Difficulty:

Easy

Time Spent:

10 to 20 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Overrated"

I'm sure, right now, as I'm typing this, that there will be tons of fanboys who will read this, thinking:
"What'zat! You only gave it an 7.5? Anyone with a brain knows that this deserves a 10! Go back to playing CoD, Nintendo's obviously not for you!"
It seems the only way to please fanboys is to give a perfect score. When you watched/read GameSpot's review, didn't you feel like the review read lower than the score? Based on everything that they said in the review, it sounded like the game was deserving of an 8.5 or lower. They mentioned problems about some levels being too easy, the story being a total waste (not that the story really matters, anyway), and they pretty much admitted that it's almost the exact same game as the first (except with different levels & new power-ups). I think they just gave the game a 10 to shut all the fanboys up.
Same goes with IGN, and every critic that gave the game a 10 (except FreQuenczy on YouTube, he had almost no complaints with the game).
These days, as soon as you put "Mario" in a game's title, it's pretty much guaranteed to sell, and if it's a platformer, it's also guaranteed to receive far more hype & praise than it deserves (with the exception of New Super Mario Bros. Wii, although that game had amazing sales).
Don't get me wrong, I like the Galaxy games (and LOVE the 2D ones), but I honestly think that the "professional" critics are praising it on hype alone. And seeing how legendary the franchise is, there are A TON of Mario fanboys (and fanboys rave about anything).


Wait a minute...where was I? ...ah, yes, time to review Super Mario Galaxy 2 for the Nintendo Wii.
Warning: if you are a fanboy, quit reading this. If you have strong feelings towards the game, then you won't want to see my opinion. While I DID highly enjoy the game, its not without its problems. I will slag the game off just a little bit.

Most importantly, everything that was great in the first Super Mario Galaxy is still great in the sequel.
1) The gravity effects. The game takes place in space. When you approach a small piece of land, a gravitational force pulls you towards the planet. This is a really cool feature that you can experiment with, and something that is rarely seen in 3D platformers. Then again, 3D platformers are kinda rare these days...
2) The variety. The first Super Mario Galaxy was one of the most varied games I've ever played, and Super Mario Galaxy 2 is no different. The levels never feel repetitive. None of the concepts seem recycled or overused. I wish more games were as varied as this. Levels vary in size & pacing (many levels even consist of huge land masses & don't have any gravity effects), and the power-ups & mini-games change up the gameplay significantly.
3) The controls. Aside from having to wiggle the Wiimote to do a spin attack, the controls are perfect. Very smooth, tight, and responsive.
4) The formula works just as well as the first one. The goal of each level is to reach the star at the end (although there are instances where the stars are hidden, but not in a tedious, search-every-inch-and-corner kind of way). Although each "galaxy" (in other words, each level) has multiple stars, each star requires a different path (excluding the hidden ones). Whenever a Prankster Comet orbits a galaxy, you can replay the galaxy in a special type of scenario, which will give you an extra star. For example, if you play a galaxy while a Daredevil Comet is orbiting it, then you will die in one hit, and there are no checkpoints in the level, whatsoever.
5) It's mostly linear, which I really like. It's Mario; Mario is supposed to be linear. I hated Super Mario 64, because it had you exploring, searching for crap. Yes, exploring is fun in theory, but not in a Mario game (or at least not for me).
6) Summoning star bits just by moving the Wii pointer over them becomes an addictive behavior.
7) There is no real story to the game, at all, so it's not even worth talking about. Which will please people with diehard hatred toward games that focus on story.
8) The music is done by a full orchaestra, and it sounds AMAZING! The graphics look amazing for a Wii game, too.

Even more good news: it does improve on its predecessor in some ways.
1) Unlike its predecessor, Super Mario Galaxy 2's core structure is split into different "worlds", which will feel very familiar if you've played Super Mario Bros. 3 or Super Mario World. Likewise, you select levels from a map (there's one map for each world), just like SMB3 & SMW. This makes selecting levels far quicker, and effortless compared to the level-select system used in the first Super Mario Galaxy.
2) In the first Super Mario Galaxy, you could get Prankster Comets simply by bribing a Luma (which is a chubby, star-shaped, floating creature) with star bits (which are extremely easy to find & collect). In the sequel, however, you have to earn Prankster Comets by collecting Comet Medals, which is a lot more challenging. There is one Comet Medal in each Galaxy. They're always either hard to find or hard to reach without dying (sometimes both).
3) There are 120 stars total, but there's more to do after that (more on that later).
4) There are a few power-ups that weren't in the first game.
5) The main gameplay difference is Yoshi. He's a baby dinosaur in which you can ride on. He has a long tongue that he gave grab objects with, then reel them in & gobble them up. Use the Wii pointer to aim at the object you want Yoshi to grab, then press B to fire Yoshi's tongue. Some objects cannot be eaten, and are held inside Yoshi's cheeks. Wiggle the Wiimote to reject them. He also has his own power-ups (he gets them by eating berries), and can do a flutter-jump (basically a prolonged, slightly increased jump) if you hold down the jump button.
6) You don't have to finish the game to play as Luigi (who has a wider stopping distance, but a higher jump, than Mario).
7) Less cutscenes.
8) The 2-player mode. Both Super Mario Galaxy games allow a second player to grab an extra Wiimote & use the pointer to join on the action. In the first one, the second player was useless; all he/she could do was freeze enemies (which are a pushover, anyway), and fire star bits (which merely stun enemies, but on the stronger ones, it does nothing). In this one, the second player controls an orange Luma, who not only can do the stuff I mentioned above, but also perform spin attacks, or grab/carry certain collectables, such as coins (which restore health) and mushrooms (which give you extra lives or expand your health meter). Both are very helpful, especially the latter.

Now HERE is where I slag the game off, a bit.
1) IT'S TOO EASY! It's slightly more challenging than its predecessor, but not much. It's not a cakewalk, but it's only occasionally difficult. As a result, if you're really good, the game doesn't take very long to beat. For example, you can get hit 3 times before losing a life. Why not lose a life after getting hit only once, like the classics? Not to mention that extra lives are ridiculously easy to get. The first Super Mario Galaxy was the first in its series, and gravity effects were completely new to the series, so it kinda had an excuse for being easy. That's not the case with Super Mario Galaxy 2, which came out 2 1/2 years later. Which brings me to my next point.
2) It feels more like a glorified expansion than a sequel. The graphics haven't been updated one bit (although they do look amazing for a Wii game), minor control issues haven't been fixed, and they didn't really expand on the concept very much at all. If you love Super Mario Galaxy so much that all you want is more of the same, this isn't a problem. However, if you're expecting new surprises, you might be disappointed.
3) After you collect all 120 stars, then defeat the final boss a second time, you unlock the Green Star Challenge, which, unfortunately, is a COMPLETE waste. This is a SPOILER, but who cares; you probably won't have much interest in it anyway. Basically, you replay all of the galaxies, Prankster Comets, etc., but this time, you have to search for stars that are hidden. The problem is, they are hidden in totally stupid areas that are nearly impossible to notice without looking in absolutely every direction & every angle of every place. This would've been fine if you could control the camera with a second analog stick, but that's not the case, here. (There is no Classic Controller option.) Plus, the linear design makes you unable to explore previous areas.


Most of the complaints I just made were nitpicking; the only major flaw to the core game is the lack of difficulty. The game just ISN'T challenging. I really hate easy games. They can sometimes be fun (this being an example), but hard games are almost always better in my opinion. The first game had this problem, but being the first in its series, this problem was much more forgivable, then. There's not a whole lot wrong with the game, but seeing that it came out 2 1/2 years after its predecessor, it's disappointing to see that Super Mario Galaxy 2 didn't fix the main problem that the first game had, nor some of the minor problems.
Still, though, Super Mario Galaxy 2 proves that easy games can still be extremely fun to play at least once. The levels are filled with amazing surprises and ingenious ideas, and the huge amount of variety keeps them from getting stale. The game might get boring after you complete it, and the lack of challenge shortens the length (I would estimate that it takes 10 hours to get all 120 stars) but it's amazing while it lasts.
However, I must warn you: if you are an EXTREMELY hardcore gamer who ABSOLUTELY NEEDS challenge in order to enjoy a game, then this definitely isn't for you.