Away Game Special: Comet Comments

The prankster comet system in Super Mario Galaxy 2 is something of an improvement over the first game's. I don't say this because the challenges they offer are any more balanced, but because you need to actually collect an item to activate them and they stick around until completed. It's not just a matter of them appearing and then rushing off.

However, in Super Mario Galaxy 2, where these comets appear seems to be entirely random. I mean, you'd think that once you find so many of the comet medals they'd start appearing in the worlds in which those medals were found. Instead, the comets appear to just pop in wherever and whenever they please. Maybe there's some sort of esoteric calculation involved - some formula that takes in how many stars you've collected, how many galaxies you've completed, and how many of the comet medals you've found that determines where they pop up. Such a thing might indeed be necessary to properly balance the game, but I still don't see why the prankster comets couldn't show up more frequently.

Perhaps a more organic reason for time between these comets' appearances is to be found in-game. Each level that you stop at is called a "galaxy" and several of these galaxies are lumped together into "worlds." At some 46 stars, the game can't be more than half way over and yet we've only seen four of these "worlds." That means there could be, at most, another 28 galaxies to visit.

Earth is just one planet in the Milky Way Galaxy - but here's this game that (potentially) boasts over 50 galaxies. I know each one seems to contain around three stars, but even so - 50 galaxies makes for a spatially huge game universe.

So maybe there isn't some sort of esoteric calculation to blame for the prankster comets' apparent rarity. Maybe the Super Mario Galaxy 2 universe is just too large for them to quickly make their rounds.

Away game special: Galactic extras

Being able to play as Luigi in Super Mario Galaxy 2 is refreshing. It changes up the game's controls, and offers an extra challenge. Such is especially so because Luigi has slippery controls, so skidding off of edges is regularly risked.

Unfortunately, though, Luigi's appearance during the game suggests that Super Mario Galaxy 2 lacks the first game's Luigi mode. True, this mode's just a matter of playing through all of the same levels again. But it still works as an extension of the game's content. Super Mario Galaxy 2 looks like it's going to lack that extension.

Instead, being half-way through World 4 and having only 37 stars (out of a probable 120) suggests that this game's extra content is merely hidden.

After all, only a handful of the previous levels are "complete." Having so much hidden content is fine, but there's so much of it in the game that it can hardly be called "hidden."

Away game special: Super Mario Galaxy 2 vs. Kirby's Epic Yarn

The levels in Super Mario Galaxy 2 are weird. They're fairly open, but linear; they're three dimensional, but hemmed in. In some ways, actually, Kirby's Epic Yarn has better hidden secrets and branching paths.

The reason for this unexpected difference (3D games should, after all, trump 2D games when it comes to hiding things) is that Super Mario Galaxy 2 is made up of functional areas.

These are areas that have a specific purpose, like hosting a puzzle or minigame or introducing a new power up. Because much of the game's galaxies are full of such areas, it's fairly easy to see where things are out of place. And, where things are out of place, something is, more than likely, hidden.

In Kirby's Epic Yarn, however, the parts of each level are much more neatly knitted together. No doubt this is the case because the levels here aren't sectioned into particular functions. Each level is just a series of screens to navigate through. The game also benefits by not trying to hybridize a fairly rigid expression of platforming with linear three dimensional environments.

Away Game Special: A recanting and a ranting

So it seems that each previous entry about Super Mario Galaxy 2 was wrong. Not entirely so, but major points of them. Not only can you do the air-getting jump from Yoshi's back while jumping, the game also still features the wildly swinging camera of the first game. That camera's just not so fully featured as it was.

The game's lack of the broader exploration of the first one is something to dwell on though. Since Mario's not jumping from planetoid to planetoid as he was in Super Mario Galaxy, the game feels flatter, and more linear. The level design feels more like that of Super Mario 64, where there was freedom to wander around large levels as there is in Super Mario Galaxy 2, but in a much more restricted way. This change makes it seem like Super Mario Galaxy  is going backwards, rather than forwards.

Mainline Super Mario games are hearkening back to the 2D platforming days of the NES and Super NES with each new iteration. With some three years between Super Mario Galaxy 2's release and this entry, each mainline Super Mario game released in between has been a tweaked version of the classic platformer. Some might complain about the similarity between the New Super Mario Bros. games or the DS and 3DS releases. But, the biggest change in those three years (and really, in something more like the last 15) is that Mario has branched out.

Super Mario RPG begot the Paper Marios and the handheld Super Mario RPGs; Mario Kart begot the subsequent iterations of the same, and, arguably, the other Super Mario sport titles. The straight-up adventure/platforming Super Mario games are their own thing as well now, and since this categorization's in place, none of them seem particularly innovative.

However, as Super Mario Galaxy 2 has shown so far, each Super Mario game does what its type and title suggest, and do it well.

Away Game Special: Flattened space

So, the double jump from Yoshi's back is possible. A lack of experimentation and Super Mario Galaxy 2's weird fixed camera are my excuses for not realizing this sooner.

Writing of which, the game's camera is a major problem. In Super Mario Galaxy, the camera seemed more willing to swing around as you wandered over planetoids. Instead, in Super Mario Galaxy 2, the camera only flips with you if you use a pipe to move from one side of a planet to another. This discrepancy in the camera could be explained away with the presence of Yoshi or the second player's luma, having the extra player-controlled character on screen may've created problems with a more free-flowing camera.

In any case, with the camera being so much more fixed, Super Mario Galaxy 2 has a much more side-scrolling, isometric feel to it. It just isn't as a free and open as Super Mario Galaxy was, and thus doesn't have the 3D feel of its predecessor. 

Away Game Special: Getting started in a new galaxy

Super Mario Galaxy 2 has a remarkably improved two player mode. Bringing the second player out from being nothing more than a star-shaped reticle of sorts to a small luma side-kick really expands what a second player can do. The second player can't give Mario a boost in his jumps anymore, but that's a relatively minor sacrifice.

The addition of Yoshi, though, seems like it's just a gimmick so far. A very cool on, definitely, but not quite as cool as it was in Super Mario World; the boost Mario'd get from jumping off of Yoshi's back mid-jump doesn't look like it's matched by hopping out of Yoshi's plush 3D saddle.

Using Yoshi's tongue as a grappling hook definitely opens up some interesting possibilities. Hopefully it doesn't just wind up replace the sling stars from Super Mario Galaxy.