I trust that most of our readership is familiar with the joy of the original Super Mario Galaxy—something I have, as of late, been endeavoring to recall to your minds. With my own replay fresh in my mind before I started in on our review copy of Super Mario Galaxy 2, we here at N-Sider thought it might be interesting to compare some of the changes between the two games, if for no other reason than to make you rightfully salivate in the direction of 2's impending release this coming Sunday.
I am, of course, necessarily limited in what I can discuss by both the embargo on substantially over half of the game as well as my own desire that you, Mr. or Mrs. Potential Galaxy 2 Buyer, experience the game as fully as possible for yourself. To that end, what I'll be detailing herein are game's core systems; for a taste of my thoughts on the levels themselves (spoiler: they're sweet), come back tomorrow for my full review.
Probably the most noticeable change from Galaxy to Galaxy 2 is the eschewing of the traditional-since-Super Mario 64 "hub" world, represented in Galaxy by Rosalina's Comet Observatory, for a more abstract, Super Mario Bros.-like series of world maps. You access all of these in their entirety by standing on the platform atop Starship Mario, the smallish yet increasingly-densely-populated (as you progress) home base for Mario operations. No more running about from place to place for this plumber.
Unlike in the 2D games, though, Galaxy 2 retains the notion of "galaxies," which appear on this map with multiple star goals within each one. So while you'll need to clear at least one star in each galaxy to proceed further in the map, you can and should revisit that galaxy to collect additional Power Stars. This is enforced by star blocks (like the one seen on the right edge of the screenshot above); hovering over these will show you how many Power Stars you need to have collected to pass, and once you have them, simply move Starship Mario to that spot and it will let you by.
Each of the regular world ends in a boss battle, at which point the Grand Star you pick up will let you move on to the next. We're allowed to tell you today that there at least three of these worlds, each packed with seven galaxies, one of which is accessed by one of those lovable Hungry Lumas demanding a large cache of Star Bits.
Speaking of Hungry Lumas, which you may remember from Galaxy would pop up both in the Comet Observatory from time to time demanding a large quantity of your accumulated Star Bits (moreso now as Star Bit supply and demand is more evenly matched): in Galaxy 2, they only demand Bits on the world maps. When you find one inside a galaxy, he'll want to eat your coins before he transforms into a new planet for you to get a Power Star from.
Galaxy 2, as a general rule, has more coins in its levels than Galaxy ever did. Paths of them sprout in time-limited fashion or along routes that require a top-speed Dash-Peppered Yoshi, challenging your ability to stay on a narrow path. Caches are hidden or granted via little underground minigames. After all this, at some point in the level you'll arrive at a Hungry Luma demanding a certain number, which is generally only a few less than what you could collect taking every Goomba-stomping (not spinning!) opportunity you can find along the way. You'll want to avoid triggering the new-to-2 NSMBW-style checkpoint flags on your way to find him—if you die and restart at one of these, you'll have zero coins in your pocket, leaving you almost certainly short of the requirement he has for you.
Mario's speedy and slippery brother Luigi is back in Galaxy 2, as you almost certainly know by now, and this time he's not locked up behind the 120-star goal. He'll arrive fairly early on in the game and then start popping up, standing around at the beginning of selected levels, and ask you if you want to play as him instead. Completing a level as Luigi unlocks a ghost you can take on in future playthroughs, though beating the ghost doesn't explicitly reward you—at least, not at the pre-120-star juncture I'm presently at.
I say explicitly, because one new feature of Galaxy 2 is the recording of your clear times, in stopwatch precision, for each Power Star you collect. This replaces the old, somewhat meaningless coin-count scores Galaxy recorded and is a much better fit for 2's level design than that old 64 holdover.
Perhaps less-welcome a sight to those of us who are rather prideful about our skill (wrongly, as it turns out)—but a welcome sight to frustrated souls—is the Cosmic Spirit, a ghostly Rosalina-shaped character who will pop up after you've died a certain number of times. She'll offer to possess Mario and complete the level for you—or at least take you over a little bit of it and let you pick up the rest of the level later—granting you a Bronze Star instead of a Power Star so you can keep moving on. With Galaxy 2's apparently-increased-yet-still-fair demands on platforming agility over the original, it's apparent Nintendo feels these Guide features give them license to keep the games nice and challenging, so I welcome them.
Those are the big ones. There are a few other little touches that I appreciate, like how the clock stops ticking down on timed levels when the Power Star is revealed, letting you grab it at your leisure rather than find yourself with inadequate time to do so, but I'm sure you'll find those for yourself when you get your hands on your own copy of Galaxy 2 this Sunday—just three more days to go...
I am, of course, necessarily limited in what I can discuss by both the embargo on substantially over half of the game as well as my own desire that you, Mr. or Mrs. Potential Galaxy 2 Buyer, experience the game as fully as possible for yourself. To that end, what I'll be detailing herein are game's core systems; for a taste of my thoughts on the levels themselves (spoiler: they're sweet), come back tomorrow for my full review.
The World Maps
Probably the most noticeable change from Galaxy to Galaxy 2 is the eschewing of the traditional-since-Super Mario 64 "hub" world, represented in Galaxy by Rosalina's Comet Observatory, for a more abstract, Super Mario Bros.-like series of world maps. You access all of these in their entirety by standing on the platform atop Starship Mario, the smallish yet increasingly-densely-populated (as you progress) home base for Mario operations. No more running about from place to place for this plumber.
Unlike in the 2D games, though, Galaxy 2 retains the notion of "galaxies," which appear on this map with multiple star goals within each one. So while you'll need to clear at least one star in each galaxy to proceed further in the map, you can and should revisit that galaxy to collect additional Power Stars. This is enforced by star blocks (like the one seen on the right edge of the screenshot above); hovering over these will show you how many Power Stars you need to have collected to pass, and once you have them, simply move Starship Mario to that spot and it will let you by.
Each of the regular world ends in a boss battle, at which point the Grand Star you pick up will let you move on to the next. We're allowed to tell you today that there at least three of these worlds, each packed with seven galaxies, one of which is accessed by one of those lovable Hungry Lumas demanding a large cache of Star Bits.
Hungry Lumas, Star Bits, and Coins
Speaking of Hungry Lumas, which you may remember from Galaxy would pop up both in the Comet Observatory from time to time demanding a large quantity of your accumulated Star Bits (moreso now as Star Bit supply and demand is more evenly matched): in Galaxy 2, they only demand Bits on the world maps. When you find one inside a galaxy, he'll want to eat your coins before he transforms into a new planet for you to get a Power Star from.
Galaxy 2, as a general rule, has more coins in its levels than Galaxy ever did. Paths of them sprout in time-limited fashion or along routes that require a top-speed Dash-Peppered Yoshi, challenging your ability to stay on a narrow path. Caches are hidden or granted via little underground minigames. After all this, at some point in the level you'll arrive at a Hungry Luma demanding a certain number, which is generally only a few less than what you could collect taking every Goomba-stomping (not spinning!) opportunity you can find along the way. You'll want to avoid triggering the new-to-2 NSMBW-style checkpoint flags on your way to find him—if you die and restart at one of these, you'll have zero coins in your pocket, leaving you almost certainly short of the requirement he has for you.
The supporting cast: speed and salvation
Mario's speedy and slippery brother Luigi is back in Galaxy 2, as you almost certainly know by now, and this time he's not locked up behind the 120-star goal. He'll arrive fairly early on in the game and then start popping up, standing around at the beginning of selected levels, and ask you if you want to play as him instead. Completing a level as Luigi unlocks a ghost you can take on in future playthroughs, though beating the ghost doesn't explicitly reward you—at least, not at the pre-120-star juncture I'm presently at.
I say explicitly, because one new feature of Galaxy 2 is the recording of your clear times, in stopwatch precision, for each Power Star you collect. This replaces the old, somewhat meaningless coin-count scores Galaxy recorded and is a much better fit for 2's level design than that old 64 holdover.
Perhaps less-welcome a sight to those of us who are rather prideful about our skill (wrongly, as it turns out)—but a welcome sight to frustrated souls—is the Cosmic Spirit, a ghostly Rosalina-shaped character who will pop up after you've died a certain number of times. She'll offer to possess Mario and complete the level for you—or at least take you over a little bit of it and let you pick up the rest of the level later—granting you a Bronze Star instead of a Power Star so you can keep moving on. With Galaxy 2's apparently-increased-yet-still-fair demands on platforming agility over the original, it's apparent Nintendo feels these Guide features give them license to keep the games nice and challenging, so I welcome them.
Those are the big ones. There are a few other little touches that I appreciate, like how the clock stops ticking down on timed levels when the Power Star is revealed, letting you grab it at your leisure rather than find yourself with inadequate time to do so, but I'm sure you'll find those for yourself when you get your hands on your own copy of Galaxy 2 this Sunday—just three more days to go...