Super Mario Galaxy 2

Super Mario Galaxy 2 is a Wii video game by Nintendo. It is a sequel to Super Mario Galaxy and contains new features such as Yoshi, new powerups and returning favorites, and will be released in the US on May 23, 2010, Japan on May 27, 2010, Australia on June 10, 2010 and across Europe on June 11, 2010.

Gameplay
The game plays similarly to the original Super Mario Galaxy. Mario will travel from planet to planet using star launchers. The gravity system is once again fantastic, though there are an incredible amount of new features.

New to the series is a linear progression between galaxies instead of chosing at random.

Developer Shigeru Miyamoto has confirmed that there will be at least 240 stars in the game. While most 3D Mario games have 120 stars, it should be noted that Super Mario Galaxy had over 240 stars when the second quest with Luigi is taken into account. It is unclear if what Miyamoto was referring to also included an unconfirmed second playthrough with Luigi.

Yoshi
For one, Yoshi is in the game and will help Mario just like in Super Mario World and Super Mario Sunshine. Yoshi can be found in eggs that Mario can hatch by jumping on them or using his famed spin attack. Once Mario is riding on top of Yoshi, the dinosaur can gobble up many enemies and items. His tongue can be directed with the pointer. Yoshi can grapple onto objects using his tongue. Yoshi's color will change when he obtains a power up. When Yoshi turns orange he seems to be able to move faster, though when he turns light blue he'll inflate into a balloon and send Mario to greater heights. It appears that the fruit to make him run like a blue hedgehog looks like a pepper, while the other is a "blimp" berry when he eats a glimmer bulb berry he turns yellow and flashes and walk on invisible ground.

Regarding the inclusion of Yoshi, Shigeru Miyamoto said:

"In Super Mario Galaxy, one of the features of the game was the pointer functionality — you were able to point at things in the game, and grab onto them, and pull yourself through, and things like that. We felt that was somewhat similar to one of the things that Yoshi could do, and in bringing Yoshi in, it felt like a new approach to it and that there was a lot of fun that could be had.

I think it’s kind of difficult for us to have Mario running around and carrying things in the world, but by incorporating Yoshi there’s a variety of different ways that we can have Yoshi carrying things and using that as a new gameplay element as well."

Items and costumes
As in the previous game there are many items that Mario can acquire. One of the new items is a top-like drill. Considered a weapon rather than a costume, the top will let Mario dig into the ground and access new areas. In one portion of the game Mario will shoot underground and come out at the other side of the planet where he'll then be able to attack a menacing, hulking boss. The drill is inspired by the "China syndrome", the idea where when you drill in one point of the Earth, you'll pop out at the other end, which the developers wanted to explore in the original, but ultimately weren't able to.

Another new item is the Rock suit. It will let Mario roll around inside a rock, and let him go faster, although he will be harder to control and have worse traction.

The Bee suit from the original game makes its triumphant return after being the most popular costume from the game. In one portion of the game Mario is seen making a large snowball in a snow based stage. He also destroys snow statues with the Fire Suit. In a recent trailer on one of the planets it was shown Mario will be able to play in his Boo form once again.

Finally, the cloud suit grants Mario the ability to generate clouds by using the pointer. The clouds are strong enough to support Mario and can thus send him to higher places.

Development
Super Mario Galaxy 2 was revealed during Nintendo's E3 2009 press conference. During the event, Cammie Dunaway of Nintendo of America had already revealed New Super Mario Bros. Wii and Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Minis March Again!, but then revealed that Nintendo had yet another surprise to show its fans, and subsequently showed the trailer for Super Mario Galaxy 2. The game, produced by Yoshiaki Koizumi (director of the previous game) and Shigeru Miyamoto is being developed by the team in Tokyo.

Confusion
During a round table event at E3 2009, Miyamoto explained that the game contained at least 95% new content (some sources say 90%). Fans quickly came to assume that he was referring to the stages in the game, thinking he meant that up to 5% of the galaxies would be returning from the first Super Mario Galaxy game. This quickly led to many questions during interviews, in which he was able to clarify what he meant. Instead of there being old galaxies, he meant that some of the suits such as the Bee Suit would make a return, but would be exploited in different ways. When asked if there would be any returning galaxies from the first title in an issue of Official Nintendo Magazine, he explained that there wouldn't and even questioned why they thought it was a possibility.

Trivia

 * Shortly after the Nintendo Media Summit in February of 2010, Super Mario Galaxy 2 became one of the "Top Trends" on Yahoo.com