P-Vock's Music Box: TO SPACE!

Hello and welcome back to P-Vock's Music Box. November is well underway, which means Parker is happy about the weather for once.

I love this time of year. No one is spooky anymore. I can wear dope sweaters and not get too hot immediately. Christmas is soon. There's so much to love about November, including the night sky. At this time of year, the stars are most apparent. The night comes alive on a clear night with stars decorating the sky. I absolutely love it.

I love the stars so much, I wish I could reach out and touch them...

Super Mario Galaxy. It physically pains me that this game is fifteen damn years old now. While I'm not big on the mainline Mario games, and this title's platforming doesn't do much for me when other titles like A Hat in Time exist, I can never get enough of Mario Galaxy's galactic atmosphere and larger-than-life feel. It never feels like you're running around a platforming level, you feel like you're on some whimsical and grand space adventure. The music, of course, captures this from the first moments of the game and never stops.

Oh damn, the hairs on my neck have shot right the hell up! It's just so adventurous. It's so carefree. It's as if it's calling you to let loose and just explore. As star bits dance around the portly plumber, he bounces his way through the star festival in what is one of the most pleasant intros to a video game ever. Plus that melody just sounds nice. If only it was a little more in your face...

How could anyone say video game sucks when THIS absolute bop exists? Gusty Garden Galaxy instantly became a classic and has become essentially the theme of the Mario Galaxy games, and why would it not? The arrangement is perfect. The instrumentation provides the right mix of athletic fun and intense adventure, all while remaining floaty and free enough to nail the feeling of flying through space.

Gusty Garden Galaxy alone is almost enough to make the entire game worth playing. It doesn't get much better than this.

But alright, humour me on this one. Let me slow it down a bit.

I think this game's OST may be my favourite in the entire series (Super Mario RPG also comes close), and this is EASILY my favourite theme in the game. Why? It could be the bubbly waltz of a melody that makes me want to slow dance with someone. It could be that gorgeous flute I just want to whistle along with. It could be the fact it is so atmospheric as you wander around Rosalina's ship, the Comet Observatory, just completely free.

But no. This is my favourite track for one reason. Nostalgia.

I was a young preteen in middle school when Mario Galaxy came out, and there is no track that reminds me of that time more than this. It actually didn't even stand out to me as a kid, but I replayed the game when it was released on the Switch in 2020 and this track almost brought me to tears as I was reminded of a simpler time before I learned about adult things like bills and insurance and weird fetishes (we've all got 'em, no shame).

I'm sure many of you reading this don't have childhood nostalgia for this game. You probably don't have the ties I do of playing it the night before you were going to ask out your crush and get rejected in a fun bit of foreshadowing of how your adulthood romantic life would go. You probably don't get emotional, sentimental, and weirdly calm all at once when you hear this.

Despite that, I hope you enjoyed this look at one of gaming's best OSTs. Regardless of the gameplay, Mario Galaxy has a phenomenal soundtrack and I was happy to talk about it.

Thank you ever so much, as always, for reading my nonsense. I'll catch you back here next time with another suggestion from my Music Box.

Stay Brutal.