The game rewards people who keep trying. I couldn’t get past a certain level but got three extra lives when the level started. I like the mini extra live challenges. I’ve died multiple times just trying to reach a 1-up mushroom.
25 stars in so far, and this is great stuff. Better than the first.
72 stars. Beat King Koopa. Nice to see Rosalina but otherwise extremely anti-climatic. Hope the best is yet to come.
82 stars. I might see the argument of someone who said this was as good as the first one, but I’m having a real hard time seeing how it’s better. In my humble opinion, unless greatness awaits me, it’s not quite as good. They took away the storyline, which was awesome. “Starship Mario” doesn’t compare to the ship in the first one, and the map doesn’t hold a candle to the observatories. They took away the ability to fly (again, unless I haven’t gotten there yet-- which I’m finding increasingly hard to believe at this point in the game); this is just mind-boggling. Like NSMBW, the powerups have gone backwards. Seems like there are fewer galaxies. More stars, I guess, but fewer galaxies. I’ll have to double-check on that. And the stuff about it being more difficult has been all hype so far, too. The first few boards were harder than the first few boards in SMG1, but after that the difficulty flatlined. I’ve gotten the vast majority of stars within the first couple tries, and a great deal of them on the first try. Hell, I beat Bowser on the first try, but then in fairness, Bowser has not traditionally been a tough fight.
How so? They kept the same ones, and added a few more. I really like the concept of the drill - I think it was well-implemented. Cloud was good, but could have been on more challenging levels. Rock was a bit boring. And then there’s Yoshi! Yoshi rocks.
More, actually. SMG1 had 42 (13 of which were in the Observatory), SMG2 has 48.
I agree regarding the difficulty. I’m only 45 stars in (and won’t be getting 120+, because of their insistence on having that damned trash star again), but I’m not having any problems. The comets are hard, but they should be hard. I died quite a bit on the purple coin Flip Galaxy comet - but I’m glad I did, because it challenged me. I wish there were more opportunities to burn all those 1-ups!
I think I lucked out on that trash star, (unless there’s one I have yet to play), and got it in a few trys. The bird race was hardest so far, 106 Stars in.
Purple Coin Beach Dash took some time, but you get the feel for it after a while
The red star that makes you fly, while way underutilized in the first game, does not seem to be in the second game at all-- again, unless I’m this far in and still haven’t encountered it.
118 Stars in.
**Munch **
I replayed that trash star. It’s not that hard if you run in back of the crates.
Is anyone still playing? Not sure if I’ll get the green stars or not. I’m not the best gamer in the world, so I have found many of the comet stars to be tricky. It’s not to the point where it’s tedious, (unless you know better, but keep making the same damn mistakes).
Good to hear. Did you play both of them that way? (Yeah - I found a second one…)
No, just the last one. I can see it being the ‘tipping point’ for someone. I’ve just been playing through the game, and when I start on another star that seems hard to get, I say; “That’s it. This seems impossible”; but I always came back. I think it’s going to be annoying, but you learn each time you go.
I’m really not all that great at games, (it’s taking me a while), but I feel the urge to ‘KO’ this Mario. I’m a huge Mario fan, but New Super Mario Bros. Wii was too boring for me to want to finish %100, and beating it didn’t feel satisfactory enough.
There’s only one other ‘Mario’ game I was un-inspired to finish, and that’s “Sunshine”.
I’ve completed the game! The last star is by far the most difficult star I’ve encountered out of Mario 64/Sunshine/Galaxy series.
I like the map system. The hub-world system left me confused. I don’t get to play for long periods of time, and there are often long stretches of time between play sessions.
With the hub, I had to go to the wall to see what I needed, where to get it, where that comet went to, etc. Then I had to travel there. The distance was not long, but also not trivial.
I got 15 minutes to play. The startup cost should be minimized as much as possible. I want to go to an unbeaten level in SMG. What do I have to do to go from couch to fun?
[ul][li]Use Harmony remote to turn everything on…[/li][li]Hit the eject button on Wii (which isn’t instantaneous)[/li][li]Take out and put way the game that someone left in there[/li][li]Put in SMG[/li][li]wait for the game to spin up so that I can…[/li][li]go to the game-playing channel[/li][li]wait for the warning screen to expire[/li][li]wait for the game/intro to load, dismiss title screen[/li][li]choose save slot[/li][li]run over to the map dude and view the map[/li][li]figure out where to go (there’s no “order” to the levels. I forget which ones have pending tasks/levels, where the comets are, etc.)[/li][li]Work my way through the observatory to go to the room, to pull into the blue start thing, to pick a galaxy[/li][li]figure out which star is still pending from the galaxy level select screen (I tihnk this was improved in SMG2).[/li][/ul]
^^^ None of this is fun
Only when I complete this list can I actually play something. The map system simplifies the last 4. It saves me real minutes of gaming which is the difference between playing or not playing sometimes.
That said, this map system really has no character. There’s nothing going on. There’s no theming.
Ok, that said it doesn’t matter much to me. I’m just saying why I prefer the map style.
I’m still plugging away at it, 101 stars so far. I think I marginally prefer the map system, although the observatory was a really nice environment visually.
My only complaint so far is that they brought back that freaking spring powerup. Thankfully it’s only rarely used.
- I plugged my way through those damn trash stars. And I am now looking at the final two comets.
They’re clearly kidding, right? 5:00 to clear all those bosses? Shadow Marios trying to kill me on the Spin Jump world?
I’ve stalled out at 90-something [I think] stars. Haven’t played in almost a month. I got to a point where no boards were available, so my only option was to go collect star bits to buy off a hungry luma, and I “meh’ed” and haven’t played since. I’m sure I’ll pick it back up again soon. Just hasn’t felt as inspired as the first so far.
I almost quit in frustration in that level where you had to bounce over the Chomps. Then I found that you can crouch-jump over them.