I'm really surprised no one has ever brought this up (as far as I've seen), but I was really pushed over the edge to make this thread when I saw the SMG review that was just put up here.

Am I the only one who really felt underwhelmed and bored of the Bowser fights in this game? Maybe nostalgia is clouding my feelings from Super Mario 64, but fighting Bowser in Galaxy was extremely boring, easy, and bothersome for me compared to previous games.

They could have at least mixed up the fights a little with him...but no, every time you face off against him it's almost an identical fight. Are my expectations too high for Mario games? Did no one else feel underwhelmed by the fights with Bowser?

Having unique fights each time just seems like something to expect, but my logic must be wrong. I guess it's better to have the same fight over and over...

Yeah I realize it's basically the same for SM64, but considering that the series is in it's third era of 3d, and that SMG is amazing in so many other ways, including the vast amount of unique stages, I just really felt like it was lacking in this regard.

The Bowser fights were a bit of a letdown, though this was offset by what is arguably the greatest battle music ever written.

I definitely agree that the music was amazing. It's one of the only games I actually bought the CD track for.

I can understand that the story doesn't mean much in Mario games, and expecting an amazingly complex and deep story from a Mario game is the wrong idea to go in with, but is it the same with boss battles? Are the battles with Bowser not that important to the game, is that what the developers are saying? That can't be true though, because the battles are obviously important.

What then, am I missing from all of this? Hell SMS had some awesome and unique boss battles, none of them close to being the same. Of course you do only fight Bowser once in the entire game..

What game with multiple Bowser fights has different Bowser fights?

SMB2, SMB3, and SMW had different boss fights because they were actually different bosses instead of Bowser over and over.

Well, at least the other bosses were all different.

Bowser was still tough, for the length of time it took to figure out how to beat him. But yes... the Super Mario 64 version was better. Just the differences given by his health and the way the arena behaved made it better.

Personally, I found it got harder after the first one. Then again, I also had to dial Deadly Creatures down to Easy. Maybe mah skillz are in question?

He did get harder to hit, but if I remember that was really the only difference, which was surprised.

But then, I didn't get all the stars. Oh, the shame!

Mario Galaxy had bigger problems than just the Bowser fights, lol.

I don't even care about those.

I liked the Bowser fights.. They aren't supposed to be massively epic really.. I mean the first bowser fight all you had to do was jump up on a platform and ride over his head..

The problem was a lack of adventure and a lack of dificulty. However a raise in difficulty would compemsate for the lack of adventure elements.

I didn't mind them. The fun was getting up to Bowser (in the boss levels), he was generally easy.

The game "felt" easy to me (and I did get all the stars) - but lost maybe hundreds of lives in the process. All good fun.

My only real issue with the game, was towards the end it was feeling *very* repetitive - like they had run out of ideas. In the end, I was glad when I clocked it - and I have no real desire to play it again (anytime soon).