Super Mario Galaxy 2

[mr_sockochris]

Just did a couple of hours on this after rushing home from work, fantastic stuff so far

Control wise nothing has changed so anyone who played the original will feel right at home instantly. Those itching to play as Yoshi will be thrilled to hear that you get to use him almost straight away in world 1 ala Mario World. Yoshi himself controls brilliantly using the pointer control to eat things with his tongue and spit things out with precision (curbing my intense craving for a Yoshi's Island Wii, at least for now anyway ). I've come across 2 new powerups so far -

The

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Drill which was shown in the first trailer allows you to drill through planets, and even inside of some to discover hidden secrets. Using it to dispatch of a Mario Galaxy 1 boss in a totally new way is great fun.

. The other powerup is the

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Cloud suit which creates cloud platforms beneath your feet using a spin in midair allowing you to reach places you otherwise couldn't.

For those that don't know, there is no traditional hub world this time around but instead you control a spaceship and move along a world map much like the 2D Mario games. Your ship is explorable though, with things being added to it after almost every level (during World 1 at least). World 1 itself contains a bit of everything that made the original such a great game. When you're not exploring a Mario 64-type world, you're hopping between smaller planets, solving mini puzzles or fighting screen filling bosses. The 2D gravity stages make a return, along with some Mario Sunshine-esque non backpack levels hidden away in there also. Oh, and it looks like each world will end with a Bowser stage too, something I was personally pleased about as they rarely disappoint in any Mario game.

The music is yet again totally amazing, I've already got 2 tunes stuck in my head right now as I'm trying to watch the football!

I could happily write alot more but I won't as it's hard enough avoid videos for 6+ months without me spoiling things. Can't wait to play this some more. The early levels of this have been better than the original's opening so far, and they were only a taster of what was to come so I can't even imagine what joys lie ahead....


edit:

I forgot to say, it seems to be a bit more of a challenge than the original so far. SMG1 never really troubled me until the 2nd half of the game, but this hasn't been so straightforward

[Bort]

Finally.

Have fun, it's a cracker.

39 stars in so far. One bit of advice. Cider +

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Purple coin challenges

= Ow wow wow wow.

[Jebus]

For someone like me that didn't feel the love for the first, but is a long time Mario game lover...would you still reccomend it?

[Bort]

For someone like me that didn't feel the love for the first, but is a long time Mario game lover...would you still recommend it?

More of the same but structurally superior to the first with added difficult/pressure if you want it. If like you say you are a worthless piece of human excrement then I doubt you'll find it any different to the first.

It does pay homage (at least so far) to

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SM64 quite a bit

but only references it, not emulates.

[Bort]

Favourite star so far was a fairly early one.

The second star on

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Fluffy Bluff Galaxy, The Chimp's Stomp Challenge. You are given the task of scoring 10,000 points within the time limit by collecting coins (100 points) and stomping on heads (100 points). The only way to complete the challenge is to chain head stomps (1=100 points, 2=200 and 3=300 points which appears to be the max but my most consecutive stomps was either 6 or 7 so you could possibly get more with a higher stomp count.).

Fun times. Wahoo!

[Jaz]

For someone like me that didn't feel the love for the first, but is a long time Mario game lover...would you still reccomend it?

Yes. I fall into this category.

[figflair]

Mine's in transit. The wait is killing me!

[briareos_kerensky]

Will you be home to receive the package? I'm not, parents collected it for me but I still have four hours in the office to wait before getting my hands on it.

BTW, how does the lack of a playable central hub feels?

[reektan]

I don't think ive been this happy playing a game since Wind Waker. The opening 3 hours are obviously training you for the difficulty spike later in the game but it's masked with genuinely clever and fun level design. You're constantly given new toys which you play with for 10 minutes in amazement then in the next level that toy is taken away and a fresh one is given to you.

You're constantly left wanting to go to the next galaxy to see what genius ideas the designers have come up with. I don't miss the old galaxy layout at all really - it's nice having the basic structure now and being able to easily find those levels that you loved a lot quicker.

I have Red Dead and Split Second sat on the side but I've not even touched them. I feel rejuvenated playing this and find generally I sit there smiling as I enjoy this huge toy box. Also - they've hit it out of the park again with the music, it's totally fantastic.

[Bort]

BTW, how does the lack of a playable central hub feels?

As Reektan says, what is given to you is more than enough.

My favourite new addition is the

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rhythm/beat galaxies. SMG meets Rhythm Tengoku .

I'm sure there will be some hair pulling versions later in the game.

[mr_sockochris]

Just did the 2nd Bowser stage -

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Hammer Bros + Mario 64 Bowser stage music =

[Bort]

Story mode complete. It takes

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seventy stars

to unlock the path to the final battle.

Some fantastic worlds later on. I'd love to splurge or hint but I don't want to tempt anyone with a sneaky spoiler viewing.

[briareos_kerensky]

And there go 2 hours in what felt like a minute.
It's Mario once again and I was smiling and laughing like a child even when dying. Loved every minute of it...or not?

Let me whine for a bit: the game is fantastic and even the first world had some amazing planets to play on, but right now there are a couple of things that I must share...they are very personal gripes and based on a relatively short first session, I might change my mind later.

First, the game bleeds with the extra lives.
It's something that started with Mario 64, but SMG2 really gives a lot of 1UPs. Even by dying some times and not getting all extra green mushrooms in each stage I ended up with 40+ lives at the end of the first world.
Probably I'll bless those extra lives in the following worlds but it kinda defeats the purpose of the game over, of "punishing" the player for being careless or to force him/her learning new skills that will be used later.
On the other hand, the difficulty curve and how and when upgrades are introduced are spot on and levels are essentially designed around them...I love how levels with

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Cloud Flowers

are designed.

Second, and it's something I'll continue to repeat and probably won't change my mind on: the level hub.
Having the map built as a 2D Mario game feels like a complete step back.
Peach Caste and the Observatory were wonderful, vibrant playgrounds where the could experiment with the controls without fear of dying and going from room to room enhanced the idea that the whole world was slowly unfolding before your eyes as you took back power stars.

So, yes, both are based on personal feelings and not objective faults. I know I'm gonna love the game and where I'll place it in my personal Mario ranking.

[MarioMark]

Loving this. It definitely feels like a 2nd game not just an add on. Can't wait to play more to see what else is in store for me. Going to take my time though. Genius!

[JP]

I really don't like to be the only person who's likely to be bringing negativity into such a wonderfully happy thread so I'm going to spoiler the rest of my post.

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I bloody hate you people for playing this game!!!

Do you realise how much time I've spent looking at the cost of buying a Wii online? Well it's pretty much exactly the same length of time I've been dreaming about playing this game multiplied by the amount of love I have for the first game minus the amount I've just spent on essential stuff for my home.

For the mathematically minded people on here I'll translate that into something as spoiler unfriendly as x + + + + - + : + = &

I'm probably going to go away for a bit of a after typing this,

aww...