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SUPER MARIO GALAXY 2
Topic Started: Feb 24 2010, 04:02 PM (2,036 Views)
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SO. EXCITED.


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Golem
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Whomps? Cool.
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http://www.gametrailers.com/video/nintendo-media-super-mario/62271
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Golem
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Whoa, is that Bowser Jr. I see?

er, i mean

Whoa, is that a new theme I hear? Here's hoping for another huge set of new and awesome tunes!
Quoth the raven, "~teehee~"
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Shadowdragon
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Yeah, I'm excited for it too. I'm actually surprised that it's coming out relatively soon; I thought it was coming out in the summer or something.
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fantanoice
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Looks awesome. I expect it to be awesome.

Awesome.

Awesome.
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You wouldn't check it out B)

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http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/impressionsArt.cfm?artid=22647

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It’s been a while since Mario has seen multiple releases of his core titles on the same platform. But the genius of Super Mario Galaxy just couldn’t be contained in a single game, so now we have Super Mario Galaxy 2. I’m not sure what the story is, or even if there is a coherent story, but again, the basic goal is to rescue Princess Peach. The Lumas are back, but it’s not clear whether Rosalina will make an appearance. The Media Summit demo had seven galaxies and two Bowser Jr. battle stages available for play chosen off of a menu, so there was no hub area on display.

Sky Station Galaxy was a simple level designed to introduce players to the game. First, Mario visits Yoshi’s house, but he’s not home (big surprise). The level ends with a Petey Piranha battle. The basics of the game are the same as its predecessor, including the collection of stars to complete the level. If the levels shown here are any indication, the game is much more focused on creating clever and challenging level designs.

Spin-Dig Galaxy introduces the drill item. With the drill, Mario tunnels straight down through the level and comes out the other side (there is no interaction inside of the planet). If he hits an obstacle, he rebounds back. A puzzle component is added here as certain areas are only accessible by drilling. Players must keep a 3-D spatial map in mind in order to read the other side properly. One example of this was a planet with several tall pillars, pillars too tall to jump to. But by running to the other side of the planet and drilling, Mario could make his way to the top. The stage ended in a boss battle. Digga-Leg, cousin of Mega-Leg from the first game, must be defeated in a manner reminiscent of the Raphael Raven battle in Yoshi’s Island. As the enemy chases Mario around a 2D circular planet, you must time your drills through the planet to impact the bottom of the boss while he has his glass surface exposed, and not when he has his drill exposed.

One thing that struck me is that Nintendo may be playing around more with changing our conception of what makes a level itself. With the drill, players are no longer bound simply to the surface. And while it wasn’t in any of the levels I played, the latest trailer showed certain enemies dynamically dissolving parts of levels, something that was played with in the first game.

Hightail Falls Galaxy introduces Mario’s dino pal, Yoshi. While you ride him around like in Super Mario Sunshine, the tongue mechanic has a separate and natural targeting mechanism: the Wii Remote pointer. By pointing and pressing B, Yoshi will lash out his tongue in the direction marked by a red cursor. Yoshi’s elastic tongue can be blocked by obstacles, however. In a nod to Yoshi’s story, Yoshi has his own set of power-ups, each a type of fruit. In this galaxy, the spicy Dash Pepper makes Yoshi do his best mad Wiggler impression, giving him extra speed necessary to scale walls, but at the expense of control. And of course, you’ll have to navigate winding paths in this energized state, where a mistake means tumbling to your doom.

Tall Trunk Galaxy also features Yoshi. Here, Yoshi must eat Blimp Fruits. Doing so turns Yoshi blue, and fills him up with something like helium, allowing him to float until all of the gas leaks out. The level has players making their way up a tree, then around a 2D level wrapped around a cylinder (so you can fall around it forever), another 2D level cut out of a disc, and final area full of spiked enemies waiting to pop Yoshi. Players must time their use of the fruit carefully, floating from one fruit to the next, or grabbing fruit out of the air with Yoshi’s tongue before they fall. Get knocked off Yoshi, and expect to have to chase him around for long distances or until he gets killed after which he’ll respawn from an egg.

Upside Dizzy Galaxy brought back 2D areas with gravity zones that debuted in the first game, zones where the arrow and color indicates the direction of gravitational pull. These were some of my favorite areas in the original, and the level uses them to create a puzzle of sorts.

After a bit of platforming over lava, Bowser Jr's Fiery Flotilla introduces a flying dragon enemy named Gobblegut, which is reminiscent of Fracktail from Super Paper Mario. The boss tunnels through the planet targeting Mario. It seems all that gobbling has given the serpent-like boss some health problems as it has several bright red engorged areas that must be spin-attacked. As the dragon tunnels through the ground, it gets stuck for a short time at each red area, giving Mario some time to attack. This boss was the only problem I found with the game that I hope they fix. The boss didn’t have self-hit detection, so it could cut right through itself to kill Mario. Cheap.

Supermassive Galaxy is homage to Giant World of Super Mario Bros. 3, but the enemies are even bigger. After climbing a few stories, I tried to jump on a Goobma, and all I got was damaged. Blocks are too big to break, and even coins are too big to collect – instead they’re an integral part of the environment. For instance, I had to use a coin to wall-jump off of, timing it properly against its characteristic spin. The jumps were long, and getting hit by a super Thwomp would result in instant death. Since you can’t attack enemies directly, the drill is critical here.

Bowser Jr.'s Fearsome Fleet ends in another boss battle, but this time Yoshi comes along. Yoshi can eat Bullet Bills and spit them back out at other targets. Players must use this technique to take out Bowser Jr., who is piloting a giant mech.

Flip-Swap Galaxy, the final level available in the demo is one of the bonus stages that can be unlocked by collecting Comet Metals [sic], though specifics on unlocking haven’t been finalized. While the overall game seems to be focusing more on platforming, the real platforming challenges will be found in these types of stages. If you liked Luigi’s Purple Coins in the first game, this level is right up your alley. In Flip-Swap galaxy, platforms are flip between two positions every time the Remote is shaken. These platforms are sparsely spaced so that careful jumping is necessary. But you can’t use your spin to help you with the jump since that will flip the platform to the wrong position! On top of this, you have to collect 100 purple coins within four minutes. On top of that, you’ll have to time your jumps properly to avoid moving fences of electricity.

While we only got a glimpse at the dozens of galaxies, it’s clear that Super Mario Galaxy 2 takes the original’s impeccable gameplay and manages to refine it even more. While it looks and plays much like its predecessor, more of that greatness is welcome. With more focus on using items to create interesting platforming situations, the game may very well set the new bar for 3D platforming.
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Videogamer has a new previewwww!

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How do you improve upon one of the greatest games of all time? It's a question Nintendo has answered countless times before, in The Legend of Zelda series, the Metroid series, and, of course, the Super Mario series. Now, with Super Mario Galaxy 2, it's trying to do it again.

Some have criticised Galaxy 2 for looking like little more than Galaxy 1.5. What tosh. If Mario Galaxy 2 is brilliant - and our extensive hands-on with the game at Nintendo's European Gamers Summit last week suggests it will be - what's the harm? This ill feeling probably has something to do with Nintendo's release strategy - it rarely releases numerical sequels. When we do get a new 3D Mario game, it's usually a new concept: Super Mario 64 to Super Mario Sunshine to Super Mario Galaxy. Now, for the first time, we have two main 3D Mario games on the same console: the Nintendo Wii. Some have deemed this a bad thing, as if somehow Galaxy 2's mere existence is preventing Nintendo from developing the next evolution in the Mario series. To this we say: nonsense.
At first glance, however, you'd be forgiven for leaning towards the naysayers' argument. Galaxy 2 looks a lot like Galaxy. It has the same vibrant, colourful art style and many of the same, planet to planet mechanics. The camera often switches perspective, ranging from following Mario as he walks around the surface of a planet, to old-school side scrolling, via more open plan platforming. The controls are also the same. Basic jumping and running is punctuated by shakes of the Wii Remote to spin. It's simple, accessible, and as responsive as ever.

So, what's new? The answer comes in the form of a little green dinosaur with a long red tongue, namely: Yoshi. That's right. Yoshi, Mario's long-standing companion, is in Mario Galaxy 2, and his presence has made for some interesting new gameplay mechanics. As is his way, Yoshi eats everything. By pointing the Wii Remote at an object, a small circle quickly fills red. Once done, Yoshi can extend his tongue, use it as a swing, pull levers, swallow enemies, or, more interestingly, gain power-ups.

For example, the Blimp Berry turns Yoshi blue and inflates his stomach, sending him floating up and away as he exhales air. But the air only lasts so long. When it runs out, Yoshi and Mario will fall back down to earth. Luckily, if he eats or touches another Blimp Berry, his lungs will fill with air again and the countdown timer will be reset. In one level we played, the camera switched to a side-on perspective, challenging the player to float in and out of platforms to gain coins, avoiding enemies and grabbing fresh Blimp Berries in order to reach the end of level star.

The Dash Pepper gives Yoshi a temporary speed boost, allowing the player to run up steep hills. If Yoshi and Mario are still standing on a steep hill when the Pepper runs its course, then they'll slide down. In another level, Bullet Bills fire from all directions. If Yoshi eats one, he can spit it out as if firing his own Bullet Bill - aimed by pointing your Wii Remote - defeating enemies, destroying mines, and smashing bits of the environment, like glass walls. These are only a few of the power-ups Yoshi can gain as a result of eating objects within the game world. Nintendo promises many more.

Yoshi isn't the only recipient of new toys; Mario's got some new tricks up his sleeve, too. The Drill Bit, activated with a shake of the Wii Remote, allows Mario to literally drill through a planet, going through the core and out the opposite side. You can only use the Drill Bit on certain planets, and only then when the earth itself is of a particular type, but it's worth the wait. Perhaps out favourite moment during our hands-on occurred when battling an end boss designed to challenge our Drill Bit skills. The mechanised monstrosity with spider-like legs could only be defeated by drilling through the planet and emerging at the other end underneath the boss, hitting its vulnerable underbelly. It was pure, unadulterated, joy, and classic Nintendo.
Galaxy 2's power-ups make for a different game in the same way that new toys make an old play area instantly more appealing. But Nintendo knows power-ups alone won't satiate the Nintendo hardcore's sense of abandonment. That's why Super Mario Galaxy 2 may well be the hardest 3D Mario game ever made.

Really, some of it is brutally hard. At the end of Bowser Jr.'s Fiery Flotilla level, Mario faces off against a huge snake-like dragon that stalks the Italian plumber as he runs around a small planet. The idea is to run for your life, praying that when the huge dragon decides to bury its head into the planet and tear through the core and out the other side, it doesn't hit you. If you manage to stay on your feet, you then need to stand next to its body and spin attack just as the pink parts of its body speed past. It's pretty hard. Nintendo wasn't joking, after all.

That level, though, is like one of those horribly simple mini-games the Wii's flooded with in comparison to the Flip-Swap Galaxy level. Here, the platforms on which Mario stands are panels. The idea is to flick the Wii Remote mid-jump to switch the position of the panel he just jumped from, to a position that, hopefully, will give him something to land on. Not only do you have to contend with jumping, flicking the Wii Remote (which doesn't always result in a panel switch - wouldn't it have been better assigned to a button?), and working out when and where to land, but you have to collect all of the purple coins in the level to complete it. And you have only four minutes in which to do it. It's devilishly difficult, challenging hand-eye coordination in ways we thought gaming had forgotten. It's great, but expect to die. A lot.

Setting what's new about Galaxy 2 down like this, it doesn't sound like much is different, does it? So why are we so enthusiastic about the game's release? Because it's going to be brilliant. How do we know this? Well, we just know. This seems like a woefully unscientific analysis of the game, but in many ways, it's the only way to make sense of Nintendo's Mario magic. Often, when we critique video games, we discuss their constituent parts in isolation. We judge the visuals, audio, mechanics, level design, and features, and then determine an overall score. But really, video games are more than the sum of their parts. They're an experience. They're entertainment. They're fun.
Mario Galaxy 2, like all Mario games before it, is the epitome of this design philosophy. Its levels are memorable; its art style is vibrant and colourful; and its mechanics are as easy to pick up and play as they are fun to use. But the game's appeal is about more than mere snippets of praise. Mario Galaxy 2, like its predecessor, has that special something, that je ne sais quoi, that Nintendo magic - that's so hard to define - in spades. There were more than a few moments when we actually said out load, "wow", and it wasn't because we were witnessing groundbreaking graphics, brutal combat, or vistas that extend farther than the eye can see. It was because Nintendo knows how to do pure gaming fun better than anyone else.

Basic mechanics challenge you in ways you can only describe as genius. The Drill Bit's the best example: it's a simple, almost obvious, power-up, but you use it in ways you'll never forget. How do you improve upon one of the greatest games of all time? You focus on doing what you do best. Sometimes, that's all you need.

Super Mario Galaxy 2 is due out in Europe on June 11.


I need this game now, every moment I'm not playing Super Mario Galaxy 2 is tearing me apart! ;A;
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Golem
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The promise of a game harder than Galaxy gives me mixed feelings. Lost Levels and Sunshine both got to a level of difficulty that was rather unpleasant, but then again, I like Galaxy's engine a lot more than SMB's and Sunshine's. At any rate, Nintendo's on course for another batch of awesome, so whatever.

Galaxy 2 looks unquestionably awesome, while Other M has me worried.
Edited by Golem, Mar 4 2010, 09:46 PM.
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fantanoice
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Sunshine wasn't 'difficult', IMO, but I never bothered to get all those blue coins because it seemed pointless.

NSMBW is probably the hardest recent Mario game.
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Galaxy 2 will not have a traditional hub.

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http://www.destructoid.com/super-mario-galaxy-2-won-t-have-a-hub-world-168568.phtml

It seems Nintendo will be taking a more simplified, classic approach to level navigation in Super Mario Galaxy 2: unlike its predecessor, there won't be a hub world. Game Informer reports that like New Super Mario Bros. Wii and so many 2D Mario titles before it, SMG2 is going the "world map" route.

"We want players to focus on the joy of the action instead of getting to each game course," said famed designer Shigeru Miyamoto. "We wanted to make it as accessible as possible and as easy as possible for the players."

"Also, because we're going to incorporate a number of different stars and conquering all the stars is going to be one of the most challenging missions for the player, we want them to understand as easy as possible where they should go next and which places they should go back to in order to get access to the remaining stars."

I wasn't particularly fond of Super Mario Galaxy's hub world, and the same could be said of New SMB Wii's world map. I like either approach when they feel inspired and imaginative; it's as simple as that. Good examples of this include the Donkey Kong Country games as well as the Banjo-Kazooie series.

Super Mario Galaxy 2 Omits Hub World In Favor Of Traditional World Map [Game Informer]


Personally, I don't care either way. The HUBs never made or destroyed the games for me, they were just there. As long as the gameplay is fun, responsive, addictive, AND FUN, then I'm going to enjoy the heck out of this game.
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Golem
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Good news to me. The hub world was significant in 64 and Sunshine, but it meant pretty much nothing in Galaxy. Cutting out the hub world will make it lean and focus the gameplay even more.

Which, all things considered, is quite a feat. I mean, Galaxy has almost no fat whatsoever--every single star is a joy. Maybe some were frustrating, but every one of them was fun.
Edited by Golem, Mar 23 2010, 07:32 PM.
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Shadowdragon
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Not having a hub in a 3D Mario title was kind of a surprising omission, but at the same time, a map screen for the game is interesting. I don't mind either way, the game is going to be awesome.
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Over 240 stars?!

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GI: For players who are seeking that extra challenge, you have harder bonus levels. Can you talk about how they are made more difficult?

SM: Well, ordinarily, just to go to the end you’re supposed to obtain 70 stars, which is already challenging but not very difficult. If you’re really trying to get all the stars, you’re supposed to go to someplace extra. Those extra places are very challenging. When I say challenging, I mean as long as you can conquer them it’s going to give you a great sense of satisfaction and entertainment. In the end, we are going to have more than 240 stars for you to obtain, and we think it’s going to be challenging for any and all gamers.


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fantanoice
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Oh em eff gee! This will be epic.

I'm a little sad to see the hub world go. They were, as others stated, big in 64 and Sunshine. even though it was minor in Galaxy, I still liked Rosalina's cool ship. :P

And 240+ stars?! Gotta catch 'em all!
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