Super Mario Galaxy 2 Review (Wii)

It’s me, Mario! Yep, it’s time to play that friendly, Princess saving, astronautic plumber again in the sequel to the fantastic Super Mario Galaxy. But this time Mario is joined by Yoshi too. See, I like Yoshi. I find him a lot more interesting and useful than Luigi. In Super Mario Galaxy 2 Yoshi has loads of really great skills and assets, like his massive tongue and insatiable appetite. Yoshi can simply eat and poo (coins) his way through levels planets. He also sulks and runs off when Mario gets knocked off him, which looks very cute! Luigi, to be honest, is a less fat, green Mario with few skills. He certainly can’t poo stars for start. Boring. Yoshi for the win.

Nintendo has also pulled out all the stops by making Super Mario Galaxy 2 a real feast for the eyes, for a Wii game at least. I just love the whole concept of planets as levels. Especially the really tiny ones that you can scoot round really quickly. And just like the first game there are some really cool ways of using them. For instance, during one boss battle you have to drill through a small planet to hit the boss’s weak spot. Working out when to start drilling is the tricky part whilst being chased by a marauding boss, but fun all the same.

Nintendo has also improved the 2-player game which, to be honest, was poorly implemented in Super Mario Galaxy. The second player couldn’t really do anything, apart from watch and waste some star bits. Brilliant. But in Super Mario Galaxy 2 player 2 can attack, defend and activate items/bits of planets/be generally useful. Oh, yeah and still waste star bits. See, much more to do! Joking aside, when I was playing co-op with Weefz the game was a lot easier to play, especially the boss fights as we worked really well together.

Longevity wise the game is pretty big. So you are looking at 10+ hours game time for the basic plot (defeat Bowser, save Princess Peach). Obviously, you’ll be playing for quite a bit longer if you want to collect all the stars, some of which are a little bit tricky to find.

As you can tell by this review, I love this game. There are a few niggles though. Occasionally the planets, can be bloody annoying and very unforgiving, with some ninja reactions required. Secondly, it’s on the Wii. I know its a Wii game, but I do wish Nintendo would make a more powerful console as the mind boggles about how pretty Super Mario Galaxy 2 would be like on either the PS3 or the Xbox 360. As I’ve mentioned before, Super Mario Galaxy 2 does look good but it’s not anywhere near as stunning as say Uncharted 2: Among Thieves or Gears of War 2.

In summary, this is a great game. Go buy it!

Screenshots: