Wii Critic Reviews

This isn't a game that redefines the genre: this is one that rolls it up and locks it away.

Takes everything its predecessor did and maintains that urgent sense of wonder and discovery, creating a world that copies its past self, yet keeps the freshness that made it so exciting when the first game debuted two years ago.

Consider me "wowed." Again. Yes, Super Mario Galaxy 2 is more of what made the original so amazingly good: brilliant gravity platfoming. Incredibly tight and responsive controls. Fantastic musical score. But it's not a "me too" experience -- a significant majority of this sequel is brand new.

Expanding on the original's brilliance, this ingenious platformer only gets better by embracing the Wii's limited capabilities and adds so many ideas, big and small, that we can't help but love it. Even if you (mistakenly) believe it's too similar to the first game, what's wrong with more of an incredibly great thing?

Super Mario Galaxy 2 doesn't tinker with the established formula very much, but we didn't really want it to. It's huge, brilliant, and gorgeous. It's why you started playing videogames in the first place.

Even the harshest critics will struggle to find fault in its symphony of imagination, execution, and polish, while fans will cherish its brilliance for years to come as one of the very best games in history. Quite simply put, Super Mario Galaxy 2 is the reason I still play videogames.

Super Mario Galaxy was a triumph, but the sequel manages to take things to a new level of excellence by adding new material as well as fixing elements that, in hindsight, did not appear to be broken.

For all the meaningful changes and additions that have been made, this is still more Super Mario Galaxy--which is to say that it looks and sounds about as good as a game for the Wii ever has, with consistently inventive level design, and exceptionally responsive gameplay.

Super Mario Galaxy 2 is simply an outstanding game. It never rests on its laurels for a second, constantly presenting new objectives and mechanics to push you to never before seen places. Even the two-player mode offers new abilities and delights, making it even more fun to play with a friend by your side.

Every once in a while a video game comes along that's just so spectacular that it ends up defining the very system it's released on and raises the bar by which all other games in the series and genre will be judged. It's safe to say that game has now arrived on the Wii console.