Super Mario Galaxy 2 Updated Hands-on

May 5, 2010 - After about a month of controlled demos for Super Mario Galaxy 2, Nintendo has finally let loose the game into the hands of the enthusiast press. I'm one of the lucky ones to have the final build; Nintendo handed over the game yesterday where I've had the opportunity to plow through the first two "worlds" of this brand new adventure, and man, am I having a blast.

I've made no effort in past hands-on previews to hide the fact that I've been a little worried that Super Mario Galaxy 2 would feel like a "me too" experience, like this would end up being simply nothing more than the original Super Mario Galaxy with new levels. Now that I've been sitting down with the game at my pace, I can put those worries to rest. Finally. Yes, Super Mario Galaxy 2 is using many of the same assets of the original Super Mario Galaxy, but the level designs, the power-ups, and the camera system have been given a fresh coat of Nintendo paint. Bystanders might immediately walk past and mistake it for the original game, but the player itself will recognize right away that this is not just the first game with new challenges.

It's pretty obvious right from the start that Nintendo's targeting Super Mario Galaxy 2 to the "new" audience it's attracted with New Super Mario Bros. Wii. There's a good percentage of gamers who've jumped into last year's game as their first Super Mario adventure since the original old-school designs on the NES and Super NES, and judging by the way the game opens Nintendo wants to ensure that those gamers are weaned into the 3D experience. The tutorial level starts out with a strict side-scrolling camera, mimicking the New Super Mario Bros. Wii experience, training the player with the nunchuk and remote pairing while keeping the gameplay forced in a 2D perspective. When the player moves to the next part of the level, the camera stays side-scrolling but the strict 2D gameplay is freed up: Mario can now move towards and away from the camera.

When Mario stumbles upon Bowser's Mushroom Kingdom rampage (the guy is huge, as if he hasn't shrunk down since the boss battle from New Super Mario Bros. Wii), the gameplay is fully 3D with the camera now chasing Mario towards the princess's castle. After a brief story sequence Mario's off chasing his first star -- incidentally, players can't quit out of this sequence since they haven't yet earned the Starship Mario overworld yet. But once that star is obtained after a pretty sizable level -- a level that combines many of the 3D and 2D mechanics that will be explored more deeply in the later worlds -- Mario is whisked onto a ship shaped like his face. It's here where players will explore the universe of Super Mario Galaxy 2.

The story lacks a bit of the same "oomph" of the original Super Mario Galaxy -- beyond seeing Bowser tower over the castle the cutscenes are a bit subdued. They're told through storybook pages that flip as the player moves from one scene to the next. But considering that the only thing that's happened is that Mega Bowser's scooped up Princess Peach (before she can make the cake!) and launched himself off the planet, the story is not really the big driving force behind Super Mario Galaxy 2.

In fact, so far the game doesn't even really acknowledge the original Super Mario Galaxy adventure. Lumas now exist in the Mushroom Kingdom, but no one's talking about the previous turn of events.

We've already done plenty of hands-on with a few of the early levels in this game. In the first two worlds we've found Yoshi, earned the Cloud Mario, Rock Mario, and Bee suits, and stumbled upon the hot pepper that sends Yoshi climbing up vertical ramps.

One of the levels I hadn't yet playtested until today was one where you glide with a huge condor-like bird, floating through the level in an on-rails challenge with a fixed camera not unlike Star Fox -- this mechanic used the Wii remote exclusively, similar to the way players rolled Mario on the sphere in the first Super Mario Galaxy. Tip the Wii remote forward to dive and increase speed, pull it back to tip the nose up and slow down, with left and right tilts to lean in those directions in order to glide through hoops and arches, trying to pop balloons for the star bits inside…all the while finishing the level under the set time limit in order to score the Power Star for that level.

I also received a letter from a monkey character I bumped into earlier in World 1: he offered up a high score challenge in a previous level, and if I broke his record score I would get his star. The challenge: take out clusters of enemies for points. By stomping them in succession, you earn escalated points: 100 for the first one, 200 for the second one, and 300 points for each one after it…only if your feet don't touch the ground. Once you land, the multiplier resets. I'm sure that there will be plenty more of this style of level later in Super Mario Galaxy 2's progression.

Like the original Super Mario Galaxy, this game's soundtrack leaps around from orchestral to MIDI and back again, but so far there seems to be a stronger saturation for the former. And that's a good thing: a lot of the orchestral pieces of the original game were absolutely phenomenal and fit the game's epic "space opera" scope. The same can certainly be said for the sequel: so far the music's fantastic. Along with some classic Super Mario Galaxy pieces, there are some original compositions along with some throwbacks to Super Mario World on the Super NES, a game that at least I hold as the game with the best and most consistent Mario soundtrack.

Nintendo gave me the thumbs up to talk about Luigi in Super Mario Galaxy 2, but I haven't encountered him yet in the first couple of hours with the game. I'm guessing he'll show up midway through just as he did in the first game -- but then, that would be just a tad uncreative, no?



The jump in/jump out cooperative two player option is back: simply activate a synced Wii remote and a second player can control an optional reticle that can be used to target enemies and obstacles, and freeze them in place to help Mario along in tougher situations. Any escaping 1ups can be grabbed by the second player as well, halting their movement while Mario runs over and snags the pick-up.

There's plenty more to explore before the game's May 23rd release date, so let me get right back to playing and find some more awesome areas. Enjoy some new media in the meantime.