Super Mario Galaxy is a game that I have spent a lot of time playing. As I am writing this review I have finish my fourth 100% playthrough of the game. Some have probably played it even more than I have, but at least know that of the three games I have covered this month, this is the one I have spent the most time on by a considerable margin. That is partially due to the game being the most fun for me to play, but it is also because 100% completion requires you to play the full game twice. I knew from playing Super Mario Galaxy 2 beforehand that its predecessor would most likely also have 242 stars in total, but imagine my surprise when after getting 120 stars as Mario the game wanted me to do the same thing, but this time as his brother Luigi. Personally, I’m not the biggest fan of playing a game again just to get the true ending. The game is fun at least, but it can kind of burn you out doing both playthroughs back-to-back. However, back then I plugged away so I could get the full completion and continued playing the game. I knew that they couldn’t copy everything since Luigi couldn’t meet himself later on because that wouldn’t make any sense, but he needed to meet someone so that they could find some hidden power stars. I was under the assumption it would be Mario, but to my shock it turned out to be another Luigi! There were two distinctly different Luigis in the game and this bugged me for the longest time. So today I want you to hear me out on why there are two Luigis in Super Mario Galaxy. Just know that this is purely speculation on my part so feel free to let me know if you have another explanation.
Now the first thing we have to address is the fact that Mario is missing. He doesn’t show up at all in the second half of the game. It would be easy to assume that Mario just doesn’t exist in this universe and instead of Mario and Luigi we have the Luigi twins. However, Peach always addresses the letters she sends throughout the game to Mario, meaning he does exist in this universe and has mysteriously vanished. Not only that, but she is expecting Mario to save her from this plight despite the fact that Luigi is the one who ended up at the gateway rather than Mario. We can infer from this that most likely the same events from the festival happened from the first part of the game, including the part when Mario gets shot into space by a magikoopa. However, somehow a second Luigi ends up meeting Rosalina instead of Mario. I have no evidence of this claim, but the fact that they do not show Luigi getting invited to the festival or Peach’s kidnapping shows that it is possible that everything happened the same way as in Mario’s storyline up to arriving at the gateway. It also gives the best explanation for the letters that Peach sends since if Luigi was invited and got blasted off into space like Mario did in his storyline, the letters would most likely be addressed to Luigi. So we can explain Mario’s disappearance form the story and yet we still can’t explain the appearance of the second Luigi.
Let’s think back for a bit to the end of Mario’s storyline when he successfully rescues Princess Peach from Bowser’s clutches and stops his plan to rule the universe. Due to the collapse of his empire, Bowser’s galaxy end up becoming a black hole which starts sucking everyone inside. Through the power of the Lumas they are able to avert the crisis by having the Lumas reset things back to normal and being reborn as new stars and galaxies. Although things aren’t exactly back to normal though with many notable characters from other galaxies also appearing in the Mushroom Kingdom at the end. Some of those characters can also be seen when getting the 121st star in the final galaxy in each universe. However, there is one person who is strangely absent from the Mushroom Kingdom, who is not seen in the ending cutscene or the final galaxy and is the very person with whom you start the second playthrough. That is right, Luigi seems to be suspiciously absent at the end of the game. Now that could be a coincidence, but what if instead he is not there because he got thrown into another universe due to the black hole and that is why there is a second playthrough. I have no real proof other than not seeing him at all in the endgame, but it would help explain the twin Luigi problem in a way that makes some sense, at least to me. So if we assume that Luigi’s disappearance was related to the appearance of the second Luigi, we can assume that the reason there are two of them is because the events of Mario’s universe caused Luigi to be thrown into another universe.
Now, I know that there are some holes in this theory that need to be addressed which are what happened to Mario after getting thrown into space and why does the Luigi we play as not act like the Luigi from Mario’s universe. Addressing the first issue, Mario has either gotten launches into space or into another universe due to the fact that he never turns up in Luigi’s story. It is also possible that he ends up inhabiting Luigi’s body which is why the player Luigi seems to act more like Mario. However, if that isn’t the case it is also possible that the Luigi we see at the gateway is actually the Luigi of the current universe who accidentally ended up there and the alternate Luigi ends up in the same place as he did in Mario’s storyline. It could also be that Luigi experienced some changes due to traveling between universes and that is why he acts that way. It could be any number of these or something else entirely. This is the part of the theory that has the least amount of evidence but feel free to listen anyway. So my thought is that when Luigi gets trapped in the black hole’s vortex he probably called out for his brother to come save him. At the same time, the Mario of another universe that didn’t make it to the gateway had an earnest wish to save Princess Peach and due to the power of the stars Luigi got brought to the other Mario’s world as a way to save Princess Peach. Due to the sudden turn of events, Luigi ends up coming to the new universe. However, because of him thinking about Mario and other world Mario’s earnest wish to save the princess, Luigi wakes up in the right location for the start of the quest and due to the previous circumstances believes it is his duty to save the princess on behalf of Mario and with that confidence he ends up acting like him. It would explain pretty much everything and I know very well that it is farfetched, but that is how I imagine how the scenario plays out. Of course it doesn’t matter if I am right or wrong here, what matters is that I enjoyed the game enough to speculate this long about it. It could be that everything I’ve said is true, but I’m probably just overthinking things. Thanks for hearing me out though and hopefully you enjoyed all my ramblings. Next week should be a bit more toned down on the conspiracies. Probably.
That Casual Gamer Guy 