Play Super Mario Galaxy 2 if you want the best-designed levels in 3D Mario: short, inventive, and harder than they look. Play Super Mario Odyssey if you want to explore — big kingdoms full of moons to find, and Cappy's captures make it the more playful and more forgiving of the two.
Both are 3D Mario at its most confident, with tight movement and a steady stream of new ideas. Each introduces a mechanic and throws it away a few minutes later rather than wearing it out.
Stages are small planetoids and linear courses built around gravity, and almost every one is a new trick. Yoshi returns, the late game and the green-star challenges get properly difficult, and there is very little downtime. It assumes you know how Mario moves; it is a sequel that wastes no time explaining.
More like this: Super Mario Galaxy 2.
Each kingdom is a sandbox with dozens of moons hidden in it, and throwing Cappy lets you take over enemies and objects — a frog, a T-rex, a tank. Dying costs a few coins, so it suits newer players and kids, while finding every moon keeps completionists busy long after the credits.
More like this: games like Super Mario Odyssey.
Play Super Mario Galaxy 2 if you want the best-designed levels in 3D Mario: short, inventive, and harder than they look. Play Super Mario Odyssey if you want to explore — big kingdoms full of moons to find, and Cappy's captures make it the more playful and more forgiving of the two.
Better is the wrong question for these two — they are close enough that the answer depends on what you want from the next twenty hours. Pick Galaxy 2 for level design. Pick Odyssey for exploration.
Galaxy 2. Its late levels and green-star challenges ask for precise platforming, while Odyssey only charges a few coins when you die and saves its hardest moons for players who go looking for them.
Yes — Nintendo released Super Mario Galaxy and Super Mario Galaxy 2 together on Switch in October 2025. Super Mario 3D All-Stars (2020) had included only the first Galaxy.
No. There are no scores anywhere on this page. This is a written opinion about what each game is for, so you can judge whether it matches what you are after.