The biggest beneficiary of Galaxy’s heightened ambition may have been its narrative, which mainline Mario games had long struggled to enhance via their music. It takes less than 10 minutes in the first Galaxy to set up the series’ central leitmotifs, which convey the games’ character, story, and scope through sound alone. Upon booting the game up, a swift run of horns plays the main theme, a magnificent game-spanning refrain which appears during the mightiest moments, from title screen to credits. When the gameplay starts, the jaunty woodwinds that score the intro level’s joyous “Star Festival” are almost immediately brought to a devastating halt by the now-iconic choral chants that shout Bowser’s new villainous leitmotif, “Catastrophe,” which reappears throughout the various fights with him in both games. Bowser, to this day, has never schemed on a more gargantuan scale; for a brief moment, the scores behind his newfound universe-conquering motives made him feel closer to Sephiroth than King Dedede.
The final battle with Bowser contains a seamless blend of digital synths and orchestral recordings, one of many examples in the soundtrack where the two very different styles harmoniously intertwine. The glittering synth plucks that introduce the ambient “Space Fantasy” end up paired with soft woodwinds, creating the sort of astral majesty series creator Shigeru Miyamoto envisioned when Yokota first discussed the orchestral direction with him. These intersecting styles work just as well together for intense cuts like “Buoy Base Galaxy, ”whose sprawling synth lead bounces around the horn section in a pounding march, emboldening the player to carry on through the industrial base in the depths of deep space.
As extravagant as these boundless adventures can be, their scores can be equally sparse. Some of the games’ best moments are when the perpetually swift energy comes to a dramatic halt—suddenly, you realize you’re a mere speck in the vast unknown. Sometimes these moments are brief, occurring after the space dust of an exciting level has cleared, like the soft and subtle whistles of “A Chance to Grab a Star,” which plays just before you exit each level. Other times, this spaced-out ambience spans entire galaxies. The pianos that make up Galaxy’s “Space Junk Road” gorgeously crescendo as Mario floats through broken fragments of the universe, and the ooohs that flutter during Galaxy 2’s “Sweet Mystery Galaxy” are as chilling as the idea of floating endlessly through the candy-coated world. Mario was no stranger to great ambient music, but as the Galaxy games raised the stakes beyond the stratosphere, these subdued moments took on a new level of in-game importance, and are just as soothing outside of it.
Galaxy 2’s score, like the game it comes from, is a mirror image of its predecessor. But it substitutes its lack of new ideas for a greater emphasis on rearrangements of familiar motifs, both from the original Galaxy and previous entries in the Mario series. It’s incredible hearing old tracks—notably Super Mario World’s “Athletic Theme” and Super Mario 64’s “Bob-omb Battlefield”—with their new orchestral coat of paint. These versions only reveal how captivating the scores are at their core, no matter if they’re being played through a 64 KB sound chip or from a symphony hall. If you’ve ever wondered why video-game symphonies tour nationwide today, offering glorious orchestral renditions of classic soundtracks, here’s your answer. The Galaxy games helped to establish a newfound sense of importance for game soundtracks even beyond their medium—wide-screen ambition was not just for Hollywood scores.
As the series’ most cinematic installments, it seemed obvious that Nintendo and animation studio Illumination would eventually adapt the Galaxy games to film. But the games still stand alone, channeling a filmic spirit that we, the players, can control on our own. When we shoot out of the game’s launch stars and hear that live harp jump into each level theme, or when we reach each galaxy’s highest point right as the scores reach their apex, we’re reminded that we’re not witnessing the Essence of Mario, we’re making it happen ourselves. Though Nintendo has only gone deeper into live instrumentation for its subsequent soundtracks, it has rarely felt as resounding as it did in what remains the plumber’s most spectacular adventure. The grandeur of fantasy at our fingertips, Mario’s essence blown up to galactic proportions, has yet to be rivaled.
