Like the first game, Super Mario Galaxy 2 was something that I played a lot of as a kid, but never actually completed, and so it was one of my most anticipated games to come back to during the summer. After a lot of complications and trial and error involving trying to hack my Wii, I briefly considered buying an entirely new console just to hack that and go back to the games I had saved on a hard drive, but I eventually caved in and decided to run the game on Dolphin (after a bit of button mapping, of course). Right when I first booted the game up a few days ago, the memories came flooding back to me, but even without the nostalgia, I still had an absolute blast with Super Mario Galaxy 2.

Ever since this game came out, pretty much everyone has been torn as to whether the first Super Mario Galaxy game was better than the second one, and while I wasn't sure about where I stood on the debate at first (especially considering how much I love both of these games), I think I might prefer the latter game. While the original game had a better hub world and a stronger emotional core thanks to Rosalina's gradually unlocked backstory (along with Rosalina herself being a more interesting companion than Lubba), Super Mario Galaxy 2 was more fun and interesting to play, as everything that made the original game so exciting and new was refined here. Rather than recontexualizing one level through multiple stars, Super Mario Galaxy 2 instead has practically every main star be its own level, with the mechanics and bosses of each one feeling more unique and creative as a result. The powerups were also much more well utilized here, as not only did most of the powerups from the first game return here (with the unfortunate exception of the Ice Flower and the Red Star), but the new ones felt a lot more dynamic to use, with the Cloud Flower being applied in especially fun ways. Bringing Yoshi back for this game was also a great addition thanks to his double jump and tongue abilities working alongside the gravity-defying levels, and his three powerups were especially fun to toy around with. Seeing characters from earlier on in the game show up in different galaxies was also an interesting idea, as completing challenges for the Chimp or different Gearmos was fun in its own right while also giving me a good reason to revisit these levels. Generally speaking, I felt that the level design in Super Mario Galaxy 2 were a bit more challenging than in its predecessor (and that especially applies to the Prankster Comets), but the emphasis on platforming challenges and getting a grip on Mario's movement meant that none of my deaths felt cheap.

Despite how old the Wii's hardware was by this point (even if you don't take the Wii itself basically being an upgraded GameCube into account), I'd say that Super Mario Galaxy 2 was not only one of the best looking games on the system, but also of its year, as the vibrant colors and beautiful artstyle made the game a joy to look at while also breathing tons of life into its eccentric side characters and varied locales. The orchestral score that Koji Kondo and Mahito Yokota created for Super Mario Galaxy was arguably the best score of the entire Mario franchise, and while I'm not sure if their work on Super Mario Galaxy 2 exceeded it, I'd definitely put them as equals. If there was one complaint that I had about Super Mario Galaxy 2, it would be the fact that they decided to bring back some of the less fun elements from the first game, as I wasn't a fan of the Spring Mushroom or the dreaded ball level the first time around and I especially didn't like them when they came back. Even with that in mind, though, Super Mario Galaxy 2 was still a superb game that improved on the structure of its predecessor while still retaining its sense of awe and magic, and while neither of them are totally perfect, both of these games still hold a very special place in my heart thanks to how many hours I had spent on them as a kid.

The good:
-The map is huge, and it's packed with content.
-Most of the new mechanics like fusing and recall are very fun to use.
-Exploring the islands was very fun and easy to do.
-Creating your own machines is fun, and it offers thousands of possible inventions. Despite the battery being a big problem, the huge amount of freedom the developers give you to create your machines is great, and I wish most of the game gave you this much freedom.
-It has a way better final boss and story than BOTW.
-The new abilities offer a lot more uses compared to BOTW.
-Obtaining extra parts to build machines is very quick and easy.
-You can fuse several solid objects and items with your shields like bombs, springs, mine carts and a miniature flamethrower which you can also use while shield surfing to give you several new ways to travel.

The bad:
-Combat wise, Link feels very stiff and hard to control. Several boss fights boil down to flurry rush spamming.
-Traversing on land takes way too long. Most of your time is going to be spent running with a stamina bar that depletes in 3 seconds with a character that runs and walks very slowly.
-The majority of the weapons break in 10 to 25 swings.
-Unlocking anything in this game takes way too much time and effort. It also requires you to do a lot of uninteresting side quests and grinding.
-There are a lot of unskippable cutscenes.
-It's so tedious to complete quests, mainly because it revolves around a lot of back and forth location wise.
-The hitboxes on most enemies are way bigger than they look.
-If your bond meter with your horse isn't maxed out, your horse is going to occasionally steer away from where you are moving. The horses can't teleport near you, they will only run towards you if you're very close to them, and they refuse to jump off any cliff that is 5 feet tall and higher.
-Link easily ragdolls from most enemies and bosses attacks, making fights very tedious. Ragdolling becomes an even bigger annoyance whenever you're trying to fight a dragon without a bow, since most of their attacks will knock you to the ground.
-Even though creating your own machines makes exploring easier, it still requires you to grind a lot to upgrade your battery capacity and to unlock most of the machines, since the first options they give you are too slow and inconsistent for traversal.
-Shrines were too easy most of the time.
-The camera is mostly awful when fighting a singular enemy, and it's even worse when fighting multiple enemies. The targeting system doesn't help much either because of how it constantly focuses on the wrong enemy and because of how it turns the camera to the side, making it difficult to backflip to avoid attacks.
-Despite the story being better, Ganondorf is still a very bland villain, since most of his character revolves around hatred and vengeance.
-The amount of weapons, shields, and bows you're able to hold is so little that it revolves around constantly fusing whatever weapon and item you can find, making it very repetitive. Upgrading your inventory is easy at first but becomes very long and tedious the more you upgrade since each inventory upgrade is divided into weapons, shields and bows, and each upgrade further increases the price by one korok seed. You can only obtain one extra inventory slot per upgrade.
-Exploring caves is such a drag because of the insane amount of boulders that cover most of the caves. You also need to use weapons that are fused with rocks to be able to destroy it, which revolves around breaking several of your weapons and constantly fusing the new ones that drop from inside the boulders with nearby rocks.
-Outside the main story, the characters are very bland and forgettable.

Even though I wrote a lot of criticism about this game, I honestly had fun when I wasn't being forced to grind for hours and hours. I just think that the developers should've given the player a more consistent way to travel near the beginning of the game. For example: In Elden Ring they give you a horse in the beginning of the game that doesn't get tired, runs quickly, can jump in the air, can teleport to you and follows anything you tell it to do. Another problem that even Elden Ring suffers is annoying upgrade systems that slow down the pacing of the game by a lot. Finally, I just think that the fun and tedium are constantly at odds with each other until you put in like 60+ hours to unlock most things.