Super Mario Galaxy, the platformer released on the Wii, now runs on the Game Boy Advance. The port comes from Tobias Friedly, known as Tobi, who in his latest video announces the release of the game together with the source code of the engine and all of the game's code, available on GitHub. The 2001 handheld was never designed for a game like this, and the result is striking for that very reason.
The project does not include any assets from the original game. To build the ROM for the GBA, users must bring their own ISO image of the Wii title. It is a clear choice that avoids distributing copyrighted material and leaves the job of gathering the data to whoever wants to try the game.
Super Mario Galaxy - Images & Screenshots | GameGrin
The port is nearly complete. It includes the star pointer, despite the GBA having far fewer controls than the Wii. To work around this limit, in some situations star bits are collected automatically, a choice that simplifies the game and that many Super Mario Galaxy players will probably appreciate. The project also brings back gravity, enemies, bosses, power-ups and sub-levels, along with the camera and the bee costume, according to the sources.
The game logic borrows heavily from the already decompiled code of the original title, which saved Friedly a lot of time. The work is still demanding, because the GBA hardware is no match for the Wii's. From the gameplay in the video, the game looks playable, with an acceptable frame rate. According to the author's description, the project aims to test how far an original GBA can be pushed.
Yes I'm still making Mario Galaxy for the GBA - YouTube
The case fits a series of Nintendo ports built by the community. AlexTech has also covered how Claude Code automated the reverse engineering of N64 ROMs, and how a homebrew brought Super Mario 64 to the Atari Jaguar without distributing the ROM. In these cases too, the technical work is the real protagonist.
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