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The upcoming Switch ports of Super Mario Galaxy 1 and 2 will surely be excellent ways to play a pair of all-timer 3D platformers, but at $40 apiece – or $70 for the pair – there's some question over whether that price is worth it. The price is doubly questionable given that the first Galaxy already got an upgraded Switch port once before, but it at least seems that the new port is getting a bit of extra remastering work.
Nintendo bills both Super Mario Galaxy 1 and 2 on Switch as having "upgraded visuals," and it's more than a simple resolution boost, according to analysis from a new GVG video, which you can see below. There are some pretty striking texture upgrades which add some nice details, and in direct comparisons with the old Super Mario 3D All-Stars version of Galaxy on Switch, it's clear there's been some notable work in improving the looks of this new port.
But admittedly, you probably wouldn't even notice the upgrades if you weren't looking at the two versions of the game side-by-side. There's apparently a new font when you enter a level which, uh, I guess is nice. It is genuinely good to see that the major cutscenes have been rerendered here – in All-Stars, those cutscenes were simply AI upscaled by Nintendo European Research & Development, and while that produced fine results, the new cutscenes look quite a bit nicer.
Does any of this look $40 nicer? That's a question you'll have to answer for yourself, but I've certainly seen more lavish modern upgrades of classic games at more modest prices. You can argue that a pair of classic Mario games are still better than most $70 titles you could buy today, but that doesn't make paying a premium for those old games feel any better – especially when so many of us have bought them more than once before.
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