Review | Super Mario Galaxy 2

Mario holds a special place in the hearts and minds of millions of gamers all over the world. The franchise has defined the platforming genre, and gaming as a whole, for decades and it’s virtually impossible to think of Nintendo without thinking of Super Mario. Given such a long history and the high standards the tubby plumber constantly sets for himself, it would be easy enough to assume Super Mario Galaxy 2 is nothing more than another lazy sequel turned out by the machine.

True, at first glance everything looks very familiar, especially if you played the original Super Mario Galaxy. Mario still travels through space to various themed worlds, jumping and spinning across different arenas, running around planetoids with their own gravity, fighting bosses and collecting those oh-so-useful power stars. Bowser has (wait for it) kidnapped Princess Peach and the only person who can save her is Mario, for reasons that neither make sense nor matter. As usual the story is just a flimsy excuse to set you on a grand journey through the best platforming in the business.

But the story is your first clue that this is a tighter, improved Mario. The opening of the first Galaxy was quite lengthy – for a Mario game – and it took some time to put you in the action. SMG2 sets its scene quickly using the same storybook style as the first game, but each page of the book is a playable 2D nod to Mario-past. And before you know it you’re blasting into space.

The controls, as you might expect, are very solid. Moving Mario around levels that not only exist in three dimensions, but tend to go in circles, flip around, turn upside-down, vanish sideways and shift gravities at will is effortless, with the game keeping essentially the same moves from the first Galaxy. Controls are really the key to making any decent platform game and SMG2 manages to make you forget you have a controller in your hand. Moving around, wall-jumping, butt-stomping and leaping over bottomless voids is as easy as pie, and the camera is practically perfect, only occasionally parking itself resolutely on the opposite side of a planet to leave you flailing in circles.

You probably know, but everyone’s favourite prehistoric green eating machine is back to offer his services to our hero. After a tiny cameo role in Super Mario Sunshine and a flashback in New Super Mario Bros Wii, Yoshi returns at full power. Mario can hop onto Yoshi and trot around levels using the Wiimote to point and click anything you want him to eat, pull or swing on. Aside from digesting enemies, Yoshi can eat dangerous spiky obstacles, pull switches and swing on special trapezes to reach new areas. Eating special fruits will give temporarily endow Yoshi with new powers: red for a spicy speed burst, blue for a Yoshi-blimp and yellow for a dinosaur flashlight in dark areas.

Mario doesn’t miss out either. A cloud flower will make you lighter and give you the ability to create up to three cloud platforms with a shake of the remote. A rock mushroom lets Mario roll himself into a giant boulder that smashes almost anything in its path. The new powers genuinely add something new and they are well integrated with the existing Mario framework.

You’ll find yourself constantly presented with new techniques and gameplay styles as you progress. Around every corner is something new for you to try out, in contrast with the first Super Mario Galaxy that showed most of its cards early on. The objectives in any one level may involve climbing a frozen waterfall, leaping across angry platforms suspended over deadly lava, collecting coins on a jet-powered Koopa shell, doing a cannonball run up the side of a floating ramp and drifting across the sky on a man-eating flower. SMG2 will take you to icy wonderlands to throw snowballs, send you spinning around an orbiting cylinder, chase you through an invisible haunted house and make you drill through to the centre of the world. The level of imagination on display is constantly astounding, especially when you consider that they already filled one whole game with this before. And if you enjoyed the boss fights in Super Mario Galaxy, you’re in for a treat. The bosses this time around are also a step up, providing a bigger and more entertaining challenge than ever before. In general the gameplay and design feels like it has been tweaked and tightened before being pushed as far as it could go.

Speaking of improvements, the map and hub system has been overhauled for the sequel. Gone is the sprawling space station with it’s tedious back and forth between levels. That has all been replaced with a tiny spaceship shaped like Mario’s head where you can talk to the various characters and take a look at the stars you’ve collected so far. Through this you access an overworld map very similar in style to the ones from Super Mario Bros 3. You just move your ship along the path to chose whichever level you want. The ability to jump into the action so quickly makes the whole game feel much sharper and more streamlined.

The game is a real treat for the eyes and the ears as well. Graphically it is, again, very similar to the first Galaxy, but everything is much more vibrant and colourful. People may complain about the lack of HD support on the Wii, but Nintendo proves with games like this that the little white box can produce some beautiful pictures. The music is top notch as well, with new tunes mixed in with excellent versions of classic Mario songs.

Making a sequel to arguably the best Mario game ever was a risky undertaking, and critics were poised to label this another lazy sequel for the pile of lazy sequels. What’s we’ve ended up with is a game that fixes parts of Super Mario Galaxy most didn’t even notice were broken. In fact, it’s hard to pick out anything wrong with this game at all. The controls are as tight as ever, but the level designs and world concepts have been expanded and refined to practical perfection. Each new level throws up a set of unique challenges and gameplay mechanics, slowly ramping up the difficulty without ever ruining the fun. The map system and the story have had the fat trimmed off, and the game looks and sounds amazing. The Mario series has a new king.    [10]