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It’s been a long time since we’ve had a bona fide Mario platformer for a home console. Super Mario Sunshine came out for the GameCube in 2002, and seemed to leave critics a tad disappointed. The franchise got some much needed (and well-received) attention in the last year with New Super Mario Bros. for the DS and Super Paper Mario for the Wii. Both were delicious experiences, albeit rather short, but neither seemed to scratch the itch Mario fans have had since the groundbreaking Super Mario 64 over a decade ago. Nearly a year after the release of the Wii, we finally get this console generation’s true Mario offering: Super Mario Galaxy. Did Nintendo manage to find the same inspiration for it that they did for their other recent Mario games?

The premise for Galaxy will sound familiar to anyone whose ever picked up a controller to take control of the world’s most famous plumber: Princess Peach is kidnapped by a megalomaniacal Bowser bent on world (and this time, galactic) domination in addition to forced betrothal. After Peach, castle and all, are flown away into the depths of space, Mario finds himself on a whirlwind adventure through the cosmos to rescue the princess as well as reclaim Power Stars from Bowser’s nefarious forces. If this sounds an awful lot like Super Mario 64 in Space, then you’re not far off the mark: Galaxy takes several cues from the venerable Nintendo 64 platformer. Seeing as how it was the original 3D platformer and is one of the top ten games of all time, this was a wise move. Things differ from Galaxy’s ancestor in several key ways, though.

First, there is the “luma,” a race of star beings led my the enigmatic girl Rosalina. As part of what’s essentially an eternal cosmic grand tour, Rosalina and her luma were passing near the Mushroom Kingdom when Bowser and his cronies sucked all the star power out of their comet-starship. Stuck in orbit when the signature kidnapping takes place, Rosalina offers to help Mario find the Peach in exchange for his help freeing the stars from the evil lizard king’s clutches. This plot, while not significantly thicker than any Mario game this side of the story-heavy Paper Mario series, serves as decent motivation for the adventuring to follow; it’s a far better hook than the way Super Mario 64 dropped you outside Peach’s castle on a hide-n-seek hunt for stars. The unfolding of Rosalina’s story will be compelling to all but the most jaded gamer, and a brigade of refugee toadstools from the Mushroom Kingdom provide chuckle-inducing comic relief.

Second, the level design is without a doubt the most inspired thing to come out of Nintendo’s development houses since The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time… and coming from a Zelda-freak like me, that’s high praise. Gameplay takes place on myriad levels called “galaxies,” each consisting of one or more planetoids in relatively close proximity to each other. Some are large and expansive, with horizontal planes that provide traditional platforming feel. Others, though, are wacky spheroids and other irregular curvilinear shapes with wildly different features that will force players to shift their assumptions about how the game is played. Managing things like gravity and momentum plays a big part in progress, as does the usual 3D problem solving. Each galaxy typically requires flying from planet to planet via star-assisted boost jumps, with either a puzzle or a boss fight standing between Mario and Power Star. Like Super Mario 64, each stage contains multiple stars and requires more than one play-through to obtain them all. Upon entering a galaxy you’re presented with a choice of available stars to pursue, and depending on which is chosen the stage changes slightly. The familiar meadow of the Honey Bee galaxy, for example, gains some extra menace when overrun with angry beetles while questing for that stage’s third star. These variations get plenty of mileage out of the level designs without getting tired or repetitive, and there are nooks and crannies in each stage that cannot be found in a single run; part of the fun is finding them all as you progress farther into the game.

It also cannot be stressed enough that the feeling you’ll get when your zooming across the stage from planet to planet is just pure gaming joy. It’s something I haven’t felt from a game since the NES days: happy pixel-induced wonder.

Lastly, the play control in Galaxy is the best on the console, surpassing even Wii Sports and Metroid Prime 3: Corruption. Nintendo cribbed almost the entire control design from Mario 64 to the point where any veteran of that game will immediately feel right at home here. The usual Wii control components, such as Wiimote pointing and waggling, are present but not overdone. Unlike Metroid Prime 3, which I could not play for longer than an hour or so without my Wiimote arm getting tired, the motion controls in Galaxy are as understated as they are immersive. The developers did not fall into the trap of adding motion control for the sake of motion control, and the title is better for it. In fact, it’s been pared down to it’s most essential elements and integrated into the gameplay in such a way that I could not imagine playing this with the same amount of enjoyment on a traditional controller.

There’s much more to this than what’s been covered above: there’s a handful of new suit-based power-ups Mario can use to best his enemies and explore the environment, an automatic camera that perfectly frames the action on-screen without player management, a vibrant soundtrack that pays homage to all the best music in the series across generations, and even a limited-but-fun multiplayer feature where a partner can jump in with a second Wiimote and help retrieve tiny star fragments. The best part, though, is while the game is replete with pieces of the Mario universe, it doesn’t need them; a title with this kind of design and gameplay would have been a smash hit with or without the iconic mustachioed hero. All this combines to become the answer to many a Mario fan’s hopes: Super Mario Galaxy is the definitive must-have Wii game, and a true heir to the franchise legacy.