Co-star is interesting, although playing through SMG2 with my girlfriend just left me kinda cold to it; when she successfully halted enemies and grabbed items, the difficulty was reduced to the point that I no longer found the game challenging. It reduced my interest in the play experience, because enemies froze before I got to them, items in out-of-the-way spots were snapped up...
...on the other hand, it meant there was an unpredictable star cursor whooshing round the screen when I'm trying to do precision platforming (especially in the lategame), starbits unexpectedly fly across the screen (often until I have none left, preventing me from stockpiling them to feed hungry lumas), and worst of all freezing enemies mid-jump, so I landed on them face-first and taking damage. Sigh.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/comics/critical-miss/7781-Critical-Miss-14
My experiences are less idyllic than those portrayed in the article, although not quite as extreme as the Critical Miss above. I suppose it works for some gamer pairs, and not for others.
My other criticism is that playing as the Luma does nothing to prepare you for the primary play; it actually takes control over an entirely secondary attack, that's non-essential to completion. A better co-op partner would be something like Tails from Sonic 2; able to perform identical moves to the main character, in the same gamespace, while having infinite lives. Tails' inability to directly interfere with Sonic's movement (a blessing of 2D that looks bizarre in 3D) also helped, even if he could trigger switches and platforms and otherwise indirectly cause problems. That's what I expected Luma to be originally; a floaty star who could move around the gamespace grabbing items and enemies, but floated back up from falls, automatically rejoining Mario when left behind.
...on the other hand, it meant there was an unpredictable star cursor whooshing round the screen when I'm trying to do precision platforming (especially in the lategame), starbits unexpectedly fly across the screen (often until I have none left, preventing me from stockpiling them to feed hungry lumas), and worst of all freezing enemies mid-jump, so I landed on them face-first and taking damage. Sigh.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/comics/critical-miss/7781-Critical-Miss-14
My experiences are less idyllic than those portrayed in the article, although not quite as extreme as the Critical Miss above. I suppose it works for some gamer pairs, and not for others.
My other criticism is that playing as the Luma does nothing to prepare you for the primary play; it actually takes control over an entirely secondary attack, that's non-essential to completion. A better co-op partner would be something like Tails from Sonic 2; able to perform identical moves to the main character, in the same gamespace, while having infinite lives. Tails' inability to directly interfere with Sonic's movement (a blessing of 2D that looks bizarre in 3D) also helped, even if he could trigger switches and platforms and otherwise indirectly cause problems. That's what I expected Luma to be originally; a floaty star who could move around the gamespace grabbing items and enemies, but floated back up from falls, automatically rejoining Mario when left behind.