COURAGE (combat & level design + difficulty/adversity)
Galaxy wins
Levels gingerly sprinkled with starbits or dumb bananas -- lightly sprinkled with enemies, bottomless pits (none in DK64), and obstacles. DK64 has no bottomless pits! Sand is less deadly than SM64 quicksand. So what should have been bottomless pits are filled up with sand, water, or just plain old land. Annoyance of backtracking or falling off and having to redo a jump instead of honorably dying (sidenote: Prince of Persia at least had limited 'retries' with the time rewind from failed crossings). Galaxy fairs far better in having real chasms, but falls victim to a ton of Super Mario Bros level 1 stage design with lots of surface sphere running (but even worse here since going into pipes stalls your progress by not advancing you in the level upon emergence). Only very rarely does Galaxy ever exhibit challenge and it will take you 60+ stars to get there (see: daredevil challenges and if I am generous purple coin timed stages). Extremely easy to overcome once you figure out what to do.
Enemies respawn in Dk64 making fighting enemies less important; just clear them out if they are interfering (you can just run past them though you should kill big Kremlings for blueprints) -- would have been cool if reinforcements spawned at access points and flooded your area. Again
fighting enemies was never the focus of these games -- getting past them to continue in the level was. So forget about 3 hit health which was nullified regardless thanks to a 6-hit health powerup. Boss fights of course require action to 'unfreeze' screen to keep scrolling. Most here require pure aggression with simple dodging. None utilize jump and run mechanics -- more like Bowser destroying your platforms, Nintendo. Nearly all centered around boring bash attack or boring tnt barrel rolling toss. Would have been nice if Toy Factory boss in DK64 had bottomless pits of death; If the games actually adhered to the fight for landing space (basic tenet). Kamek fight is awesome as Nintendo finally figured that jumping over fire balls and battling for landing on safe floor space would adhere to greatness. What's with being able to exit a boss fight at anytime in these games though? If bosses actually had good design stages (bottomless pits=ohko's) you wouldn't be able to exit out and accept your fall punishment (none of these games allow exiting out of stage option when suspended in air).
DK64 had interesting enemy synthesis (wasp dropping grenades from above and moles rushing you on ground) + light/heavy enemy weight properties (Bone Klaptrap vs Krusha Kremling), while Mario's enemies all feel the exact same when hit -- how boring. The only interesting moment in Galaxy was when you cannoned out to a small planet in that level with the Toads where you were surrounded by enemies. Landing there was some crazy shit of having to fight through a mass of enemies and I barely got out of there without dying. It was clear that Nintendo had little desire to produce an awesome moment like that as a powerup for Star Mario is made available which makes everything easy-peesy.
CHARM
DK64 wins
Galaxy has very little charm. Game lacks any feeling of magic from prior Mario games as it starts off terribly (Mario screaming 'SUPER MARIO GALAXY!!!' at game bootup screen). Then you start off your adventure collecting 3 fucking rabbits which feels like a chore and dogshit compared to SM64 (you can't b-button grab or dive) -- the whole game feels like this as you repeatedly collect 5 star pieces. It's a 3D rotator simulator most of the time instead of a 3D platformer.
Galaxy - Really dug that music cues (taken from DK: Jungle Beat) and uptempo music during climatic action in boss battles. Annoyed that the
best track is easily skipped over at the part where it gets smile inducing good if you long jump through level quickly. And what's with the story that feels like some ewwy JRPG (lullaby story book opener, you are mysteriously saved from danger, mystery floating girl, disable a mysterious apparatus to get first star, and ending felt like it was trying to get all mystical)? DK64 has none of that crap, but that damn caged big Barney dinosaur is irritating as fuck. Nintendo needs to keep the story bits short and clever like in Mario & Luigi: Super Star Saga.
DK64 starts off by blatantly ripping off Zelda: Ocarina of Time with the waking up of DK in his treehouse. When you boot up the game you are introduced to the ever-charming DK Rap (no fucking emo bullshit). When you fly (ala jetpac) through the air you've got that awesome music playing plus dual wielding pistols -- no horrid xyz axis problems like the first stage you get the Flying Mario suit. All the character interactions in DK64 are great: Cranky Kong and his witty dialogue, Funky Kong and his gun shooting mannerism, the fat pigs on the scale scarfing down bananas. The "oh banana!" vocal when you pick up a prized banana sounds great and so does that sparkly sfx which plays until you pick up the prized banana after you defeat a boss.
Galaxy -The vfx noise the bees make is quite charming. And I like the initial flying intro entrance for stages, but watching that for moving between planets in a level is not appreciated; i.e., boring (pointing at starbits waiting for this cutscene to end is not entertaining). What really kills Galaxy is the terrible sfx of Mario screaming "WHEE!" WHEE!" "WOOHOO!" "WHEE!" "WHEE!" every time I long jump. God they fucked that up real bad. Makes me sick.
