Topic: Super Mario Galaxy 2

[Mop it up]

If that really is true then the Wii truly is weaker than I thought.

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

Game development is a give-and-take design process.

3rd party HD gaming is high in graphics and tech, low in significant, new, progressive content.

[GoldenPhoenix]

Game development is a give-and-take design process.

What Pro said. That is why I hate comparing visuals of let's say a fighter, to something like Conduit. They require different visuals, a fighter can focus more on the fighter details, even the environments because they are pretty contained while something like the Conduit has to have decent view distance a more wide open world.

[Peachylala]

Game development is a give-and-take design process.

3rd party HD gaming is Metal Gear Solid 4.

Fix'ed.

Exactly.  Nintendo's incapable of having good graphics and good online at the same time.  Since Nintendo is smart, they'll skip online entirely.

Miyamoto probably didn't ask for it. =P

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

Miyamoto rides a bicycle to work.

I'm not sure he knows what telephones are.

[UltimatePartyBear]

Now that I think about it, you know all the crazy stuff happening in Brawl that has to stay in sync across four Wiis?  New SMB Wii probably has even more to keep track of.

[Stratos]

I think Brawl using the Havok Engine was one of the reasons performance sucked. Since NSMBWii probably won't be using Havok it probably would be less taxing in an online environment.

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

Depends on how they would decide to transfer network data.  If it's like BWii/Mario Kart/Good Games, then the player's appearance and framerate stays constant while every other object is approximated based on available network data, which allows for ghosts and wormholing.

If it's like Brawl/Double Dash Warp Pipe/Bad Games, then every action has to be synced with every frame, suffering from delays.

[grantimus]

I... I thought... I thought this thread was about Galaxy 2? 

Here's what I want out of Galaxy 2:
-A better flying mechanic than the first game
-Secret passageways to lead to secret galaxies
-Slides like in SM64
-Minimal supporting characters
-A true 2 player mode

Other than that, keep all the other mechanics the same, and create 120 new Stars/Sprites/Lumas for me to collect and I'll be super-happy!

Eh, I'll be happy anyway!  This game will be great!

[GoldenPhoenix]

I... I thought... I thought this thread was about Galaxy 2? 

NWR the place where derailing is not only possible but is clockwork.

[broodwars]

You know what I want to see out of Mario Galaxy 2?  No? Well, too bad!   

1.  Drop the 120 stars - After playing Mario 64; Mario Sunshine; and Mario Galaxy, I really want this tired remnant of old design to finally go.  Especially after playing Psychonauts recently, I'm done with "collecting" in games and collecting Stars to open worlds, etc. hasn't been fun since Mario 64.  It just gets so tedious to select a star, run through a level, do whatever to get the star, go back out to the hub world, and wash; rinse; repeat.  Make the game Mario World-style with a series of linear levels you can run through with secret exits leading off to secret galaxies, etc.  No collecting crap, just run straight on through.

2.  Allow multiple characters right from the outset, just like in Mario 2 - I have no idea why this idea hasn't been used since Mario 2, but it was a really nice one.  Let us pick from Mario, Luigi, Peach (damn lazy, useless ***** finally has to work for once!), etc. and off we go into each stage!  Some secret exits can only be accessed by particular characters, giving each a unique purpose.  Yoshi can stay as he is: a character each of the mains can ride.  Perhaps he gains different abilities based on who is riding him?

3.  Make the main quest an odyssey to kill of the biggest menance to ever hit the Mario Universe: Bowser Jr.  Enough said.

So yeah, basically make it an expanded New Super Mario Bros. Wii in space in 3D.   

[NovaQ]

I'm wondering about another 120 stars, too. I'm sure the game is going to be great either way, but are the developers really going to ask us to get another 120 (or 242) stars? Isn't there some other way to focus the player's purpose, at least for a change of pace?

Having a choice of playable character from the start would be pretty cool, too.

-Slides like in SM64

I never thought of this before, but some crazy new space-age slide levels/challenges could be pretty wicked.

[Peachylala]

The 120 stars have always been an optional thing and nothing else.

And yes to the space-slides and other random mini-game to collect a star crap. Those green star levels. WHAT. THE. ****. GREATNESS.

I... I thought... I thought this thread was about Galaxy 2? 

NWR the place where derailing is not only possible but is clockwork.

And Pro Daisy is the master.

And we hail him.

[grantimus]

2.  Allow multiple characters right from the outset, just like in Mario 2 - I have no idea why this idea hasn't been used since Mario 2, but it was a really nice one.  Let us pick from Mario, Luigi, Peach (damn lazy, useless ***** finally has to work for once!), etc. and off we go into each stage!  Some secret exits can only be accessed by particular characters, giving each a unique purpose.  Yoshi can stay as he is: a character each of the mains can ride.  Perhaps he gains different abilities based on who is riding him?

Yeah, that is a good idea, though contradictory to my "no more side characters" comment.  If they were playable, I'd have no problem, and I love the idea about having secret exits that can only be accessed by specific characters.

[Stratos]

I... I thought... I thought this thread was about Galaxy 2? 

NWR the place where derailing is not only possible but is clockwork.

And we bear that label with pride.

[broodwars]

The 120 stars have always been an optional thing and nothing else.

They're not optional if you actually want to get the enjoyment the designers intend from the game, because usually those first 50-60 required stars are the least interesting in the entire game to collect.  The "A" material tends to come with the last 30 or so stars, so you still have to slog through a large portion of unnecessary collecting just to get to the good parts of game.  At least that's what I've gotten from the last 3 3D Mario games.

[TJ Spyke]

The 120 stars have always been an optional thing and nothing else.

They're not optional if you actually want to get the enjoyment the designers intend from the game, because usually those first 50-60 required stars are the least interesting in the entire game to collect.  The "A" material tends to come with the last 30 or so stars, so you still have to slog through a large portion of unnecessary collecting just to get to the good parts of game.  At least that's what I've gotten from the last 3 3D Mario games.

That is your opinion. That's like saying you have to play the Shin Megami Tensei: Persona games for several hundred hours.

Whether you think the best stars are later or not, that doesn't change the fact that they are still optional.

[Mop it up]

I don't know, I've always thought the 120-star setup works better for the 3D Mario games than trying to implement some sort of world map-type structure of SMB3 and World. But that may be because I find this setup to cater better to a platformer and that creating an interconnected world makes it more like an adventure game. It isn't about figure out where to go, it is about getting there. If you want a big huge world to explore then go play Zelda or something.

[NWR_insanolord]

The 120 stars have always been an optional thing and nothing else.

They're not optional if you actually want to get the enjoyment the designers intend from the game, because usually those first 50-60 required stars are the least interesting in the entire game to collect.  The "A" material tends to come with the last 30 or so stars, so you still have to slog through a large portion of unnecessary collecting just to get to the good parts of game.  At least that's what I've gotten from the last 3 3D Mario games.

If Galaxy 2 is 120 stars you should play it the way I played Galaxy, completing each galaxy as they come instead of getting to the final boss as quickly as possible so the harder stages mix in with the easier ones. I think that's part of why I enjoyed the game as much as I did.

[broodwars]

The 120 stars have always been an optional thing and nothing else.

They're not optional if you actually want to get the enjoyment the designers intend from the game, because usually those first 50-60 required stars are the least interesting in the entire game to collect.  The "A" material tends to come with the last 30 or so stars, so you still have to slog through a large portion of unnecessary collecting just to get to the good parts of game.  At least that's what I've gotten from the last 3 3D Mario games.

If Galaxy 2 is 120 stars you should play it the way I played Galaxy, completing each galaxy as they come instead of getting to the final boss as quickly as possible so the harder stages mix in with the easier ones. I think that's part of why I enjoyed the game as much as I did.

Actually, that is exactly the way I played Galaxy: until very late in the game, I played each galaxy in order until I had all their stars (or at least all the ones I could get until a comet swung by)...and I was bored stiff by the halfway-point in the game.  It wasn't that there wasn't variety, just that I was so sick of doing the same thing to progress through the game that I did in Mario Sunshine and Mario 64 before it.  It wasn't even like Mario 64 where you could conceivably explore the castle and find "hidden" areas with secret stars.  I didn't really enjoy Galaxy until late in the game when the comet stages started really coming into focus, particularly the purple coin stages (which may sound ironic considering it's a mode dedicated to collecting things, but I always saw those stages as more like giant obstacle courses that test your platforming skills, and the coins were just a marker of how far you were along in the stage).  The sheer tedium of star collecting just killed the game for me, especially since once you chose a star you were locked into it until you got it or left the stage.

[NovaQ]

I didn't find the 120 star setup in Galaxy boring, but I was aware that it's the same kind of structure we've had for all of the 3-D Mario games so far. I don't have a reasonable alternative in mind (maybe Mop_it_up is right that the 120-star setup is the best/only way to handle 3-D Mario). But if the Tokyo team thought of an interesting and worthwhile new structure for Galaxy 2, I'd be even more excited to play.

[EasyCure]

I didn't mind the 120 star set-up in Galaxy because the way the levels were done, it was alot more like the 2d Mario game progression than you'd think, especially compared to Mario 64 and Sunshine.

In the latter 2 titles, you'd be thrown into this huge open world and given your goal to achieve, but you could always end up completing a different goal entirely, then have to come back and be thrown into this huge world again to venture off and figure out what you're supposed to do. This was fun the first time around in Mario 64 cuz it was new and exciting, but by the middle of Sunshine it did get a little tedious..

Then Galaxy comes in and you think "Oh great, another 120 stars to collect" but the majority of the stars you had to collect, albeit set in the same galaxy, felt more unique to acquire because they made the experience a little more linear (in a good way). Instead of feeling like you were back in the same ol' Cookie Galaxy (or whatever they were called) and wandering around seeing the same old things, the game made only certain areas/paths accessible and thus created a more traditional 2d mario feel in a 3d mario environment. The stars were simply the end goal in this sense, but instead of going through all of Wold 1 Level 1-8, you gain access to World 2 and its "levels" after only a few stars, which allows you to eventually unlock all the Worlds/Galaxies and experience the majority of the game without having to get every last star.

This is why Mario Galaxy is damn near perfect, and the game closest to reaching SMB3 level of greatness.

[ThomasO]

While I loved the structure of Mario Galaxy, the only thing I did not like about its linearity is that the galaxies gave you little reason to go back. I loved the level of exploration provided by both SM64 and SMG, you always had that feeling you could stumble onto someplace new. In Galaxy though, it's so linear that you know that there's nothing else to find. Even SMB 1, 2, and 3 had a sense of exploration going on, which makes them some of my favorite games. I recall there being areas in all 3 that I'd never seen before until years later.

A lot of the concepts used in Galaxy were very similar (to the point of being boring), unlike some 2D games that employed a new gimmick unique to each level. Donkey Kong Country 2 and 3 were my idea of being linear enough to retain a smooth flow but expansive enough to explore and always come to something new, and showing off new gimmicks for each level. Galaxy had a lot of potential for interesting gimmicks, but sadly not many were used. I always found the gimmicks the funnest part of some games: they made you want to replay those levels over and over again.

[EasyCure]

The lack of secret areas to stumble upon is why Galaxy hasn't beat out SMB3 in terms of the best Mario game (in my eyes). I didn't mine that some of the levels were linear, because there was enough of a balance with the more open worlds to jump around and see just how far my acrobatics could take me.

[NWR_insanolord]

Not only did I not mind the linearity, I liked it better than the open worlds of 64 and Sunshine. It was one of the things that made it feel more like the 2D games to me.