Neo Mario Galaxy

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Neo Mario Galaxy is the very first big and completed Super Mario Galaxy 2 hack of all time. I decided to mod one of my favorite games of all time when I discovered a trailer for another modding project called SMG2.5 in 2014. Unfortunately, I had a lot of trouble dumping the game's files and getting the proper tools. Once I figured everything out, SMG2.5 was already cancelled...

As the time passed, I got my first custom levels working. In retrospect, the overall designs of these levels were not great at all. Regardless, I wanted to go for my own full-sized SMG2 hack! That project was initially known as Super Mario Galaxy 3.A. Luckily, I came up with a better name: Neo Mario Galaxy, a new SMG2 experience! I gathered a small team (shoutout to Splitwirez) of interested people and worked on more ideas and concepts... but things never really took off, there was little progress. The only galaxy with decent progress was Galactic Greens, also known as Galactic Apex. You can find a bunch of videos of this galaxy on my Youtube channel. Up until 2017, I developed a few more custom levels that were not related to NMG at all.

In May 2017, I gathered my best ideas and finished levels and decided to put them into one big thing. About 4 of the 8 galaxies were in a playable or in a finished state by that point. The first teaser showing the reincarnated project was uploaded in June. In the course of one month(!), I was able to finish the four other galaxies as well. The Neo Mario Galaxy Discord server was founded by me around that time and I met some nice and helpful people there. That server became Luma's Workshop. On July 26th 2017, the first playable version was released to the public. It was huge success! The download counter exploded and several streamers played the game. There is a small speedrun community dedicated to NMG as well.

Over the years, the mod received a few major updates. In 2020, I added Green Stars, the possibility to play as Luigi and more custom models. A few galaxies were drastically redesigned as well. Finally, in 2023, Neo Mario Galaxy received the last major update that includes an improved Daredevil Mode, tons of new objects and even more custom models.

To this day, Neo Mario Galaxy remains the most famous Super Mario Galaxy hack ever. It has been downloaded over 25,000 times and people still love to play it.