Topic: Super Mario Galaxy 2

[GoldenPhoenix]

Hopefully with no hub Mario Galaxy 2 is going to shake up the 120 star gimmick.

[Mop it up]

Yeah. It kind of felt like a few stars were tacked on just to have there be 120 stars total. Super Mario Sunshine was similar. I have this feeling that Nintendo thinks the games need to have 120 or more stars only because Super Mario 64 did. Even if the game is larger, if there is less than 120 stars then people will think the game is shorter.

[NWR_insanolord]

The more I hear about this game, the more I think it has a shot of being better than the first, and the first is my third-favorite game of all time.

[Mop it up]

Yeah, this looks a lot like what Super Mario World is to Super Mario Brothers 3.
Hey wait, shouldn't that mean you're going to hate it with a passion?

[NWR_insanolord]

It's a pretty similar game and introduces Yoshi; I've seen the similarities between this and World. I think my dislike of World comes from the ways it's different from 3, though, and there seems to be a lot fewer differences between Galaxy and Galaxy 2.

[Adrock]

Yeah. It kind of felt like a few stars were tacked on just to have there be 120 stars total. Super Mario Sunshine was similar. I have this feeling that Nintendo thinks the games need to have 120 or more stars only because Super Mario 64 did. Even if the game is larger, if there is less than 120 stars then people will think the game is shorter.

Totally though that's not even remotely true. It's not really about the number of stars, but the length of the stages that contain them though, at the same time, a game can be too long for its own good. I've said this before: Twilight Princess was too long. I think some games cram in as much content as possible because that's what people supposedly want, but unless new and interesting things happen, it becomes less fun and more of a chore to complete the game.

[Peachylala]

Twilight Sellout only became that way when it took the predictable route in terms of game play progression (seriously, the only new thing it did was requiring five heart peices to get a new heart container), and the story fell apart in the second half. Super Mario Galaxy didn't exactly suffer this since they are both different types of games.

[Adrock]

I didn't say that it did. I was just agreeing with Mop it up.

[Luigi Dude]

Great interview with Miyamoto.  Here's what could be the biggest bit of info in it.

http://gameinformer.com/b/features/archive/2010/03/26/miyamoto-on-mario-galaxy-2-expanding-games-and-more.aspx

Well, ordinarily, just to go to the end you’re supposed to obtain 70  stars, which is already challenging but not very difficult. If you’re  really trying to get all the stars, you’re supposed to go to someplace  extra. Those extra places are very challenging. When I say challenging,  I mean as long as you can conquer them it’s going to give you a great  sense of satisfaction and entertainment. In the end, we are going to  have more than 240 stars for you to obtain, and we think it’s going to  be challenging for any and all gamers.

Now this could be interesting.  Does Miyamoto mean there will be 240 unique stars or is he just combining Mario and Sonic Luigi's 120 stars together?  The way Miyamoto says this it sounds like he's saying there will be 240 unique stars.  This would definitely be a HOLY SH!T moment if true.  This would mean that they basically could call the game Mario Galaxy 2+3 since the game is literally twice the size of Galaxy 1.

[TJ Spyke]

Super Mario Galaxy had 241 stars, so I don't see the big deal in his comment.

[Mop it up]

Sounds more like marketing speak to me, I highly doubt he isn't talking about the combined number of stars for two characters. Also, having twice as many stars doesn't automatically mean that the game is twice the length; there could be a whole bunch of throwaway stars that are really easy to collect. Every star in Super Mario Galaxy didn't take the same amount of time to complete; some took one or two minutes, others took over ten.

Super Mario Galaxy had 241 stars, so I don't see the big deal in his comment.

Technically 242 stars, as the 121st star can be collected with both characters.

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

Galaxy 2 actually only has 30 real stars.  The rest are achievements.

[Adrock]

Now this could be interesting.  Does Miyamoto mean there will be 240 unique stars or is he just combining Mario and Sonic Luigi's 120 stars together?  The way Miyamoto says this it sounds like he's saying there will be 240 unique stars.  This would definitely be a HOLY SH!T moment if true.  This would mean that they basically could call the game Mario Galaxy 2+3 since the game is literally twice the size of Galaxy 1.

Not necessarily. Let's assume Miyamoto means 240 unique stars. That doesn't automatically make Galaxy 2 literally twice the size the original. If I have one dime and you have two nickels, you have twice as many coins, but the same amount of money. Having a lot of something doesn't always make it better.

240 stars almost seems like a pain in the ass to me. I got tired of replaying Galaxy with Luigi. In fact, I kind of got tired trying to get all the stars with Mario, but I wanted to unlock Luigi. Lot of good that was....

[Luigi Dude]

Super Mario Galaxy had 241 stars, so I don't see the big deal in his comment.

Galaxy only had 121 actual stars that you could collect again as Luigi.  Even though Luigi played differently, the stages themselves were all still the same.  The way Miyamoto's comment is worded, it sounds like he's saying the game will have over 240 unique stars this time, instead of just collecting the same 121 as a different character.

I do realize that saying the game will be literally twice the size of the first Galaxy was maybe pushing it, but if there are 240 unique stars, it'll still end up being a much bigger game.  The previous 3D Mario's had 120 stars and yet each one of them was filled with quite a few filler stars to find.  Even if over 100 of Galaxy 2's stars are easy to find filler, the rest of the game would still be much larger game. 

It's like if someone took over 20 hours to find all 120 stars for Mario in Galaxy 1, we could be looking at it taking over 30 hours now to find all 240 stars for Mario in Galaxy 2.  Of course I kind of wonder if Luigi would even be playable then since if you have to collect all of his stars in order to unlock the last galaxy for both characters, then we'd be looking at the game taking over 50 hours to 100%.  Considering how even the RPG spinoffs don't take that long to complete, I don't see Nintendo making any Mario game that's over 50 hours long.


This is why I'm starting to think now that the most likely situation is Mario only has 120 stars to collect in his game, and then you unlock Luigi like the first Galaxy, but this time, Luigi's game is unique.  This way Miyamoto was combining Mario and Luigi's modes together but since Luigi's stages are truly different this time, this is why Miyamoto sounded like he was saying the game will have 240 unique levels.  This way Galaxy 2 might actually be similar in length to the first Galaxy then, but in actual content it could end up being twice as big.  In which case, I'm still going to say the game is going to be so good, Nintendo could easily call it Mario Galaxy 2+3.  :

[Stratos]

I wouldn't put too much stock in the wording of what Miyamoto says because remember that he is speaking in Japanese as a native speaker. The translation could have easily misrepresented his meaning slightly. He didn't choose those exact words. It could go either way depending on if the translator understood Miyamoto to be saying. This is assuming the translator even caught any underlying meaning in 240 stars.

I'd love to have 240+ stars because I'm the type of person who will play it for a while, put it down, then come back to it and knowing that every time I return I'm guaranteed to have new content will be pretty cool.

[Mop it up]

I'm still hoping that Luigi is playable from the start, similar to how Proto Man is playable in Mega Man 10. But that seems unlikely.
It'd be neat if there were then a third playable character that you could get upon completing the game. But that has no chance of happening.

[Adrock]

I know, right? It'd be nice to have Wario, but he'd have to have a fart move and clearly that can't happen.

[BlackNMild2k1]

I know, right? It'd be nice to have Wario, but he'd have to have a fart move and clearly that can't happen.

But that would make perfect sense in getting from planet to planet. Especially if he lit them on fire to rocket him from one gravitational pull to another.

[Peachylala]

I wouldn't put too much stock in the wording of what Miyamoto says because remember that he is speaking in Japanese as a native speaker.

Translation is so much fun.

[Caterkiller]

I love this statement the most.
 

mean as long as you can conquer them it’s going to give you a great  sense of satisfaction and entertainment

There were 2 Shines in sunshine that were soooo hard to do! Both involved yoshi, one in Ricco Harbor, and the other in the over world getting yoshi on that boat and to that island. It was soooo hard, I remember a huge sigh of relief after it was done, and very entertaining all the way. And by that point I was a Mario Fludd master, I could do anything it seemed like without fail.

[Stratos]

I hated that overworld Yoshi shine. Terribly frustrating. Yoshi disappearing in water? WTF?

[Luigi Dude]

Well this upcoming week could be interesting.

http://www.joystiq.com/2010/03/25/super-mario-galaxy-2-box-art-has-your-yoshi-needs-covered/

We're slated to play the latest build of SMG2 next week, so we'll have updated hands-on impressions of Nintendo's next big platformer soon.

I'd imagine if Joystiq is going to be playing a new demo other sites will as well.  Hopefully Nintendo will allow sites to finally show more gameplay footage.  I'd really like to see more of the area's that have been described so far in the demo's instead of the few seconds of footage of each area from that one trailer that we have now.

[Stogi]

Yeah, but thankfully Pro has the trailer up in high quality goodness.

[EasyCure]

I hated that overworld Yoshi shine. Terribly frustrating. Yoshi disappearing in water? WTF?

As annoying as it was, I liked it a tiiiny little bit because it always reminded me of the Super Mario World cartoon and an episode where Yoshi revealed he was afriad of water (but overcame that fear to save another character by the end of the episode).

[Mop it up]

I love this statement the most.

I mean as long as you can conquer them it’s going to give you a great  sense of satisfaction and entertainment

Yeah, that is so NOT true. Collecting the hundreds of blue coins in Super Mario Sunshine was NOT satisfactory and NOT entertaining.