Super Mario Galaxy 2 has been officially announced at Nintendo’s E3 2009 conference!
Watch the very first gameplay video of Mario and Yoshi’s next Wii adventure:
The upcoming Super Mario Galaxy 2 adventure for the Wii console marks the first time a second 3-D Mario game has arrived in the same console generation. In the game, Mario rides his trusty dinosaur companion, Yoshi, to new stars and the fantastic worlds found there. The game is planned for a 2010 release.
This 3-D platforming adventure provides longtime video game fans with a fresh round of out-of-this-world challenges in the style introduced in the critically acclaimed original. As such, 90% of the levels will be all-new, with the rest coming from the original Super Mario Galaxy but with different objectives. New powerups will also be included: Outside of Yoshi’s new abilities, a drill item powerup was shown, and a sort of ghost-like powerup promised.
Issue 1,000 of the Japanese gaming magazine Famitsu has an interview with Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto reflecting on the past, but what’s interesting is that he also hints at future plans.
The magazine asked Mr. Miyamoto the inevitable question about sequels, and he gave the expected answer: Mr. Miyamoto is indeed interested in making a Super Mario Galaxy 2 sequel. He’s also thinking about the next Legend of Zelda 2 Wii title.
As for the Balance Wii Board, the peripheral that’s included with the fitness title Wii Fit, the magazine noted that Wii Fit has been quite the success story for Nintendo of Japan so far [it sold over 1 million units in one month]. Mr. Miyamoto responded that if Wii Fit sees success overseas as well, Nintendo may end up releasing separate titles that make use of the peripheral. Bandai Namco’s Family Ski, the second title to use the Balance Board, will actually be released in Japan tomorrow. Could Nintendo’s 1080 Snowboarding franchise be next?
IGN also translated that Mr. Miyamoto gave some vague hints as to Nintendo’s plans for the DS in 2008. One of which is to be able to use your DS to do a number of interesting things in public spaces. He wouldn’t get into specifics. Earlier in the interview, he shared a vision of Nintendo supporting DS owners by setting up servers to create a play environment that’s shared between the home and outdoors.
At the end of the interview, Mr. Miyamoto gave a special shout out to the games and creators that have caught his eye. Recently, he was impressed with Level 5’s Professor Layton series and its producer, Akihiro Hino. Looking forward, he hopes players will take to the new style of play offered by Konami’s Winning Eleven Play Maker 2008.