Thank you! It's nice to see that somebody shares my opinion on the series, and my disappointment with Super Mario Galaxy 2.
Sure, a lot of people say that the Super Mario series has been recycling itself for a very long time; but that doesn't mean that each game is the same. Just because the plot is simple, saving that Princess every other day, does not mean that the path to get to the castle that does, in fact, contain a Princess, is the same.
I don't want to mindlessly parrot your article, but I will say something about the plot that I think you might have missed (or simply not bothered with.)
Take a look at 28 Days later, The Day After Tomorrow, and 2012. While all of the movies are different, they all have the same basic plot: There is some serious shit going on where the protagonists are, and they have to be somewhere else. The rest of the movie is about them trying to leave. While these are all the same movie on paper, 28 Days Later involves repeated zombie attacks, The Day After Tomorrow deals with the environment ***** slapping humanity in the face, and 28 Days Later is filled with enough bullshit science to inspire even more fear in an even more bullshit event. (Ahem.)
My point is that each though the plot is the same in each, the way that the events are laid out are completely different. So calling each Mario game the same is equally ridiculous. Sure the plot is the same, but the methods in which you do it are totally different. Compare the first game, where you had to take down each one of Bowser's castles in succession in order to save Peach, verses Super Mario 64, where infiltrating his paintings in order to achieve stars is the primary goal.
This is the only console Mario game in which there was almost zero major innovations, and the one time that I have ever been truly upset at Nintendo.
Hats off to you, Yahtzee, and keep up your good work!