Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Hands On) (Wii) Preview

Despite being a massive fan of Super Mario 64, I was still in fact more enamoured by the 2D Mario games of yore. Therefore, upon the release of Super Mario Sunshine, it was difficult to fall in line with the majority and slate the title for merely lacking some of the glean found in the Nintendo 64 adventure. After all, most of the buzz had come from the fact that Super Mario 64 was the first foray into 3D for Nintendo’s heroic mascot, a transformation that Sunshine clearly lacked. It did have many sprinklings of side-scrolling goodness and challenges mixed in, though, making it more of a pure platform experience that definitely appealed to my tastes. Galaxy, on the other hand, whilst undoubtedly a polished end product, never quite caught my attention in the same way. Thankfully, Super Mario Galaxy 2 retains the polish and kept me highly entertained from the short bouts of playtime given at the Nintendo Media Summit.

The highlight definitely had to be the Flip-Swap Galaxy challenge stage, where 100 Purple Coins had to be retrieved within four minutes. After trying out the sedate introductory stage of Sky Station Galaxy, where the basic running, jumping, spinning and star-bit-collecting mechanics were shown off, along with a non-taxing battle against Petey Piranha, Flip-Swap was next on the cards, recommended by Cubed3’s James Temperton, with a wry smile on his face. Lay before Mario are red and blue platforms, as well as a whole host of deathtraps, such as large cannon balls and electrified enemies. Shaking the Wii Remote to spin Mario resulted in the red platforms disappearing and the blue ones re-appearing, whilst waggling the controller again saw the opposite occur. Timing, precision jumping and spinning, as well as a massive amount of patience were of the essence here, although haste also had to be the order of the day so as to reach the target of 100 coins in the time allotted. Thoroughly frustrating, but mightily rewarding in the end!

Other stages quickly touched upon in my time with the game were Hightail Falls Galaxy, Bowser Jr.’s Fearsome Fleet and Spin-Dig Galaxy. Hightail Falls had Mario spinning into green and white eggs to release Yoshi, then having the trusty green dinosaur lock his tongue onto a fiery-red plant with the Wii Remote pointer and swallow it to inflict a temporary speed boost that allowed steep slopes to be traversed, with the aim being to collect everything in sight or reach a flat surface before the effects subsided and gravity dragged you back down. Bowser Jr.’s Fearsome Fleet featured Yoshi once more, this time targeting incoming Bullet Bills with his tongue and launching them back out at previously impenetrable glass, Hammer Bros. trying to throw their self-named tools at you, or even Bowser Jr. as he attempts to thwart to Italian plumber. Finally, Spin-Dig saw gives Mario a new toy to play around with - a drill, which is activated by grabbing a-hold and shaking the Wii Remote to make Mario dive into the ground and appear on the other side of the globe he is currently on, thus leading to plenty of cleverly crafted puzzles being implemented.

Adam Riley, Senior Editor.

Super Mario Galaxy 2 is more of the same, but not many people would say that that is a bad thing. The platforming still feels perfect, and despite initial mutterings being that the game was a bunch of leftover ideas from the first game’s development, there seems to be no indication that this sequel could be regarded as a quick cash-in job. It seems just as imaginative as the original, if not more so, and is all the better for the inclusion of more 2D sections and Yoshi.

One thing that stood out to me is that Super Mario Galaxy 2 seems to be more challenging than the first from the demo levels that were on offer - perhaps a direct response to criticism some had of the difficulty level in its predecessor. To compensate for this, checkpoints such as the ones found in New Super Mario Bros. Wii, have been added. This does not cheapen the experience in any way in my opinion, though, and fear not those who really want to gnaw their fingers to the bone trying to best the galaxies; the abstract, pure platforming challenge galaxies such as those used for the 100 Purple Coin levels are entirely checkpoint-free.

Boss encounters were another highlight. Two of the three faced were re-imaginings of those found in the first. Petey Piranha now crawls on all fours wearing his egg nappy and must be spanked into submission with Mario’s spin attack. The second was the giant two-legged mechanoid you previously ran over, who must now be combated by grabbing the new drill power-up, getting on the opposite side of the planet and timing your dig properly so that you can smash right into his giant glass robo-crotch. The final boss was the giant dragon seen in the latest trailer, and he proved a bigger challenge than the other two - he appears to be a ‘main’ boss, as he’s introduced by Bowser Jr., and can only be bested by smashing into his multiple stomachs as he burrows through the planet teeth first in a bid to munch you right up.

Mike Mason, Reviews Editor.

Seeing as my colleagues have stolen my thunder and talked about all the best bits of Galaxy 2, I’ll look to put things into some sort of perspective. First up, some facts. This is the first time Nintendo have released two flagship 3D Mario games on a single platform, let alone on the same theme. This is a strategy that you can look at in two ways: lazy, or brilliantly exciting. Obviously reusing the engine and general feel/concept of the original is somewhat lazy, but as the saying goes, if it aint broke don’t fix it. But that isn’t all that this game does, it really tries to push and refine the problems that to some extent spoilt the original game.

In my opinion, Galaxy suffered from having far too many average levels. Irritatingly, the game was sprinkled with moments of pure genius (very often the bonus levels that involved clever use of the Wii remote in some way) but all too regularly you were just jumping and flipping your way around fairly standard levels. The sequel has (from what I can tell) really tries to inject some jazz into the somewhat template-a-thon nature of the original’s ‘filler’ levels. So, step up Yoshi, a big spinning drill, lots of random gadgets and quirks and well...more of everything.

Indeed, it would seem that less is actually not more in the world of Mario. There is a lot going on, a lot of stuff chucked in and it all makes for a more hectic and seemingly exciting experience. What was nice about the demo we all played through was the number of levels on offer. By playing through a nice hour long portion of the game it really showed off what it has to offer. Whilst I’ll still retain reservations over this being more of the same, on first impressions it certainly seems to be trying to offer more.

What was also somewhat refreshing was the difficulty. When one of the Nintendo helpers at the Media Summit said the latter levels are designed for people with lots of Galaxy experience, I immediately jumped in. Whilst in places the original was a bit easy (rarely do I beat the big boss in a game at the first time of asking), Galaxy 2 is well...quite hard. It makes genuine ‘platformey’ demands of the player. Difficult jumping, puzzle elements and challenges of timing, precision and technique. Put simply, it manages to capture that rage-inducing difficulty that the Mario of yore was so famed for.

James Temperton, Features Editor.