When it comes to fan remakes, we’re usually pretty skeptical of their quality. Okay, there are some very impressive projects out there, like that Super Mario Land homebrew for SNES or the Super Mario Starshine…

But for the most part, they’re often a lot simpler than their premise would lead you to believe. After all, good remakes don’t just have a few ported level models here and there, or some graphics that look somewhat similar to the source material…

They have all the mechanics of the original title too. The enemies and bosses, powerups and level gimmicks, unique character abilities. All that good stuff.

And unfortunately, those aspects are a lot harder to replicate. Whether due to technical limitations or lack of expertise, the majority of modders and remake devs struggle with the more advanced aspects of the original game, causing their work to feel a tad undercooked as a result.

But today’s interview subject is very different indeed. Why? Because not only are the team behind Super Mario Odyssey: A Galaxy Story porting Super Mario Galaxy’s levels to Odyssey and adding new objectives…

They’re also porting over everything else too. New enemies and bosses, new powerups and level mechanics, Luigi as a second playable character… it’s genuinely incredible what they’ve done so far, and makes even the reveal trailer look like something out of a fever dream:

So today, we’re gonna talk to them and discuss the project in full. Let’s go behind the scenes, and see how this new Galaxy has all been put together…

The Interview

Starting with a quick question about the team. So, who’s involved here? Who’s behind the mod?

Many people are involved, I (Slycer) started the project 3 years ago, Arnaud joined the project when I was still working on the first version of the mod, which was a Comet Observatory mod that would replace Cascade Kingdom (The mod changed a lot during those 3 years). And with everything we wanted to achieve, MonsterDruide joined us to help with the dev side, he, with the help of the SMG community (people that work on SMG’s decompilation) ported the whole gravity system from Mario Galaxy.

And then after few times, more people join to help with the tests, but also devs like Alex, or LynxDev, mostly for making custom objects / enemies, or new features.

How did you get into gaming? What was your first game?

Got into gaming thx to my father, we were playing Luigi’s Mansion & MK: Double Dash a lot when I was a kid, and then my first console / game was the DS, with Pokémon Diamond.

What are you playing at the moment?

Most of my free time goes into the project, but I took some days off to be able to play Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth last year, which might be one of the best games I ever played. Then I played Astro Bot, an amazing title, and more recently, we got the chance to play a new title in the best series that ever exist, Mario & Luigi: Brothership, I love this game.

How did you get into the Mario series?

If we talk about the main series, I started watching my father play Mario Sunshine, but my first Mario game was Super Mario 64 DS.

Is either Galaxy or Odyssey your favourite title?

Odyssey has the best movement that a mario game could have, but Galaxy’s music, levels & atmosphere is unreal, so Galaxy for sure.

What was your intro to game development, or modding in particular?

I started a while ago, making Minecraft mods, adding new blocks & stuff like that. Then I tried making some custom maps in Mario Kart 8 when we had almost no tools and had to replace textures using commands without UI.

How did you get into Super Mario Odyssey modding?

I quickly joined SMO’s modding community (2018). We were able to make custom objects, but never tried to go further until 4 years ago, when I got back into it, I tried to make custom stages (some really bad port of mario galaxy or sunshine), and then started this project immediately after. You wouldn’t believe how bad it looked before!

Are there any other mods that change this many of the game’s mechanics?

I think there’s a bunch of mods that add new features, recently Galaxy’s Spin Attack got added into the game. Amethyst made a lot of mods that got released to the public.

How about other Mario Odyssey mods you’re excited for in general, mechanically complex or not?

To be honest, I myself don’t play other mods, simply because I don’t have time to because of the project. But there’s a lot of great mods that got released, a Starshine Galaxy port got released a few weeks ago, the Kaizo mod was amazing (watched gameplay). But there’s also a lot of older mods that were really great too, like Yoshi Star Kingdom or Bon-Bones Mountain.

What made you decide to remake Super Mario Galaxy in Odyssey’s engine anyway?

Like I said, the plan was to port the Comet Observatory and replace Cascade Kingdom, and after some discussion with Arnaud, with everything we learned about what was doable, we decided to choose 17 Galaxy and replace each kingdom of the game. We worked on this version for over a year and then, last year at the beginning of August, a friend joked about doing the rest of the game, I thought about it for some days but said to myself that it would be too much.

After a quick look at each galaxy using SMG’s tools & noclip, I started to think that it’d indeed be possible to add quickly the rest of the game into Odyssey, the next day, I started. In 2 months, almost all models were ported (without moons / npcs or any mechanics, just the levels with models).

And how did you get this far on a technical level? Last time I checked, Odyssey mods tended towards being mere level packs…

I can’t even say how much we did; we changed so much stuff. A lot of custom code was added, but we made so much stuff without using any code, it’s actually crazy. Custom kingdoms, custom effects, particles, NPC’s. We can probably do anything we want right now.

Regardless, what are some of the most interesting things from Galaxy you’ve remade in Odyssey’s engine?

For this one, I asked MonsterDruide, main dev of the mod:

“From the technical side, I still find it pretty interesting how we got gravity to work in Odyssey: Taking the decompiled code from Galaxy, adjusting it to be compatible with the Odyssey base, and then writing a few interfaces/patches for objects to make use of it. If it’s about which mechanic took the most amount of effort, then it’s either gravity, or spin by now. I’m not sure if the question is geared in that direction, I could write up a more detailed answer if you want.”

Any elements you just couldn’t get working?

We added the star bits, ever tho we couldn’t get them working like the original, they are purely visual and add a coin when picked up. Also, bosses, we remade most of them, but they won’t work the same way as the original, we couldn’t get the tail of the Dino Piranha to stretch, so instead, you’ll have to return fireballs he’s throwing, a bit like King Kaliente.

How are these custom elements being remade anyway? Are you porting the original code, or remaking them from scratch in C++?

Most are remade from scratch, looking at the original code for reference. apart from the gravity, which is a straight-up port.

Regardless, the two games work very differently mechanics wise, even with Galaxy’s spin attack ported over. Are most of the enemies, bosses and level gimmicks being tweaked to make use of Cappy or Capture mechanics?

Yes! We always had in mind the fact that this mod isn’t a 1 to 1 port of Galaxy. We tried, as much as we could, to implement the galaxies if they were developed using Odyssey’s mechanics. Enemies can be captured & you can use both Cappy & capture mechanics to beat a boss or a level.

How are you keeping the game balanced for these mechanics? Galaxy’s levels never had cap throw or bounce mechanics in mind…

Thanks to Cappy, a lot of skips can be done that were not possible in Galaxy, we thought about fixing these, but we also think about people that will try to speedrun the mod, so some part might be faster/easier with cappy, but it’ll be interesting to see how people beat the game :)!

Speaking of levels, how have they been updated here? It seems like they’ve been significantly tweaked to use Odyssey’s level structure and mechanics at least…

A lot of them were ported without any modification (except textures), but some looked really old like the Rolling Green Galaxy, where you had to use the star ball with motion controls. So, we did upgrade the models & visuals when it was needed. Rolling Green Galaxy can now be explored using the RC Car, replacing the Star Ball, or you can roam freely.

Do different galaxies have different star designs? Different domes?

The stars will have different colours that match the theme of each galaxy, but the domes (Terrace, Kitchen, etc) are the same.

How do you come up with star missions in these galaxies anyway? 400 stars is a lot of content, especially compared to the original Mario Galaxy…

We wanted to keep the missions from Galaxy, but also have that Odyssey feeling, so what we did is:

Each galaxy will have multiple scenarios like the kingdom in Odyssey, the first visit, the world peace & the post-game state.

When starting a new save, all 121 stars from Galaxy (excluding the comets) are available, 61 are needed to beat the final level. Then, over 350 custom moons (stars), using Odyssey’s mechanics like rainbow notes, ground pounds, Lakitu, etc will spawn when you’ll reach the post-game scenario of the galaxies (Post Game scenario can be reached when collecting the Grand Star of the Galaxy + Beat the final level).

And, yes, prankster comets were also added (except Cosmic Race, sorry).

Are elements from Galaxy 2 included as well? Or are all enemies, bosses, items and mechanics simply from the first game?

We took a few yeah! For the prankster comets, instead of having the speedrun comet with a :00 timer, we used the SMG2 comet, where you gave to collect clocks to add 10 seconds to the timer.

There’s also an easter somewhere in the game :)!

Are the powerups from Galaxy in this mod too, or have captures replaced all of them?

We replaced almost all powerups by captures to keep the Odyssey feeling. Only the rainbow star was added.

One other thing that’s conspicuously absent are Star Bits. Are they present in any form?

As I said earlier, yes! But they’ll act like coins, some of them can’t be collected because there’s no pointer, but it’s a nice visual touch.

And how does the hub system work anyway? It seems the Odyssey is there in some form, but how is it connected to the Observatory?

Main hub is the observatory, but yes, the Odyssey is still there. Like SMO, you’ll have to collect all stars and dump them into the Odyssey to reach the final level, all galaxies can be reached within the observatory, without the Odyssey.

Is the story progression set up like in the original Galaxy?

Not exactly the same, you’ll still have to unlock the domes by collecting a certain number of stars, but other than that, you can pretty much do anything you want.

Do you unlock Luigi in this mod? What is his role in the game exactly?

All I say is, “You can now play as Luigi”.

Which levels are your favourites so far?

Tough to say, I think Ghostly Galaxy, Toy Time Galaxy & Freezeflame are really great visually, but I really like the mechanics we added.

Still, enough about mechanics I guess. How were the graphics done here? Are all the models and textures redone from scratch, or upscaled from the originals somehow?

Models are the same (mostly), textures are either remade from scratch, or we use that famous dolphin “4K” texture pack released a long time ago, I don’t remember the name of it, but it’ll be in the credit of the mods.

What about the music? Is it all new arrangements of Galaxy’s soundtrack?

Galaxy’s ost is perfect, ain’t touching it, we added all music from the original.

Are there 8-bit sections like in the original Odyssey? Does this mod add 8-bit galaxy songs to go with them?

Sorry to people that like 8-Bit sections, but no, there’s no 8-bit sections in the mod, at least for now, it takes a really long time to add because we have to make custom collision for models, but also, we’d have to make 8-bit version of the songs. So, no sorry.

Regardless, the internet went crazy when this was shown, with loads of big gaming sites and popular YouTubers commenting on the project. Did you expect this level of popularity?

Honestly, with everything we made so far, I knew that people would be excited, the trailer got over 50K views, which is crazy, I’m really glad people liked it, I can’t wait to release it.

And how did you keep it under wraps before then? Feels like a mod of this size and scope should have gone viral 5 seconds after it was announced…

We shared a lot of pics in the SMO modding discord, but I think people didn’t realize how big the mod was, like you said, SMO mods were really basic before, so people didn’t expect a mod with this size.

Do you worry that Nintendo will try and shut down the project?

Not really, if they do, that’s life, I’m still happy because I’m doing this mostly because I love 3D modelling, level design and everything related to mod dev. I’d understand if Nintendo wants to take it down, but I’d still be happy & proud of what I’ve achieved.

Do you have a backup plan if that happens?

I’m not here to go against Nintendo, like other cancelled projects, if it’s down, it’s down.

Assuming all goes well and it’s released in 2025 as planned, what’s next? What projects is the team planning after this point?

I’m not sure everyone in the team will stay because they’ll get back to other stuff they want to do, but once this gets released, I have something else planned in mind, not as big but still enough to impress some people, but it should for sure take less than 3 years to make.

I’m sure people will love a full port of the Delfino Island 🙂

Finally, what advice would you give someone looking to get into mod development, or game development in general?

Back to Monster to finish!

“Pick an interesting, easy modification, and just get started with it. If you need inspiration, there are often also ideas for modifications sprinkled around the communities that nobody has tried to implement. There are many ways to get into modding itself – creating cheats, adding/changing contents, game research, writing tools for other modders, and a lot more. Most modding communities have a problem with documenting knowledge and sharing the workflow with newcomers, so it might be hard to get started and look into the first steps; asking many questions is your best bet to find your way into working on mods. Experienced people should have no reason to get annoyed by your questions, if you’ve at least done a bit of research yourself – the documentation is either missing, incomplete or hidden, and if anyone is upset about the questions, they should rather fix the documentation.”

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Makes sense to us! Yeah, it’s definitely best to start small when it comes to modding, or perhaps game development as a whole. That way, you won’t get overwhelmed by all the things there are to learn, and waste endless amounts of time panicking about all the things you’ll need to build in the months going forward.

Regardless, thanks for the interview guys! We’re super excited to see a project as ambitious as Super Mario Odyssey: A Galaxy Story, and we’re very keen to try out the mod when it’s released later this year. It’s definitely one of our most anticipated fan games, that’s for sure.

But what do you think? Did you enjoy learning more about A Galaxy Story? What aspects of the game are you most excited about when it releases this year?

Leave your thoughts in the comments below, on social media, or on our Discord server today!

A Galaxy Story on Social Media

• SitBar’s YouTube Channel
• A Galaxy Story Discord Server