If anything, it went to show just how integral the Wii Remote was to a big part of Super Mario Galaxy's experience.įurthermore, if you're playing Super Mario Galaxy 1 or 2 on Switch in handheld mode, I would imagine the only options for star bit collecting would be the second joystick or touch screen. It barely got the job done, but doesn't measure up to the Wii Remote pointer in any way, shape, or form.
As you might guess, that was a clunky solution at best. Super Mario Galaxy made its way to the Nvidia Shield, and it let you control the on-screen pointer with the second joystick. I don't see a good way for that to be remedied. I just keep circling back to the star bit collection/firing aspect, though. While these gameplay features were certainly made more fun and novel by using the Wii Remote pointer, mapping them to traditional controls wouldn't be any issue at all, and you'd most likely retain a similar level of fun. There were Pull Stars you would point/click to pull Mario through space, bubbles for Mario to travel in that were blown around based on where your pointer was, and Sling Pods that would let you pull back and whip Mario into the unknown. Outside of those features, there were other superfluous uses of the IR pointer. You could certainly take things back to how they were in previous Mario games, or perhaps add some other way of targeting, but I doubt any of it would feel as fun or engaging as the Wii Remote pointer method. The tongue would twist and shift to reach its destination, adding in a whole new layer of enjoyment. While most Mario games have you hit one button for a canned Yoshi's tongue action, Super Mario Galaxy 2 let you point to shoot Yoshi's tongue anywhere you wanted. A second player could also come in with a Wii Remote and grab enemies to mess with them, providing another way for you to maneuver around levels without as much worry.Ī specific IR Pointer action in Super Mario Galaxy 2 was tied to Yoshi's tongue. If you were about to take a hit from an enemy, you might be able to save yourself the damage by shooting out a star bit at exactly the right spot. This would be great if you were running into trouble with some baddies, as you could stun them for a moment or two. You could also use the IR pointer to fire off star bits at enemies.
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Not only did this make it easy to collect star bits that were both near and far in a level, it was fun to grab them as well! Finding every last star bit in an area and seeing them zip all the way over to Mario, no matter how far away they were, became like a mini-game in and of itself.
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Instead of having to run over and grab them all, you could simply point the Wii Remote at the TV screen and "touch" them with your pointer to collect them. In Super Mario Galaxy 1 and 2, you'll find star bits scattered all over levels. The most obvious change would have to come with collecting certain star bits. Granted, I am an old man and I might be forgetting a few alternate control methods, but I'm pretty sure some areas in both games would need considerable tweaking. It's the gameplay areas where IR pointing was necessary, and I don't recall there being another way to manipulate things. If memory serves me right, both Galaxy games already let you scroll through menus with the joystick anyway. Making menus work without a Wii Remote pointer is no trouble at all. Those are the areas that I'm worried about if Super Mario Galaxy 1 & 2 were to come to Switch. On top of that, the IR pointer was used for pointing at/interacting with elements during gameplay as well. There are a number of menus that you can interact by pointing at your TV screen and lining up the pointer icon.
Super Mario Galaxy happens to be one of those games. A ton of games on the Wii used the IR pointer for menus, game input, and more. The one thing the Wii Remote has on the Joy-Con is its IR pointer. By and large, the Joy-Con is on-par, if not better than almost everything the Wii Remote had. The Wii Remote also had motion controls, but there's no doubt the tech inside the Joy-Con is much more capable of a sophisticated gesture-controlled experience. There's NFC tech inside, it has HD rumble for a more immersive experience, there's an IR camera for unique tracking opportunities, and so on.
The Switch's Joy-Con can do lots of things the Wii's Wii Remote couldn't. There's a topic I've been pondering with ports of Super Mario Galaxy 1 & 2, and now's the perfect time to discuss it! As always, thanks for reading. Day two of this work week and we're sticking with the Mario theme.