Super Mario Galaxy 2 is going to cause the universe to explode. I don’t mean that in terms of the game’s (science?) fiction, I’m actually talking about the physical solar system in which both you and I are sitting here staring at a computer monitor. The cause for this cataclysm is obvious; Nintendo, a corporation and game developer with the most loyal fan base post-Segapocaylpse, is actually giving its fans what they want. It seems like a no brainer business model that countless other publishers embrace (if X game sells well, make a sequel as fast as you possibly can. see also: Activision), but Nintendo, at least from a first party perspective, has almost always defined its consoles with a single incarnation from their landmark stable of franchises. Hell, sometimes those franchises completely skip console generations. The only possible exceptions I can think of were Metroid Prime 2: Echoes and Majora’s Mask, though each could easily be asterisk’d with suspicion of being divergent enough to be labled a “spin off.”
This certainly won’t be the case with Mario Galaxy 2. Typical first party Nintendo games evenly empty their entire bag of tricks throughout the course of a game, but the original Galaxy was a rare exception. Rather than fully exploit its mechanics and force players to repeat slightly reworked versions of those same mechanics, Galaxy just kept throwing new shit at you. Arguments could be made for a few too many prankster comet challenges, but the specifics of what you were actually doing were in constant fluctuation. There could have easily been more manta races, bee suit challenges, or tear-your-hair-out sections like Luigi’s Purple Coins. Worlds could have easily been further mined for more or less challenging stars – but they weren’t. Nintendo just kept adding new stuff and cut the rest.
The rest, apparently, is what we’re getting with Mario Galaxy 2. The Big N, of course never goes on the record with any of this, but chatter from enough credible sources indicates that Galaxy’s sequel is largely comprised of leftover levels or concepts. And that’s actually fine with me, as I imagine it would be for anyone who enjoyed Galaxy. I 100% completed the game as Mario and Luigi during its first week of release, and, with the exception of Portal, it was probably my defining experience of 2007 gaming. Sure, early media broadcasts the return of Yoshi* and a new drill suit, but no one ever said the game was entirely composed of leftover ideas. A little new and a lot of old should make for an experience that closely mirrors the original. It’s a gamble, especially considering New Super Mario Brothers Wii’s sales eclipsed Galaxy’s fairly quickly, but Nintendo has been red hot this console generation and, who knows, maybe the small amount of R&D didn’t require a significant budget.
Nintendo is finally giving us what we want, but why? You’d think they’d be saving their big guns for the holiday season, unless, of course, there is something more deserving of the spotlight (note: the author places 2:1 odds at new Zelda, 20:1 at Wii HD, and 40:1 at new Zelda on Wii HD).
Unless, you know, oblivion occurs beforehand.
* barf
