I played through this game last week, but only after hearing how amazing it was. It has been getting really good reviews across the board, and for this reason I didn’t think it would be worth my time to write a review because I didn’t think I would have anything to contribute that hadn’t already been said… After playing for just a few hours I realized that the reviews were all wrong, and the more I played the more disappointed I was.

For starters, as far as gameplay and graphics go, I don’t think there is any improvement on the first game at all. The game is even  easier, and the levels seem to be shorter. Not only that, but there are only six really short worlds… Because of how fast I was running through them, I thought there would at least be eight… but no… six. It literally only took a single day to beat this game, which has never happened to me in all 3D Mario game history… New Super Mario Bros. Wii took longer for a first play through, which is only impressive because it is a typical platformer. And it wasn’t as if the bosses in the first Mario Galaxy were hard, but they weren’t nearly as easy as the ones in this game. (With a single exception.) The final form of Bowser in the last world took me one try to defeat… and believe me, I’m not trying to brag in any way… I’m not that talented a gamer… I was simply disgusted that there was nothing to figure out on the final boss… such a disappointment… (Much worse than New Super Mario Bros. Wii’s Bowser.)

If you can look past the lack of content in this game, then lets look at what they did that was new. One of the things I look for in Mario games is the new power-ups that have pretty consistently varied from game to game. In this one, they added a cloud hat that allowed you to create three clouds that you would land on top of… In a way this move is about as close to flying as the Galaxy games have come, (since the bee’s flight is even more limited), and I think this was a pretty fun and innovative power-up. My problem with it is that it seemed like they never had you use it to its full potential. Any hurdle that they put in place for this power-up would be very remedial… There’s even a boss battle that forces you to use it and it was the easiest boss in the game.

And now we arrive at the biggest selling point of Super Mario Galaxy 2— Yoshi. The first use of Yoshi in a 3D Mario game, and it was completely unimpressive… Yoshi was essentially just another power-up, and he’s barely incorporated into the game. I didn’t know what to expect exactly, but in other Mario games they’ve implemented different colored Yoshis, that had different types of powers… (The red one spit fire, the yellow one had a special stomp, etc.) In this game you can only get a green Yoshi that can eat two different food items that give you two specific types of powers. One that allows you to float for about 6 seconds, and a hot pepper that makes you run fast for about 15 seconds. You literally never get to test these powers anywhere in the entire game except at the limited spots that they are absolutely required. (There’s hardly any puzzle aspect to this type of game play at all.)

The game wasn’t a complete waste of time, but it was majorly disappointing. It had really easy controls, and I think the Galaxy gravity system is pretty impressive. (Even though it isn’t any better or more impressive than the first Mario Galaxy’s system.) The only thing I think this game did better was the Mario ship interface. (Basically, the ship you travel around the galaxy with is much smaller, and doesn’t waste as much of your time running around it.)

All in all, I think this wasn’t as good as the first Mario Galaxy game, and maybe one of the least ambitious Mario projects since Super Nintendo’s “Mario Is Missing”.

SCORE:

• Graphics: 6 for lack of improvement.
• Sound: 6 because I don’t give a damn.
• Replay: 3 because I would rather reply the first one.
• Controls: 10 because I’m not a complete asshole.
• Overall: 6

You can read the original review here!

And if you don’t believe me, and you want to buy Super Mario Galaxy 2 anyway, you can do that here!