Super Mario Galaxy ported to the Game Boy Advance, gravity included

Tobias Friedly releases the code of his Super Mario Galaxy port for the Game Boy Advance: gravity, camera, enemies and bosses, on a 2001 console.


Mario in space, on GBA

On 18 October 2026, Tobias Friedly (“Game of Tobi” on YouTube) released the source code of his port of Super Mario Galaxy to the Game Boy Advance. His goal, according to GBAtemp: to test the limits of the original console. The current version includes:

• Mario’s movement with the gravity specific to the game, and the camera that goes with it;
• a good share of the enemies and bosses, the domes, the sub-levels and the bonuses;
• the Star Pointer, moved with the D-pad while holding L and R, and with the D-pad alone during rail sections.

To fit the GBA’s controls, Star Bits close to Mario are collected automatically, and Launch Stars activate as he approaches.


How it’s done

The port is based on Joshua Barretto’s Mario 64 engine for GBA, improved by the author: faster triangle drawing, and distant planets rendered at a lower resolution. It includes code from Petari, the Super Mario Galaxy decompilation. Some models were remade, as the game’s were too detailed for the console.


To try it

The repository contains only code: models, textures, sounds, music and text are rebuilt on your computer from your own copy of the Wii game (US version, as an ISO), at build time. You need devkitPro, on macOS, Linux or Windows (with WSL). The frame rate is not specified. The same wave of decompilations produced a PC port of Smash Bros. Melee.


Sources: smg-gba (GitHub) · GBAtemp