Super Mario Galaxy 2 is just a few scant days away. Though I've now played it for my review (which you'll get to read later today), I had been, for the past few weeks, playing the original Super Mario Galaxy again. Galaxy was not just another 3D Mario; it did a number of really cool things that set it apart—things that made me an instant rabid fan of Galaxy 2 from the moment it was announced. And so, to ring in Galaxy 2's imminent release, I thought I'd share five of my favorite things about its groundbreaking predecessor—I shared #4 last week—and come this Sunday, you can get your copy of Galaxy 2 and fall in love all over again.
5 The element of surprise A common thread that ran through my first playthrough of Super Mario Galaxy was that I could expect the unexpected. Sure, I knew I'd be able to run around the top of planetoids hanging in space and then back across their undersides—I knew that gravity played a huge role in this game—but what that actually meant was different every time I set foot inside a new galaxy, whether it was chasing down Dino Pirahna at right angles in order to smack his tail into his head or jumping up onto spotlights on walls with their own gravity in order to scale them.
Galaxy was full of this sort of thing: introducing some wild new thing, using it maybe a handful of times, then moving on to something new. Who knows what you'd get when you fed those Hungry Lumas? Every now and again the designers would just plain have a little fun with you, too—coin 100 in Dreadnought's Purple Coins, I'm looking at you, with your "oh God, where did I miss one?" feeling that I had not just the first time I played, but this most recent second time as well.
Though we've seen a lot of Super Mario Galaxy 2 already through Nintendo's own media releases, there are still surprises to be had in Galaxy 2 as well. You'll see what I mean when you finally get your hands on it in three days.
5 The element of surprise A common thread that ran through my first playthrough of Super Mario Galaxy was that I could expect the unexpected. Sure, I knew I'd be able to run around the top of planetoids hanging in space and then back across their undersides—I knew that gravity played a huge role in this game—but what that actually meant was different every time I set foot inside a new galaxy, whether it was chasing down Dino Pirahna at right angles in order to smack his tail into his head or jumping up onto spotlights on walls with their own gravity in order to scale them.
Galaxy was full of this sort of thing: introducing some wild new thing, using it maybe a handful of times, then moving on to something new. Who knows what you'd get when you fed those Hungry Lumas? Every now and again the designers would just plain have a little fun with you, too—coin 100 in Dreadnought's Purple Coins, I'm looking at you, with your "oh God, where did I miss one?" feeling that I had not just the first time I played, but this most recent second time as well.
Though we've seen a lot of Super Mario Galaxy 2 already through Nintendo's own media releases, there are still surprises to be had in Galaxy 2 as well. You'll see what I mean when you finally get your hands on it in three days.