Super Mario Galaxy 2 Review

Super Mario Galaxy 2 Review

Review by IGN 10/10 Masterful

Not since the days of the Nintendo Entertainment System has Nintendo been so committed to the Super Mario franchise on its current generation console: 2007 was the year that Nintendo revamped the 3D Mario design with Super Mario Galaxy, and just six months ago the company rebooted the 2D design with New Super Mario Bros. Wii. Just a short wait later, Nintendo’s returned to its first Wii Mario game to give it a second go: there is so much creativity, variety and challenge poured into this sequel. 2007 Super Mario Galaxy was brilliant, but 2010’s Super Mario Galaxy 2 is absolutely amazing.


By now it’s a given that any game in the “Super Mario” franchise is a project Nintendo takes seriously. Even last year’s New Super Mario Bros. Wii, a game that I felt played it a little too safe, was still an incredibly fun throwback to what made (and still makes) the classic 8 and 16-bit installments such timeless videogames. Super Mario Galaxy 2 has a stigma similar to last year’s Mario game: the Galaxy design already wowed us three years ago, so Nintendo would really have to work hard to make jaded gamers stand up and take notice.

Super Mario Galaxy 2 Full Review

Review by G4TV 5/5

Super Mario Galaxy 2 is the culmination of over 20 years of Mario gaming into one fantastically-designed and creative platformer. It’s also one of 2010’s absolutely best games.

In grade school, my friends and I would sometimes take out our rulers and blank sheets of paper, and draw elaborate corridor paths that would snake around the sheet until it reached an end point on the other side. Filling the white space with giant triangles, wavy lines, black holes, and other devious (to a 4th-grader) traps, the goal of the game was for another person to draw a continuous line from the beginning of the path to the end, without hitting any of the corridor walls or the hazards we concocted. If we did, we’d lose a “life.” It should go without saying that all of us were die hard Super Mario Bros. fans, and to us, it wasn’t so much about platforming (a term we had no conception of) as it was the sense of running through an obstacle course. So if I were to travel back through time and show my 10-year old self and friends Super Mario Galaxy 2, heads would probably explode.

Super Mario Galaxy 2 Full Review

Review by Games Radar 10/10 Incredible

The Wii is a joke, or at least that’s how it often feels. In the past, we’ve gotten lots of mileage out of mocking the system and its mega-hits, like Wii Play, Game Party and (sigh) Just Dance. We still turn on our Wiis every now and then, mostly just to play the rare “real” games that get put on disc or come to WiiWare, like Cave Story did. But give us more Mario Galaxy and we hurriedly dust off the white wonder, install new batteries and get to waggling, no questions asked, as all the cynicism and bad feelings wash away.

And why not? The first Galaxy has remained the best game for the system in the two-and-a-half years since its release. Once Super Mario Galaxy 2 was announced, we were filled with high hopes that at least something would be coming to the system that could keep up with competition, instead of merely side-stepping it with casual hits and exercise plans. But is Galaxy 2 what we hoped for? Or is it just microwaved leftovers from the brilliant first outing?

This isn’t Mario Galaxy 1.5 (mostly)

After it was announced, some critics condescendingly referred to Galaxy 2 as “Galaxy 1.5,” and it didn’t help when Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto said it was once called it that internally as well. But even if it was initially planned as a mere update to the original, it’s become so much more that the 1.5 label no longer fits. But maybe 2 isn’t quite the correct title either. Maybe it should’ve been “Episodes from Mario Galaxy,” as it feels more like a new, alternate take on a near-perfect original than what we’d normally define as a sequel.

Super Mario Galaxy 2 Full Review

Super Mario Galaxy 2 Video Review