Super Mario Sunshine showed the problems that can come up when making a Mario game about something. Delfino Isle proved an awkward halfway house between cohesion and freedom. In Super Mario Galaxy, Nintendo managed to solve that by making it simultaneously about something (space) and about everything. As part of Super Chart Island I will eventually get to talk about why Super Mario Galaxy is my favourite Mario game. In 2010, though, that was a long way off, and instead there is the fact it was so successful they gave it a direct sequel. Which released at a quiet enough time of the year to get to #1 in the individual formats chart and be the one exception to the dance-games-only rule of the #1s of the Wii’s final years.
So, here’s more 3D platforming in space, on a succession of planetoids whose gravity is the most consistent twist. That stays engaging while allowing the player a bit more of an easy mastery of the movement than Super Mario Sunshine ever did. On top of that Super Mario Galaxy 2 layers a structure even more built on introducing and expanding new concepts in a constant rush. Power-ups, mechanics and setting themes pile up at a remarkable rate, with new mixing with revived (later on there’s even a neat recreation of Super Mario 64’s Whomp’s Fortress level). Even compared to its predecessor, Super Mario Galaxy 2 is heavy on the whimsical, with giant toys and puzzles and musical instruments all around. Yoshi joins and aiming his tongue makes better use of the Wiimote’s pointer than anything in the original. There are even more levels than in the first game which make excellent use of forced angles, from the more typical 2D ones to top down ones which a virtue of their disorientation.
The structure of the game is sharpened to a finer point, letting you quickly plunge into levels and with additional prankster comet challenge levels set up in a more ordered way. Collect a hard-to-reach comet medal in each galaxy and once you’re far enough the levels start appearing, with an element of unpredictability but now less random. They quickly get rather tricky, and compulsive with it (I don’t know how many times I repeated the one where you are invincible and have to quickly reach every enemy, or the coin-collecting-slide, but it never felt like too many). Everything is designed to maintain a constant flow of novelty and joy, a longstanding Mario approach taken even further.
Super Mario Galaxy 2 succeeds, and is just about the best case scenario for a direct Mario sequel, certainly in comparison to the stolid stasis New Super Mario Bros. was well on its way to. I haven’t ever finished it, though, in contrast to the game it’s a sequel to, and even as a best case there are limitations.
Its hub world is one more big hit of whimsy, a spaceship shaped like Mario’s head. Various characters and power-ups and things appear there during the game, and it’s cute, but it’s just cute. Turning the lights on in Super Mario Galaxy’s Comet Observatory, the music adding instruments like gathering space dust, was a beautiful and even emotional experience. Its successor feels like little more than a menu. Likewise, the sequel’s intro pulls in a little bit of the picture book aesthetic that came up at crucial moments in the original, but it doesn’t do anything with it.
Super Mario Galaxy 2 can produce a thousand little moments of newness and joy, but they don’t add up to any big moments of it. It’s a wondrous set of brilliantly-designed Mario levels, but there is still something missing in that being all it is.
Top of the charts for week ending 12 June 2010:
Top of the charts for week ending 19 June 2010:
Top of the charts for week ending 26 June 2010:
Top of the charts for week ending 3 July 2010:
