Super Mario Galaxy 2 Review for Wii

     I'm probably going to go down in flames for this one. "So first you write an article about how Sonic games aren't bad and now you bash Mario? What a ******* fanboy...." I don't really care. Think what you want. Not liking Super Mario Galaxy 2 just reminds me that I'm not a gamer working the gears of the gaming industry or blindly following the herd. Anyway, It released a couple of weeks ago and I was finally able to give it a shot. Let me also preface this review by stating I didn't really enjoy the first one either. It just doesn't get my goat. If there was ever a series of games to get me completely raged out within the first level, it's 3D Mario games. You'll find out why since the same applies to this latest addition. I know I've already stated that I didn't like the game but you should at least know why.

Gameplay

- Jump for imprecision - I cannot stand the way Mario controls. I tend to have great reflexes and timing when it comes to games (or at least think I do) and Mario goes out of his way to ruin everything I try to do. At times he responds to my commands with cat-like reflexes and then he'll feel like a tank a second later. I don't get it! All the dude does is jump! It's all he's ever done! Why is he so bad at it? I guess my problem with it is that there's no flow to be found and you all know how important flow is to me when it comes to platformers. Somehow Mario just translates into some kind of mess filled with deliberation.
     Crouch + Jump = High-jump Back-flip. Running Start + Crouch + Jump = Super Long Jump. The "equations" I've just laid before you piss me off about this game. Let's say I'm doing a series of forward jumps and I see that I really need that back-flip to come out asap. Well, I'm not going to get it. The second I need to do it, he'll do a long jump instead because he still has momentum from the previous jumps. Unfortunately I can't even begin crouching before I hit the ground since Mario slides forever when crouched with momentum and if I jump during that slide, I get a long jump. I have to deliberately make Mario stop moving before I can back-flip. I really don't want to do that. The platform I want to be on is now moving away from me and if I don't get on it, I'll have to wait forever for it to come back.
     Also, every long jump I didn't want almost certainly throws me to my death. I probably wouldn't die either if Mario actually controlled well. If you begin jumping, make sure Mario is facing the way you want because he will travel in another direction for no gamer. I've jumped off so many edges because of this ****. I'M HOLDING THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION!!!! JUMP THAT WAY WHEN YOU TOUCH THE GROUND!!! Ceasing to jump barely works better since Mario can't just change directions. If it's not exactly 180 degrees in the opposite direction (and this counts from the second you begin moving the stick) Mario will want to RUN AROUND to the opposite direction. IS IT TOO MUCH TO JUST TURN AROUND YOU ****!?!? After that, he'll run off the cliff and no matter what I do, he will not grab the ledge because Mario doesn't know how to turn the **** around so I'm dead. 
     Whine, whine, whine, right? Well it wouldn't be so bad if this **** didn't plague me for the entire game. It was so hard for me to have fun because Mario would seldom ever do what I wanted even though I knew full-well that he was capable of executing it. 


- Turning the world on it's head - Ok, when you make a game that has gameplay dealing with playing upside down, choose a control scheme and stick to it. It felt like the damned control scheme changed every thirty seconds when I had to go upside down. Sometimes it wouldn't react to my controls at all. I could rotate the control stick in every which way and Mario will still travel forward like a mindless, glitched-out zombie. Sometimes he just stands still! Look, either design the controls to work a certain way after you move past a point or design the camera to follow Mario around IN A WAY THAT MAKES SENSE.


- The camera sucks - Dear God, it just does. Inquiry: What advantage, visually, do I have when the camera is zoomed in, pointing straight at the ground? Answer: None. Part of what adds to the imprecision of the platforming is that the camera works like a new college student that believes he can make every shot into an artsy-fartsy one. Seriously. It does not help me when the camera thinks any angle will do and that I'm perfectly capable of compensating my movements with every change of the angle. I could if Mario controlled that way but seeing as how he's really a tank that's set in moving down a straight line, it doesn't work. It doesn't work! And to add on top of that, you can't control the camera almost at all. And even when you can, the second you move it'll move to it's own preferred angle.


- This is harder? - I read a few reviews and seen a few previews and the line I see the most is that since we already played the first Mario Galaxy, it gives Nintendo room to make the levels more difficult and boy, are they hard. LIARS!!!! YOU'RE ALL ****ING LIARS!!! If I didn't know better I'd say it's easier but that's only because the levels are so short. It's really not difficult at all. In fact, it lacks so much difficulty that it's boring. I could not wait to be done with the game. I wanted to stop playing it everyday I started playing it. Out of 5 worlds with around 5-7 galaxies each world and 100+ stars, the game didn't even start getting fun or inventive until the fifth world which is around 74 stars in the game. I'm not really sensing a hard or difficult game here.


- HOW DO I STOP THIS THING?! - The new rock mushroom that turns Mario into a rolling boulder sucks. There's no way to control the speed or even stop the thing unless you hit a solid object. The thing is just badly executed. This is just one more thing that contributed to my deaths.

= What a rush! - After a while, the game starts picking up and the fun begins, after a while meaning within the last fifth of the game. After that, all the levels start gaining a flow, begin experimenting with ideas, and become challenging. It was really enough to make me smile from ear to ear. Unfortunately there's not a whole lot of it and it comes way too late.

+ No glitches - If I had to say one good thing about the game I guess it would be that there are no game-breaking glitches. At least none that I ran into.

- Bosses suck - Incredibly simple and weak bosses. They die way too quickly and are much too easy to go up against. I also hate realizing that the majority of creatures Mario fights don't even have a beef with him. He just destroys them. At least it's understandable why Kratos kills most things.

Story and Presentation

= What do you expect from the story? - It's basically non-existent like it normally is in Mario games. Go save Peach. Peach is saved. The End. Considering it's Mario, it doesn't really need more than that either.

+ What do you expect from the presentation? - It's a Mario game. Nintendo normally pulls all the stops to make sure the game is polished and visually inviting. It feels just like you're used to a Mario game feeling like. 

+ Lubba - I can't find a good picture but just imagine Rosalina from Super Mario Galaxy being replaced by McDonald's purple monster, Grimace. A lot of people tend to hate his guts. I like him though. No, he's not as visually attractive as Rosalina or as involved in the story as she was but I found him pretty charming with the way he makes fun of Mario and the cheesy jokes he comes up with. And concerning all the complaints that Lubba is constantly reminding you to take a break, I played for many hours at a time and he only advised me to take a break once. He isn't even in your face about it. You have to voluntarily speak to him to get that message and you even know he's going to say it before you talk to him. If you don't want to hear it, don't talk to him. And sometimes I think I'm a whiny gamer...

- Is it inventive/creative? - I dunno, maybe I just don't know what I'm talking about or it was hard to see it being so flustered with the controls but I didn't see a whole lot of creativity here. I mean, yeah, it takes effort and imagination to think of these things but they didn't build on any of their ideas which kinda signals to me that they were kinda running on fumes when coming up with the levels. Being creative or inventive to me is doing something in a way that either changes the perspective of something you're used to or coming up with something you just straight-up haven't experienced yet. Also, since it's happening in a AAA game, I expect those ideas to be fun. You'll have to excuse my lack of evidence of what's creative or not since I forgot the names of the galaxies and I don't have the game anymore.
     There was one galaxy where the platforms appeared and reappeared in a 4/4 time rhythm. Cool idea. Then you pair it with the cruddy controls and you have Mario Hell. What I found to be really clever were a lot of the ideas that came forward on the sand galaxy in the fifth world. When you're sliding down a sand hill while dodging rollers coming from behind and then to have the sand turn into a thinning waterfall, or when you're on a sand bird that's being destroyed by cactus and other obstacles, they just had me smiling because they progressed ideas they had already worked with. It felt fresh and it was fun. It also worked well with the game's controls. Other than that, I don't get what everyone's fascination is with Super Mario Galaxy 2.

Graphics

+ Same old, same old - It's using the same engine as the first Mario Galaxy which makes it one of the more beautiful titles on the Wii, it's just nothing new to look at.

Sound

+ Sounds good to me - The score in this game is enchanting and intimate. A few of the songs really got me and began sending shivers through my whole body. It's also nice to hear a Nintendo game actually use an orchestra. My favorite track is the World 3 theme. I could listen to it on repeat forever. Also, Nintendo better use an orchestra for Zelda. I'm done with Midi.

Should you buy it?

     As you can see, I don't have a lot of fun with Mario games. The whole thing just feels like a marathon to see how long you can stand playing it before you accept the idea that it's just not THAT good. In fact, I feel like it's pretty easy to pick on current Mario games for the same points that you can pick on the current Sonic games for. Actually, after playing the game for myself and looking back on other reviews, it seems like they're just die-hard Mario fans and they simply suck at playing games. Someone said it was "unforgiving" in it's difficulty. Unforgiving is not gaining 40+ lives after the first 3 levels you play. Nintendo actually went out of it's way to make hard things easier which makes them, well, easy. It is also not player error when the game works against you becoming comfortable with the controls at every point.

Buy it - If you love 3D Marios and you especially liked the first Mario Galaxy. There's really no reason why you don't have it. It's perfect in that regard plus it's got Yoshi. It's also got a TON of replay value. And I mean A TON!

Rent it - If you feel like you just need to play it to see what everyone's talking about, give it a rent. I guess it's your call in the end.

Stay away from it - If you don't like 3D Mario games or you feel like Nintendo has its titles catering too much to the casual gamers, there's nothing for you here. It's still easy as hell and the same as Mario games ever have been. Also, if you didn't like the first Galaxy or thought it was just okay, ignore the populous claiming it's better and harder than the first one. THEY'RE LYING!

Super Mario Galaxy 2 was developed and published by Nintendo for the Wii. Played 10-12 hours to the end with 108 stars collected before not caring anymore. Now I can play something enjoyable for a change...