![]() A minute later I'm freezing an entire lake to ice and skate towards a frozen waterfall, perfect for a series of wall jumps. When Mario finds a cloud flower in the Fluffy Bluff Galaxy (what a name!) I jump around and conjure cloud platforms by shaking the Wiimote. ![]() Nintendo lets a candy rain of irresistible platform experiences pour down on me, and just when you think there is nothing left another shower full of candy to grab comes down. Just a few hours into the game I'm overwhelmed by the amounts of game worlds, challenges and suits thrown at me. I sling myself into the first galaxy, and dust off my back flips and triple jumps, just to be struck by the wonderfully relaxed atmosphere in Mario's world - something I have yet to find anywhere else. Despite this the playable intro, that moves fluidly from 2D to 3D, is very elegant. Nintendo realises that we want to jump on those platforms straight away, and we are allowed to. The story has a smaller role in Super Mario Galaxy 2 compared to the first game (no misty eyed books here), but it still manages to keep things as easy going as we want them. Would you believe it, Peach has gotten kidnapped by Bowser once again and Mario has to save her. And what we end up with is both the best Wii game and the best platform game at this moment.Įxplaining the story takes all of three seconds. Nintendo's Tokyo outfit have made us of left over ideas, wrapped them up in two metres of dinosaur tongue, and dipped in the sugary syrup the keep in their magical cupboard of visual delights. If even if that would have gone far to satisfy us. Super Mario Galaxy 2 is not just more of the same. Sure, we remember Neil Armstrong best, but the history of video games tells us that sequels can be awesome, regardless of whether they take a cautious approach or innovate. When Super Mario Galaxy was announced I thought to myself that it would never measure up to its predecessor, simply because it came second. And the last level of them all uses walls that only appear when you spin in the air, meaning that you have to wall-jump over a gaping bottomless pit, spinning to turn the walls on and off.My thoughts drift towards Buzz Aldrin. This moment at first appears to be a throwaway joke, but hours and hours later it turns into a challenging level in its own right.Īnother galaxy is made up of boss encounters from the first Galaxy, strung together in one lengthy gauntlet. ![]() One of my favorites is a level built entirely around the "bowling" mechanic that the game introduces for one brief instant in the first level in which Rock Mario appears. New twists on old levels are all well and good, but the back half of the game is also full of brand new experiences. This is a lot less onerous than it sounds because Galaxy 2's controls are so perfect. Previous levels give you lots of fudge factor the comet challenges require perfection. These are testing your ability to perform perfectly – to get Mario to go exactly where you need him to be. These, too, aren't just busywork – it's not as if the purple-coin levels are forcing you to traipse over every square inch of a level in the name of reusing assets. This adds an interesting twist, since you're constantly trying to complete this secondary objective so you don't have to do the level over. If you don't grab one the first time, you have to get it and complete the level again. To cause Prankster Comets, and thus more levels, to appear, you have to find these medals inside the levels before you finish them. ![]() In the first world of each level, there's a Comet Medal hidden somewhere. There's a new design choice in Galaxy 2 that adds another layer onto the challenge of finding all the stars. In fact, the game doesn't let up for a second – right up until you collect the 120th Power Star you're constantly being asked to do new, different things. You might be forgiven for thinking that those surprises might slow down toward the end, but they don't. Super Mario Galaxy 2 is a game packed full of surprises – each level is different than the last, with some unique twist on the simple mechanics that will feel brand new even to people who played the hell out of the original. ![]()
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