Super Mario Galaxy 2 Review

A treasure trove of galactic proportions. Mario gets himself lost in space a second, glorious time.

Not that anything in Super Mario Galaxy 2 could really be described as ‘grueling’. There are trickier Power Star quests, amongst them the (oft-timer-driven) wild card scenarios unlocked by collecting Prankster Comet medals, but Nintendo has long made itself the master of the just-one-more-go mentality, the reasoning that dictates that if you’d just jumped this way and grabbed that you’d be sorted. Even given the unpredictable difficulty curve incumbent on tackling the galaxies in different orders, there are no brick walls, no moments of controller-throwing frustration.

Criticisms, if they can be called criticisms, probably centre on the small clutch of merely very good galaxies among the utterly superb. Boss battles are perhaps a bit shallow (though there’s a great one with Bowser Junior at the climax of the fifth world), invariably asking you to clobber some conspicuous weak spot three or four times, but then the franchise has never been known for complicated bosses. While an improvement on that of Super Mario Galaxy 1, the camera occasionally struggles to keep step with the level design’s ambition.

Cloud-hopping in action.

Ultimately, Super Mario Galaxy 2′s only serious flaw is that it’s broadly the same game we played in 2007, despite the presence of Yoshi (and thus some Bionic-Commando-ish tongue-swinging sequences) and a few new items like the Cloud Flower, which allows Mario to generate his own short-lived platforms. Tempting as it is to dock marks for this, the degree of ingenuity found within galaxies is a hefty counterweight.

Somebody once said that Hamlet is a play made up entirely of famous quotes. Super Mario Galaxy 2 is an entire game’s worth of favourite bits. Go find one to call your own.

And once you’ve found it, be sure to let us know in the forums. Check our scoring guide for additional bluster. Super Mario Galaxy 2 is out tomorrow in North America, in Japan on 27th May, and in Europe on 11th June.

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9 Responses to “Super Mario Galaxy 2 Review”

1. Matt says:

   22/05/10 at 5:07 pm

   That “whiff of expansion-packness”? That’s you having read the comments from the devs and taking them into consideration. Without them if you just picked up this game and if they had considered it a true sequel from the beginning, I bet good money you wouldn’t even include such a dumb quote in this review.
2. Smith says:

   22/05/10 at 9:46 pm

   well deserved, best platformer ever, period.

   and don’t hate the reviewer, if u play the game without deliberately trying to hate it, you’d be just as amazed as him.

   and don’t forget, SMG was already one of the best games ever made, and this one’s better than that. even if it ain’t that innovative, but still it’s what the first one should have been.
3. LocoPuyo says:

   24/05/10 at 1:14 pm

   Omg you didn’t give it an 11/10? Get ready for an onslaught of hate comments from kids that are going to buy the site and fire you.
   • Edwin Evans-Thirlwell says:

     24/05/10 at 1:38 pm

     That guy from the GoW3 thread never delivered…
4. TJ says:

   26/05/10 at 5:01 pm

   Pretty awesome review. This has to be the most excited I’ve been about something for a very long time, maybe ever. Ninty have made a near perfect game even better. This has to be the best game on Wii, and until a SMG3 comes around (which I can’t see happening to be honest, unless they have even MORE ideas) I can’t see anything threatening it.

   I feel like completing the original all over again.
   • Edwin Evans-Thirlwell says:

     26/05/10 at 9:30 pm

     Thanks TJ. Yeah, I’m not sure Nintendo could put together a third Galaxy game on Wii, but I certainly wouldn’t complain if they did

     I have a slight caveat about my review – the game *does* get pretty difficult once you’re a hundred stars in. But it’s still the ‘right kind’ of difficulty i.e. it never feels actually unfair.
5. LowEnergyCycle says:

   28/05/10 at 12:39 pm

   “I bet good money you wouldn’t even include such a dumb quote in this review.”

   What a totally pointless comment.

   Another excellent review Edwin. The opening and closing paragraphs say it perfectly. I can’t wait for the 11th June.
6. camile says:

   31/07/10 at 10:34 pm

   quando voce pençou en fazer esse jogo voce pensou bastante ou alguem criol para voce eu amei seus jogos?
7. ramos family says:

   04/01/11 at 1:40 pm

   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fw1s5bOcDs