I’m sure most of you that already know of this game, played it, or are on the fence on picking it up has probably read a review or two and have a pretty good idea of what Mario’s new adventure is all about. I’ll try to skip all the basic stuff in most reviews and get right to the nuts and bolts; most importantly, will you be entertained enough to want to play through the game AND THEN pick up all the green ‘Luigi’ stars.
Short Answer: Probably.
Little bit Longer Answer: Probably if the harder stages don’t drive you away from platformers for good.
Feature Length Answer: There’s 120 stars for you to collect (nothing new about this since Mario 64). Once you beat the main quest, you’ll be offered to go back and fetch any stars you missed. After that, 120 more stars open up for you to scrounge around and pick up. After that, you get a nice new ending of sorts and another stage that’s apparently pretty fucking hard (I’m not there yet). After that, you mastered the game and it’s now your bitch, good job! If you got the time and the patience to go back to the same levels over and over and over again; to see the Game Over sign over and over and over again, to die by over jumping the same god damned platform over and over and over again, to do another FUCKING SCORE BASED CHALLENGE FROM THAT FUCKING MONKEY OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN, then you have what it takes to completely finish the game.
I think the average person would probably only go for the minimum stars needed to complete the main quest (70 stars), finish the main story, then put the game back on the shelf or trade it at Gamestop. At 70 stars, it’s a fun as hell game that’s at the just right length for a Mario game (If you’re going for the medals and maybe a few challenges, you’re clocking in about 10-12 hours to complete). Hell, people can beat Super Mario Brothers in 12 minutes and I remember warping my ass through Super Mario Brothers 2 to completion before Mac and Cheese is off the stove; 10-12 hours is plenty of time for a Mario game, especially with all the ‘epic-ness’ packed in. Once you start going beyond the 70 stars, you’re going into hoarders mode. There’s really no stopping you at this point. There’s no reason for you to go past 70 unless you’re going for the full 240. For that I say “God speed and good luck!”.
In other reviews, you’ll read about how you have new powers and Yoshi is floating around several stages; I don’t feel I need to rehash that here. I’ll just say that Yoshi is a som’bitch to drive when he’s hopped up on hot pepper power up.
What’s awesome
- Super Mario Galaxy (1) was 30 types of all kinds of fun. Nintendo went waaaay out of their way to make the game the signature title that everyone with a Wii should and must own. Super Mario Galaxy 2 is just more of that with a little bit of meth mixed in. The levels are larger, harder, and trippier than before.
- The music makes you feel you’re on the climax of a level 5 orgasm all the way through the game. There’s no other way I can describe this.
- The hub world system is gone, sort of. In the first SMG, you had to collect so many stars and defeat a boss to open a different part of your hub world in order to play new levels. In SMG2, there’s a linear progression to the worlds you can explore, but once you complete them, you can go back and forth. What makes this similar to the hub world is that there’s some places in the game where you can’t progress until you get a certain amount of stars. It’s really not a pain in the ass though if you’ve been diligent with getting the 1-to-2 stars in each galaxy. Ultimately, SMG2 makes for easier and much faster navigation through the various galaxies in the game because everything is pretty much on one screen (no needless running around a hub world to get where you need to go).
Fuck you hub worlds.
- No new controls. I know you’ve played SMG before, you don’t even have to look at the manual. Just pick up and play.
- Second Wii controller can be used to pick up star sprites so you can focus on ass kicking.
What sucks
- Would it hurt Nintendo so much to give Mario a fucking emotion once in a while? If you’ve ever seen a cutscene from any Mario game, you know what I’m saying.
- You’re trying to get a star in a “Prankster” galaxy (they’re like challenge stages that are usually timed and or very hard), you get a Game Over, now you got to get a lecture from this fat fuck star sprite telling you should take a break from the Wii and go outside. It’s riGODDAMNEDdiculous! On top of that, you got to go back to the galaxy screen, watch the “PRANKSTER COMET DETECTED” animation, THEN go through another screen to get back to the stage. It’s a pain in the ass that really takes you out of the game. Oh, and every time you get a game over, you’ll get a lecture about your playing too much and should go outside….every time. It’s enough to drive you up the fucking wall.
- Boss stages = teh easy
- If you’re soloing through this game, sometimes managing star shard collecting and maneuvering can be quite a hassle. Sometimes it’s either one or the other. Adding a second player pretty much negates this gripe.
- The game is gives you completely useless information in regards to how to control Mario WELL after the half way point in the game. You’re on World 4 and the game is just getting around to telling you how to do a long jump; mind you, you’ve been doing this all throughout the game before this in other stages that required you to do so.
- King Koopa is just a bitch with a dick.
- Bring back the Koopa Kids and kill off this Baby Koopa thing. The Koopa Kids had street cred……..
…..fucking street cred, man.
In Summation:
Great game; a complete must for any Wii owner. You’ll probably not go for all 240 stars, but you don’t need to have a good time. The story is totally forgettable, but so is every other Mario game. This IS Nintendo at it’s finest.
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