Coming: 2010
From IGN's Interview: "Reggie Fils-Aime on the Record"
IGN: You have a bit more insight on the development of Galaxy 2. What's the direction for the game? Do they really want to blow it out or will it be more of the same?
Reggie: What Mr. Miyamoto has shared is that if the first Galaxy was maybe more inviting in terms of all the audiences, what Galaxy 2 is going to be is maybe a little more Nintendo fan / harder gamer focused. A little tougher. The use of Yoshi makes it a little more challenging. We showed some of the snippets of some of the activities -- it's a bit more challenging. It's going to be, if you will, for more of that passionate Mario fan who grew up getting challenged with Super Mario World. It's going to be much more in that area.
From "Shigeru Miyamoto Roundtable LiveBlog"
"With Super Mario Galaxy, it's the first time we really worked with spherical worlds and we had a lot of ideas about how to use gravity. However, when we finished the game, we realized there were a ton of ideas we just couldn't fit in," he says.
More than 90 percent of what you will see in Super Mario Galaxy 2 is all brand new. Maybe even 95 percent . . . Galaxy 2 contains roughly the same amount of content as the original.
Galaxy 2 is very, very far along, but since Nintendo has New Super Mario Bros. Wii, it's going to hold off and keep Galaxy 2 for next year. :(
Okay time for my impressions.
Before giving my impressions, let me talk about my expectations. I expect more of the same to be quite frankly.
Now time for my impressions
Day 1:
The beginning is just genius. First a very short story section and you immediately start to play this 2D story book section. After a while you come to this toad town and you can move in the z direction also. Basically Nintendo teaches you how to move in 2D before moving in 3D. These town section actually remind me of the Paper Mario games. You hear that Nintendo, use this engine to make Paper Mario 3 or even better Mario and Luigi Wii.
Okay so Bowser show ups, I explore a little bit and find that you can climb threes again. They even have a cool animation. Some story is told and Peach is kidnapped. You go to a launch star and boom the first level. No bunny chasing, no collecting stuff and talking to Rosalina, no its a honest to goodness level.
The first enemies are octogoomba's, this immediately tells me that the game is significantly harder. There are also disappearing platforms, nothing too hard, but we are talking about the very first level. Also found at least four shortcuts that would be awesome to try in speed runs. Also the completion time of each star is recorded and saved. So Nintendo finally realized Galaxy is perfect for speed running. I played some more levels and was definitely feeling the game and also feeling the need to crap. So I crapped and stopped playing. I won't spoil the details for the for the guys who had not played it yet, but in short.
Galaxy 2 vs Galaxy 1
Galaxy 2 feels much more streamlined
The levels are more like 2D Mario
Much more varied
Yoshi and the drill are awesome
Bosses are trickier
Speed run heaven
The graphics of my poo were photo realistic with awesome bump mapping
Day 2:
Woke up early in the morning, after talking with Vader on Skype about my crapping behavior, I started playing Galaxy2 some more. Now the levels I played all looked awesome logically, but I was just not feeling the game. Yeah I kept playing, but I did not feel the joy I felt yesterday. I felt a little bored and sleepy, but I kept playing well into world 2. (Nintendo fails at astronomy, having worlds that contain Galaxies, madness I tell you). Nah, not feeling it, maybe I need some sleep.
*Goes to sleep and wakes up*
Okay another try, yeah feeling it again. Wow, so you need to be conscious to enjoy the game, what a surprise. The levels are still awesome, the latter bosses are easier however, Bowser was a little disappointingly easy, why are the first two bosses harder? The level was cool though.
Was really feeling the game, until I was kicked of the computer because of World Cup. Dammit. Will play tomorrow
On word, swimming works so much better in 2D!
Oh and another thing, Yoshi with the dash pepper makes Sonic obsolete
Yay.
It will be days before I get it
The processing power of 32 bit consoles made Sonic obsolete.
Sonic Team made Sonic obsolete.
Screw it, let's just put the blame right where it belongs. Dvader is the reason why Sonic sucks.
e) all of the above
That's my answer
Day 3,
Played some more, oh wow at the slide level.
Wow they made Sonic even more irrelevant
Found Luigi, and finishing levels with him opens up a ghost. So you can race against him, if you fall behind you can see the path he has taken. So awesome for speed running. I beat him once, I think. What is supposed to happen if you beat a ghost?
Opened up the comets and fuck the haters, they are awesome.
Wow some of these comets are real hard, will do some of them later. I had only a few lives left.
Beat the 3rd world, the boss was a bit tricky with many things happening at once. Oh and btw, Yoshi is awesome, fuck GG for ever doubting him. And unlike GG he has no trouble crapping. Played a little of super massive galaxy, pretty cool so far, but only had one life left. Will try again later. Not sure what Vader's beef was with this level, but then again he thinks DKC2 sucks, shows how much he knows.
Do not understand the filler stars critique either, most stars I played were awesome. Even the minigames were a fun little diversion. Flying was fun, ball rolling was fun, the chimp games were fun. All had the one-more-try feeling. Variety is the spice of live indeed. Oh and platforming on clouds while collecting purple coins, while being chases by an army of shadow Mario's is just plain awesome.
You don't feel like the levels aren't being used to their full potential. You get a quick 4-5 minute stage, a mini game and then a comet and that is it. Rarely do you actually get two full stars a level one where the level has two completely different objectives that doesn't revolve around a mini game or fat star thing that opens up a simple section. I felt a lot of those levels could be used for more.
As for supermassive (spoilers ahead). The level is extremely simple. In the first section you hop forward, no real obstacles in your way. Then you hop on the pipes, extremely simple. Pass the the slowest thowmps in history. Then you are in that koopa drill thing, neat concept but a bit boring. Next is another simple jumping section, avoid the extremely slow giant goomba, hop on pipes, hop on a few platforms which is easily the best part of the level but its just a tiny section. Fly to the tube like worm filled section, this is very easy cause you can just long jump your way across to the end. Simple level, almost no advanced platforming. It's nice to look at it, but I am not playing Mario to look at it, it's a poor level. The other star is the fat luma which sends you to a small green planet where ALL you do is run around and fill it up with flowers, you run in a circle and you get a star, WTF. The comet is that final worm part sped up but if you did the long jumps before this should be no problem. Wasted oppertunity, simple level with poor star objectives and there are too many of those in this game I feel.