Super Mario Galaxy 2

I think I'm going to have to go ahead and say it, because for whatever reason nobody else has.  Mario is boring.  I'm not talking about his games, they're fantastic, but the character himself.  He's dull, he's wooden, there's nothing there.  Honestly, after so many years of saving Princess Peach and crushing Goombas, I still don't know why Mario even does it.  What does he care if Bowser takes Peach away?  Everybody just sort of assumes love, but Mario doesn't actually seem capable of loving anything.  If anything, Nintendo has been actively avoiding pairing Mario and Peach up, aside from a kiss on the nose or two.  He likes jumping, I can tell by the excitement in his voice when I do a triple-jump, but beyond that, who knows?  At least he's enjoying himself.

But beyond getting the next Star, what is Mario after?  What is his real goal?  Does he have one?  Where does he live?  Its baffling to me that the most famous face in video games is also one of worst developed and ambiguous characters of all time.  This is why in Smash Bros and Mario Kart nobody ever picks Mario:  there's just no personality*.  Nobody actually wants to be Mario, we just use him to jump around.  Bowser has character, he's jealous, angry, and arrogant.  Link from the Legend of Zelda has some personality, its pretty subtle, but its there.  You know he actually wants to save Hyrule, you know he loves characters like his little sister and his friends.  The difference is that Zelda games actually have plots, and for whatever reason, Mario as a series is physically forced back from ever evolving into something more complex than "jump here, kill that".  And really, its to this series' detriment that it limits itself like this.

Despite that, Mario still makes awesome games.  "Super Mario Galaxy 2" is still a great game, just as good as the first one, but its lacking something.  This second game, despite having far better platforming levels, and much some truly excellent moments of gamplay, is hollow.  Its partially because I've basically played this exact game before:  "Super Mario Galaxy 1", remember?  And its also because Nintendo seems to actually going backwards with this one.

I'm not sure if this is really that much of a review of "Galaxy 2" or more an issue with the direction 3D Mario games have been going lately.  I let "Super Mario Galaxy" off too easy I think in my review of it one year ago.  There's something important that needs to be said.

"Super Mario Galaxy 2" is the same game as the last one.  Let's be real with it right now.  It reminds me of the NES days.  (Which I can't actually be reminded of since I wasn't alive then, but you get the idea.)  Back then, game developers could release sequels exactly like the first one, and nobody would mind.  "Super Mario Bros 2" or "The Lost Levels" was roughly the same game as "Super Mario Bros 1", only made so much harder.  Anybody else still nightmares about World C-4?  Megaman made something like eight games off the same engine, and recently started making more games using NES graphics.  With "Galaxy 2" Nintendo took the first game, and just built off from there.  The original title for the game was actually "More Super Mario Galaxy" which says quite a lot.

Oddly enough, I'm not even sure if this is a sequel.  "Super Mario Galaxy 2" opens the same way as the first one, Peach getting kidnapped by Bowser infused with the power of the universe's stars.  Nobody in the game ever really stops to say "didn't we all do this exact same thing just two years ago?"  Of course, Mario games have never really had much continuity, but you'd think somebody would mention it.  Nobody from the galaxies seems to recognize Mario either.  Is this an alternate universe?  Or did Nintendo push a giant RESET button so as to completely rehash the game?

For reasons that can only be guessed at, Shigeru Miyamoto, decided that "Super Mario Galaxy 1" had too much plot.  So Rosalina, the only Mario character with a backstory has been replaced by a fat purple Luma who makes side-cracks.  Rosalina, tragically was my favorite part of the original game, and she only really appears by sending letters and only actually shows up in the game's ending.  As for the storybook element from the first game, which was actually a very beautiful little diversion, that's gone too.  I really do miss Rosalina, she's my Goddess.  Her disappearance is the greatest weakness of this game, without a doubt.

In the game's plot, Bowser becomes HUUUUUUGE and kidnaps Princess Peach so that she'll bake him a cake when he's emperor of the universe using his HUUUUUUGE power.  Mario now has to overcome the HUUUUUGE using a lot of jumps and what-not.

"Galaxy 2" has also managed to make things ever more linear than the last game.  Gone are the days when you actually had to search for secrets in levels or the hub world and like Athlete's Foot, the World Map from "Super Mario Bros 3" has returned without welcome.  There is a hub world, a planet shaped like Mario's head, but you don't use it to enter worlds, and there's really nothing to do on it.  The hub world from "Galaxy 1" was pretty lame itself, but at least it was big enough for you to explore a bit.  This is tiny, dull, and barren.  All the worlds are considerably shorter too, containing only two levels at most.  I find myself breezing right through this game without a second to take a break and enjoy the scenery.  You're in each world for twenty minutes at most.  This is speed dating:  you never get enough time to really get to know the world and build a connection.  I love Whomp's Fortress and Noki Bay, I don't love the Flipsville Galaxy, because it was all over too fast.  I couldn't even get her number.  I remember she liked dogs, but I can't remember her name.  Its pointless.

In fact, what's the point of collecting Stars if the whole thing is linear?  You never really ever have much chance of exploring, basically the Stars come at the end of the level.  They're little more than flags now.  There is spots where you break off the main path to find secret stars.  However, since the game doesn't actually hide these forks, only putting Hungry Lumas in the way, they're too easy to find.  There were one or two stars I honestly found thanks to exploring, but that's it.

I know what Nintendo is doing here, though.  "Super Mario Galaxy 2" is a different breed than the earlier 3D games.  It actually belongs more with the older NES titles.  The worlds in the game aren't actually worlds, they're levels.  The point isn't to create vibrant explorable locations, only a series of weird obstacles between you and the Star.  This was true in "Galaxy 1", but at least there you had at least five Stars to find and things to talk to.  Weirdly the linearity extends to the camera, which is on-rails 99% of the time.  I'd like to switch the camera angle, the D-pad sometimes lets me, but most of the time the game comes up to me and yells "How dare you want to view this that way!  We worked hard so that you'd only be able to experience this game at this particular angle!"  Am I playing a PS1 era game now?  I just want to see what's in front of me!  Its never a problem, but its annoying.  Not to mention the 2D elements.

Of course, the game is massive fun, and challenging at times.  Never incredibly challenging, at least not that I've seen, but properly difficult at times.  I like dieing if I know it was my fault that I blew a jump, it just makes the feeling of overcoming the obstacle that much better.  The game is brilliantly made and very enjoyable to play for a half hour.  There are great boss fights, Bowser's HUUUUUUGE is difficult to defeat, and Bowser Jr. is acting like Dr. Eggman for some reason.  Also they brought back the slides from "64"!  That's great!  The linearity allows for a focus to the design, meaning that the devs know exactly what you'll be doing the entire way, thus allowing for the levels to be brilliant bits of gamplay at its finest.  Even if I hate linearity, I have to admit its advantages**, and Nintendo has used them to their best here.

Then there's Nintendo's old-fashioned ingenuity and clever game design.  So that this review isn't too negative, here's an example of a particularly awesome moment I had while playing:  In one level the gravity flips according to the beat of the background music.  So every ten seconds you fall down, the other ten seconds you fall up.  Mario was standing below a flying Goomba just before the gravity flipped.  So while the Goomba fell up, Mario fell right on top of his head, killing it.  I just pulled an "Inception" trick!  How awesome is that?  Joseph Gordon-Levitt, you have taught me well.

"Galaxy 2" is without a doubt the most fun Mario game yet.  But is it memorable?  No.  I don't know why I should ever replay this game.  I could replay "Super Mario 64" a billion times, and I have.  That game is hugely inferior in its design, but its so much more free.  Heck, "Mario Sunshine" has better replay value than this - and for some reason lots of people hate that game.

Also there's Yoshi.  This is the biggest addition to the game, and one of the best.  When you first find Yoshi, there's a pond right over in the corner, daring you to run him into it.  This is Nintendo apologizing to me:  "Yeah, we learned from 'Sunshine', Yoshi won't melt in water anymore.  We spent eight years genetically modifying our Yoshi stock to remove that weakness.  Is all forgiven?"  Yes, Nintendo, all is forgiven.

You can also play as Luigi in some levels, but this is pointless.  Luigi plays exactly like Mario since they got rid of his gamebreaking backflip from "Super Mario 64 DS".  Why would I play as him again?

I guess honestly I must conclude that "Super Mario Galaxy" was perfectly fine as one game.  We didn't need another one.  Even if that other one is incredibly awesome.  I don't know where Mario goes from here, but hopefully someplace different, but just as fun.

AND BRING BACK ROSALINA!  I LOVE HER!

--------------------------------------------------------------------
* Of course, the other option is to have Mario completely ruined and turned into a pathetic whiny anime character a la the utter abomination that was "Metroid Other M".  I can see it now, Princess Peach emotionally abusing Mario and restricting the use of Wall Jumps simply for sadistic pleasure.  Then Mario will freeze up and cry when the Cloud Guy, Latiku appears.

** Those advantages do not extend to "Final Fantasy XIII" though.  Don't think you'll ever be off the hook, you nasty nasty game I never will play.  And a linear Zelda would be a disaster.