We are finally reaching the end of the first themed month of the year. Yay! I figure that the best way to wrap up a month on Super Mario 3D All-Stars is to talk about something that needs to be addressed. Where the heck is Super Mario Galaxy 2? Quite honestly it was the first thing I wondered about when I first start the game’s announcement. I was excited to be able to play the other three games of course, but it was a little disheartening to see that the first 3D Mario title I played was not included in the package. I also found it to be strange since there aren’t many differences in control between Super Mario Galaxy 2 and its predecessor so I can’t see why they felt the need to exclude it. I can’t pretend like I know what Nintendo’s reasons are for doing this or what their plans are for the future. However, for this post I will remain under the assumption that they do not have any plans to include Super Mario Galaxy 2 in Super Mario 3D All-Stars at the moment. With that being said, hear me out on why it should be included and what are currently missing out on because it isn’t included.
The biggest thing that I feel is missing is challenge. Now I know that comes across as pretentious, but bear with me for a bit. I said previously that Super Mario 64 is only challenging due to the camera being your worst enemy. I also said that while the story in Super Mario Sunshine is absurd, the gameplay is great and it even seemed easier to complete certain objectives compared to when it first came out. Super Mario Galaxy has it’s moments, but being honest I feel it is the least difficult to fully complete of the three games. It’s definitely the most time consuming but most of the power stars aren’t that difficult to collect. I didn’t really bring this up before but what did you expect from a game where half the stars are just repeats you get in an alternate universe? I’m not saying that the sequel game is going to destroy your life count, but I feel that more of the levels were designed to challenge you than in the first game. That’s partially because they took more liberties which how the prankster comets appear, and partially because they make green stars way more annoying than previously. Adding the Grandmaster Galaxy along with all of that and I feel like I can be confident in saying that it is the most challenging of the four games.
Another thing we will be missing is being able to use Yoshi. I know Yoshi was also available to use in Super Mario Sunshine but there are two major differences between the Yoshis in the two games. The first is that Yoshi is not really available until about halfway through the main story and isn’t really used for more than a few Shine Sprites and blue coins, whereas the Yoshi in Super Mario Galaxy 2 is available at the beginning of the game and is able in a variety of missions, thanks in part to Yoshi’s new powerups. The other major difference is that the second Yoshi does not have to constant eat fruit to stay alive and does not evaporate upon touching water. The platforming with Yoshi in Super Mario Galaxy 2 is a lot more of how I feel platforming with Yoshi should be in a 3D environment and it always the best way to traverse through the levels he’s in. The powerups Yoshi gets also lead to very interesting levels and at the very least it is understandable why Yoshi keeps eating fruit in Super Mario Galaxy 2. Holding onto a powerup is a more reasonable challenge than just eating to keep Yoshi alive.
The final thing that I want to address is variety. There is a lot of variety in the different galaxies that appear in Super Mario Galaxy 2. Sure there are some ideas that are taken from the previous game and, in one case, from Super Mario 64. However there are a lot of original ideas as well. That’s the reason Super Mario Galaxy 2 was created in the first place. Imagine creating a sequel because you had too many ideas for the original. That is love for a game if I’ve ever seen it. They even added new powerups to put a new spin on platforming and traveling to different planets. Also, because of the vast number of galaxies, many of them feel pretty short and so they don’t drag like some of the galaxies in its prequel. All of these ideas or twists on preexisting ideas led to a new game and yet they decided to leave these all out of the ultimate 3D Mario package! It makes no sense to me. But like I said before, I am assuming they have no plans to include Super Mario Galaxy 2 into the game when I am writing this post. Hopefully, I’m wrong. Maybe they wanted to include it, but they couldn’t make it in time for Mario’s 35th anniversary and so they had to scrap it. Maybe that’s why they have Super Mario 3D All-Stars available for a limited time, because they want to release it again later with all the games on it. This is just wishful thinking though. I hope it might become a reality though. If it comes out as DLC, I’ll pay for it. I just want to soar through the stars once more on the back of everyone’s favorite dinosaur. Now, is that too much to ask?
That Casual Gamer Guy 