GoNintendo ‘End of Day’ thoughts - Super Mario Galaxy 2: Cort’s hands-on and impressions!
I decided to hold out on posting this article up until our EoD thoughts post, because Cort deserves the extra time on the front page! Hopefully you’ll enjoy his highly-detailed hands-on time with the game. Man, I was ridiculously pumped for SMG2 months ago, and now I’m bursting at the seams! Read all about the fun below, and I’ll see you in a few, short hours. - RMC How many of you checked out the new trailer and screens this morning? If you haven’t, tsk tsk…DO IT NOW! So yesterday I finally got my paws on Galaxy 2. Was it as magical as E3 2006—pre Wii release—playing the original Galaxy for the first time? Pretty much. Press were shown a build at Nintendo’s media summit last month, but it was limited to some very specific experiences. This time, a more complete build was available, requiring a lot more supervision so as not to stumble into things we as human beings are not ready to comprehend. So what’s new? First, I played five brand new levels not shown at the media summit. To be clear, SMG2 is all new ; not re-hashed levels or any of that business. If the original Galaxy game was a hamburger, this is more like a taco pizza; only a few shared ingredients, and if the discs were smaller, both things I would love to put in my mouth. The least efficient art bin I’ve ever seen. Also, click images to enlarge. A quick run-down of the levels on display: Puzzle Plank - The Puzzling Pictureblock: A mixed level that includes some fun (albeit simple) sliding block puzzles early on, then some pretty damn difficult platforming later on when saw blades are cutting apart the level as you are trying to get through it, avoiding the holes they cut and the blades themselves. Sometimes you’ll want to get ahead of their slicing, other times patience is necessary to progress. I died many, many times before completing the second half of this one. Cosmic Grove - Twin Falls Hideaway: A mostly underwater level; really beautiful, visually. Features some secrets we don’t know about yet. Using a koopa shell underwater again improves speed and swimming ability. Awesome use of the shell design, leg holes become brake lights (press Z) to stop, and the neck hole is a headlight. The light can stun some underwater creatures. A freezing mechanic causes the water’s surface to harden, allowing for some wonderful visual effects on the ice, skating, and still being able to watch everything beneath the surface alive and moving as if nothing happened. Boulder Bowl - Rock and Rollodillo: The Rock Mario power-up, some fun obstacles like bowling as the rolling boulder, and a boss fight against Rollodillo, a new Pokemon if ever I saw one. Honeybloom - Bumble Beginnings: The bee suit returns, but this stage showcases a sort of 2D platforming. Everything is still 3D, but presented from the side, similar to NSMB. However, the stage does rotate and change dimensions as you hit certain corners, a litle bit like Fez . Haunty Halls - A Glimmer Bulb Berry: The Boo Mario power-up returns in Galaxy 2, but wasn’t in this particular level challenge. Instead, we see a glowing fruit that transforms our dino pal into “Light Yoshi”; his glowing, golden body illuminates parts of the level not otherwise visible (or accessible). The Mario-solo nether-platforming in the first half had some dizzying moments and effects that I absolutely loved! So about some of the new power-ups. With a shake of the Wii remote, Rock Mario (or Goron Mario as I and apparently others are also calling him…fun fact: the promo art is labelled “Goroiwa”) has the ability to roll into a ball a la Sonic and speed around for a short while, destroying things in your path. You have a few moments while Mario is winding up to perfect the angle of your launch, but you’re also vulnerable during that time. Since he rolls pretty quickly, your ability to steer the bowling wonder (analogue stick) is limited, but you can jump or jump out of the roll at any time. Goron Mario in his adorable protective helmet. Why protective? To be an active bowling ball, of course! One of Yoshi’s fruit-gobbling powers now includes turning into a golden light bulb that can light dark or invisible paths in a level. The light slowly dims, so if you have a winding invisible path to cross, you’ll have to hurry or hope there are refill berries along the way, because once the berry’s power extinguishes, even if you are on a “solid” path, you will fall through as though it doesn’t exist anymore. We already know the bee and boo suits return, along with the fire flower, invincibility star and Yoshi berries, and while it wasn’t discussed or confirmed, seems likely there are even more secrets yet to reveal between power-ups for either Mario or Yoshi. Hopefully they stick a few more homages to Majora’s Mask in there. As has been noted before, this game is noticeably more difficult than the previous Galaxy, perhaps akin to NSMB on DS to the Wii version. One of the SMG2 levels repeatedly kicked my arse and it was only from “World 2″; coincidentally the same time I noticed NSMB Wii ramping up significantly. I am not a gamer of great skill and will never win any tournaments not involving Tetris, but even with some tricky moments and some well-placed 1up mushrooms, I managed to grab the star in each level…eventually. On a related note are Cosmic Challenges . Similar to the various comet challenges in Galaxy 1, you can unlock these more brutal tests of skill and patience by finding and collecting special oversized coins in a level. One example was described to me thus: the level with the red/blue platforms adds a timer AND 100 purple coins, among other obstacles. At least now I can go into the final version of the game knowing I will never complete everything. Yellow, ahem, LIGHT Yoshi isn’t quite how you remember him from SMW. People have already written to ask me what the Mario Kart-esque blocks are. They’re dice. You can kick, punch, rock roll, etc. to “toss” it, and depending on what lands face-up is your reward. Maybe you’ll get a 1up, coins or star bits, or maybe it’ll land on Bowser and then be faced with a menacing goomba. I found some “hidden” areas with multiple dice at once, and seemed to roll 1ups most of the time, with star bits a close second. Another subtle feature that the Nintendo folk swear was in the original Galaxy but I don’t remember are the progress-marking checkpoint flags . I recognise them from the NSMB games, but they seem new to me here, and very, very welcome considering the difficulty. All new, beautifully orchestrated music returns , although with the significantly higher difficulty I didn’t get to pay much attention to it except on the Cosmic Cove (underwater) level, where I noticed a soothing, almost ambient feel along with some subtle melodic phrases hinting at World 2-2 of the original SMB. The rest of the tunes did sound good and very in line with the fantastic score from the original Galaxy. I just wish the levels gave me a chance to pause for a moment and bask in the audio delight! Last but not least is Starship Mario , the plumber’s head-shaped planetoid. Many people were shocked, some upset, others just confused about the lack of a “hub world” in this sequel, as Rosalina’s ship served in the predecessor. Let me clarify that Starship Mario is NOT a hub world. It is tiny and you can run around on it, and as you progress in the game and unlock new power-ups, the ship’s environment updates with some basic features to give you some practice with them, but a hub it is not; it does not directly link to levels. Instead, a sort of hybrid map exists; somewhere between the overworlds of NSMB and Galaxy’s previous implementation. Instead of walking Mario to each level, the starship itself floats between galaxies on the map, and you can launch from the ship into a galaxy and then its worlds. A subtle detail if you watch the footage closely: as you launch from the ship into a level, it will turn to watch you. This streamlined map system also has some bonuses, maybe similar to a Toad House; I saw a free box of star bits hanging out on one. Smash your ship into it to collect. Starship Mario: not a hub, just your chubby-faced space-faring vessel. That pretty much covers what is new. There are a LOT of things they haven’t revealed yet, as evidenced by the large number of “no comment” answers to things like: multiplayer? Rosalina? super guide? etc. Since this was a newer build than what was shown at the Media Summit, they couldn’t really even show me those levels again because things had changed or would reveal some kind of detail that would likely cause at least one pants-wetting and at least one trip to the emo hospital. They expect to have another Super Mario Galaxy 2 expose in a few weeks where hopefully more will be revealed. I absolutely can’t wait to be pwned by the greater Mushroom Universe again. —cortjezter
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GoNintendo ‘End of Day’ thoughts - Super Mario Galaxy 2: Cort’s hands-on and impressions!
