario does not punch or dive anymore. Instead, he does a Tasmanian Demon-style spin-attack, which is no longer restricted to waggling the control. Being able to press Y to instantly smack goombas is so much more responsive than motion control ever was. I miss the mobility of diving around while jumping. It was a great way to gain momentum and felt awesome, but the Galaxy games make up for it in other ways.
The pointing mechanics of the Wii Remote have been awkwardly redone with gyroscopic controls. It is nowhere near as accurate as the pointing was and requires constant recalibration, as evidenced by the need to have the right shoulder button dedicated to centering the cursor. When it works, you’ll not even notice its shortcomings, but there is no replacing the pointer.
Playing handheld completely circumvents the need for unreliable gyroscopic aiming because shooting star bits and collecting them is done with the Switch/Switch 2’s touch screen. This also applies to the pull-stars for tugging Mario in zero gravity. The Switch 2 Pro Controller is surprisingly finely tuned with a reliable gyroscope that makes control feel more responsive than the Wii Remote’s cheap sensors.
Controlling Mario in Galaxy and its sequel may not have the same depth as seen in their predecessors, but they make up for it in sheer variety. Both titles are utterly jam-packed with imaginative scenarios and unique set-pieces per world that make the same level feel very different. Some worlds will be dedicated to a single star and never be reused again, keeping the flow of content always feeling fresh.
Mario is rarely doing one thing for too long, and the levels are always throwing gimmicks at you to overcome. The only downside to all this is that Galaxy feels very scripted and linear as a result. Like Sunshine, there is almost no way to deviate from the mission and earn a different star.
The few times when these games recycle content, it is for the challenge stars that put a new spin on previous missions. Modifiers like having to complete a stage with limited time or dying in one hit are an economical but effective way to make the most out of the core game. These are the closest that Galaxy gets to a “hard mode”.
The similarities between the first and second Galaxy games are obvious. What isn’t as obvious is how different they really are. Galaxy 2 is a much harder game with many more levels and new power-ups packed into it. Yoshi is finally back, and he is the most fun to use than he’s ever been. Using the pointer to target objects with his tongue and spit them out is as fun as you’d hoped it would be.
Other fun stage gimmicks involve Yoshi ronching on a hot pepper and going on a gravity-defying mad dash up the sides of walls as the floor beneath his feet falls. Yoshi can even blow up like a balloon for some floating gauntlet challenges.
If you liked the first Galaxy, you’ll love the sequel and how it compounds all of the best aspects of the first game and hammers you with new ideas, massive boss fights, and even some surprises. One stage is a remake of Whomp’s Fortress from Super Mario 64, complete with a visual overhaul and a powerful sequence where Mario goes inside the eponymous structure.
This is a magical and evergreen compilation that never stops delivering imaginative fun. However, it isn’t without its annoyances. The Lives system was out-of-date when these games were new, and it still doesn’t work the way it was intended. What’s worse, all your effort to secure a stockpile of lives is for nothing because all lives earned are reset when reloading a save file.
The green stars in Galaxy 2 seem like afterthoughts, with some being obtainable seconds into a level. Rosalina’s Comet Observatory is a boring, ring-shaped hall and pales in comparison to Plaza Delfino and Peach’s Castle. The world map in Galaxy 2 isn’t much better, and railroads players more harshly, restricting the freedom to play stages out of order.
Both games are basically the same as they have always been, but with razor-sharp image quality and a locked 60 frames per second performance. Textures have been improved, and low-level detail models are seemingly kept at their maximum level of detail, no matter how far away they are.
The biggest change is in Galaxy 2, which originally didn’t have a storybook. The new book focuses on Lubba, the purple Grimace-like Luma (who is a female, apparently), and seems like it might be setting things up in the upcoming Super Mario Galaxy movie or even a hypothetical third game. Time will tell, but it’s cool to have something extra that further bridges these games together.
If you thought Super Mario Odyssey had ridiculously easy collectibles and not enough platforming, then Super Mario Galaxy + Super Mario Galaxy 2 is the perfect compilation that delivers more thoughtfully designed challenges. When playing these games combined, it’s like one massive and super fun game that gets a little easier in the middle. These are excellent games, Galaxy 2 especially, and it makes sense why the film’s sequel would be based on these.
Super Mario Galaxy + Super Mario Galaxy 2 was reviewed on Nintendo Switch 2 using a code provided by Nintendo. Additional information about Niche Gamer’s review/ethics policy is here. Super Mario Galaxy + Super Mario Galaxy 2 is now available for Nintendo Switch.
