I think Nintendo are clever at absorbing other cultural values and putting them in Mario games. Whether its Alice in Wonderland or in SMG Escher's perspective work and perhaps a little Dali. To say that Galaxy is limited in terms of wonder/value (and intertextuality, the influence from other cultural objects) is ignoring alot of what is in the game. Its too simplistic a view i think.
After all no one really finds fault with Yoshi's Island because we all believe there is more content there.
“When we make some new announcement and if there is no positive initial reaction from the market, I try to think of it as a good sign because that can be interpreted as people reacting to something groundbreaking. ...if the employees were always minding themselves to do whatever the market is requiring at any moment, and if they were always focusing on something we can sell right now for the short term, it would be very limiting. We are trying to think outside the box.” - Satoru Iwata - This is why corporate multinationals will never truly understand, or risk doing, what Nintendo does.
