Video Game Blog 011: Star Plumber, the Sequel

My very first video game post was for Super Mario Galaxy. So I figured it was fitting that I make my first post of Year Two be the sequel.

SQUISH. (Credit: Nintendo)

I had a lot of fun with the first Super Mario Galaxy, and I wanted to play the second one shortly after so I don’t get rusty. So far I’ve been playing it very casually when I have a few minutes here and there, which is for the most part how I approached the first game. As I mentioned before, I can get burned out on Mario games pretty easily and have to be in a certain mood to play them. I love Mario, but I’m not a huge fan of platformers, and the tricky jumps and repeated deaths can annoy me if I’m in the wrong mood.

If I’m in the right mood, though, I can play for hours. There’s something satisfying about getting to the end of a level and getting another star for my collection. And the usual Mario draws are present in this game: colorful characters, fun game mechanics and powerups, and great music.

Haha what? (Credit: Nintendo)

This game is a direct sequel to the first one, and uses the same game engine and assets. Actually, this game was intended to be an expansion to the first using some discarded ideas the developers couldn’t include in the original. They added more and expanded the concept until it ended up being a full game.

The strangest aspect to the game in my opinion is its disconnection to the first. Since it’s the sequel I expected the story to continue, but so far there has been no mention of the first game. You would think the Lumas would acknowledge that Mario saved them previously, but whatever. No, this one just starts out with Bowser growing really big and threatening to take over the galaxy, not mentioning his previous failed attempt at space conquest. So far I haven’t run across Rosalina, and her role is taken by a fat purple star named Lubba. I’ve read that Rosalina shows up as a Super Guide, using the feature from New Super Mario Wii, but I haven’t triggered that yet. You have to die a lot in a level for the game to decide you suck and it should play for you.

More changes include the smaller hub world. It is now a spaceship shaped like Mario’s head. Instead of getting to the galaxies through the hub world there is a world map that reminds me of the older games like Super Mario Bros 3. There are Lumas that can transform using coins. (In the first game they only used Star Bits.) There are new power ups like Cloud Mario (which is the only one I’ve come across so far.) The challenge comets aren’t random anymore and instead show up after you collect a Comet Stamp in each world. There is also a bigger emphasis on multiplayer. In the first game the second player would just control the wiimote and gather Star Bits. In this one the second player can also get power ups and attack enemies.

The biggest addition is, of course, Yoshi.

Yayyy! (Credit: Nintendo)

Yes, in this game Mario’s green dinosaur buddy is ridable! His mechanics are the same as always, swallowing and spitting enemies, stomping, and flutter flying. The game uses the motion control well to determine the angle of Yoshi’s tongue and spitting. (That sounds way more questionable than I meant for it to sound. But it’s also accurate, so I’m leaving it in.)

It’s hard to find good help. (Credit: Nintendo)

The stars in this game are a bit different too. In the first game you had to collect 120 stars to play through again as Luigi, who could gather all the same stars. Then you could get a final star each, making the total 242. So the star count is the same in this game, except after you gather 120 golden stars, there are 120 green stars hidden throughout the levels. After that you can get the final two. I never bothered going through the first game a second time yet to get all the stars again, but some day I might. I’m more likely to keep playing this one, however, since it’s not as repetitive. The green stars are in different places and sound more challenging to collect. So rather than replaying the game with Luigi, you get to extend the play value of the game with new content.

I’ve read that this game is much more challenging than its predecessor, but I haven’t seen that yet. So far as I’ve seen, it’s more of the same. Just good, simple, Mario fun. I can fire up my Wii U, get a couple of stars and then forget about it for a few weeks. It’s a nice, casual game right now but I’m sure it’ll end up being like the first game where it’s all I play for a couple of weeks as I finish it up.

I won’t go through a pro/con list on this one because I really don’t have much to say that I didn’t say about the first game. It’s a Mario game… platforming, vibrant worlds, familiar objectives. It’s more of the same and that is, by no means, a bad thing.

Bowser was behind it all? What a twist! (Credit: Nintendo)

Thank you for reading. I do intend to do more video game posts this year than last year, and spread them out more. I just knew I wanted to start out with this game. I haven’t gotten too far in it yet— I only have 11 stars right now— but I’ve been having fun with it. I ended up getting too distracted with Pokémon Sun and the subject of the next post. Tune in a couple of days from now to see which game that is. (Hint: it’s not on my game list. Big surprise there!)

One down, hundreds to go. (Credit: Nintendo)