The fact that thisngame has both Bowser Jr and the Koopalings ia kind of confusing
The Mario RPG thread
- Thread starter warelander
- Start date
Now for my full impressions, before I say anything else, I gotta note that yes, the crossover concept has been wasted, that became increasingly more clear the closer we got to release. I already went into the game with that mindset and will mainly judge the game for how it holds up as a regular Mario RPG.
Story
The story in this game is fairly simple, the game doesn't really stray from the basic Bowsers need to be stopped plot, outside of one notable curveball after 3/4 of the game. This game's plot is more along the lines of Super Mario RPG's story, where the actual story is simple, but still enjoyable thanks to the situations you get thrown into on your journey and the characters, special mention goes to the adventures in the Gloomy Woods
Characters/Writing
As we know, this game largely abandones creating or featuring RPG original characters, in favor of using already existing ones far more extensivly. This can understandably be a dealbreaker for some, especially given how inventive previous RPGs (except Sticker Star) were in that regard. I was sceptical myself, but the game did manage to win me over, because not only does it use a lot of them, but it also uses them very well, special mention goes to Bowser Jr, this is the first game to actually make me like the little shit, his bonding with his Paper version is just plain adorable and their final scene
manages to be suprisingly sad. Generally the interactions between the characters and their Paper counterparts are all great and lead to some very memorable moments, like one scene where Mario shows signs of feeling inferior to his Paper self, because of Paper Mario's paper tricks. It's just a short scene, but it's so unusual that it's still memorable. I also have to give a lot of praise to the different enemies, while none of them are original, the game takes advantage of their behaivior from the plattformers, such as Bullys (from Mario 64) trying to ram you into bombs or pushing you back even when you counter them with your hammer. While I already praised the way the characters are written I also have to say that the humour is thankfully intact and not only are the paper jokes fewer and funnier then in Sticker Star, the jokes in general also don't go on as long as some of the ones in Dream Team.
Graphics
The game runs on Dream Team's engine and a number of things are recycled, but Alphadream did make an effort into making every character even more lively and animated (Toadette in particular stands out), the main characters in particular have a suprising number of cutscene specific animations that you don't see more then twice at most. The Paper Mario side of things is a little odd, we now have these white outlines (first seen on Super Paper Mario's start up screen) and strangly enough the Paper characters switch between the choppy Sticker Star and the smooth PM64, PMTTYD and SPM animations, it's not bad, but I sometimes did feel a bit distracted by the inconsistency.
Unfortunatly the environments are very by the numbers. On a technical level they look great and I like it when they mix the normal and Paper visuals, but outside of the prison mine no location in the game has a real identitity outside of the generic grass,desert,etc themes, which is my personal biggest complaint about the game.
Music
I won't say much here, considering how subjective music is, but personally I really love the soundtrack, the Mount Brrr theme in particular is absolutely marvelous.
Gameplay
First off: major props for the beginning of the game, within not even 5 minutes the Paper characters are unleashed into the M&L world, you have your hammers and two bros attacks before you even enter your first battle and tutorials are almost 100% optional, the game as a whole has a much steadier pace then Dream Team, only really slowing down for the Paper Toad rescue missions, which do offer a nice variety of different styles, but could have been a bit fewer in number, because there are times when you likely would rather want to skip them and move on and I'm not gonna lie, some of these Paper Toads are so wimpy that even I as a fan of the Toads, would have liked to smack them on occasion.
The field gameplay still checks out, being the same as in previous games, the trio drill, which also allows you to travel on walls and the paperplane being my favorites of the new field abilitys. The ability to sprint is also highly appreciated, you can even use it as a first strike (not on spiked enemies thought), it's like an improved version of the Bros Ball ability, without the Babys' presence to make it impractical.
Mario & Luigi still behave the same in battle, with some new Bros attacks and a dodge function that is similar to the Paper Mario games and lessens the damage you take from attacks, allowing you to study them, without taking the full blow.
Paper Mario is one of my favorite additions to the M&L gameplay yet, Trio attacks are very involved and tricky, yet rewarding, the stacking mechanic is really interesting and rewards good dodging, as Paper Mario remains at his most powerful when all 6 copys are there, it becomes tuffer later in the game when enemies can shave off copys like nothing else and with PM being a glass cannon you will quickly understand why they gave him both copys and better dodging abilitys, because he needs them, making later game battles more tense.
The Battle Cards are basicly a variation of the badge effects from Dream Team and I do enjoy the strategy involved in which ones to flip in order to get a different card from you deck and which ones to save up. The removal of the level up roulette is a bummer thought, granted you can still use beans in order to boost up your desired stats, but I just don't get why they felt the need to remove something thats been around since Superstar Saga and to my knowledge, well liked.
The boss battles are diverse and at times suprisingly demanding, overall I found them to be easier then in Dream Team, but a number of them can be very tense. My favorite battles are the Koopaling ones for the personality they bring, especially the Ludwig and Larry battle, where the two point out that there is nothing stopping them from using Battle Cards themselves and they take advantage of that.
Lastly there are the Papercraft battles, which start out only okay, but become more interesting once you get to the ones that have unique abilitys, at that point they become a fun variation of the at this point, traditional giant battles.
As you can guess I really did enjoy this game, despite the weaknesses it has and I do honestly think that calling it soulless is being quite unfair, but it's up to anyone in their own how they percieve this title and I don't find it suprising that it is as divisive as it is.
Story
The story in this game is fairly simple, the game doesn't really stray from the basic Bowsers need to be stopped plot, outside of one notable curveball after 3/4 of the game. This game's plot is more along the lines of Super Mario RPG's story, where the actual story is simple, but still enjoyable thanks to the situations you get thrown into on your journey and the characters, special mention goes to the adventures in the Gloomy Woods
in your second visit, where King Boo makes his RPG debut, kidnaps the two Marios and Luigi (after some pep talk from Starlow) despite being deadly afraid, needs to find his way trough the woods and rescue the Marios
Characters/Writing
As we know, this game largely abandones creating or featuring RPG original characters, in favor of using already existing ones far more extensivly. This can understandably be a dealbreaker for some, especially given how inventive previous RPGs (except Sticker Star) were in that regard. I was sceptical myself, but the game did manage to win me over, because not only does it use a lot of them, but it also uses them very well, special mention goes to Bowser Jr, this is the first game to actually make me like the little shit, his bonding with his Paper version is just plain adorable and their final scene
which happens notably early
Graphics
The game runs on Dream Team's engine and a number of things are recycled, but Alphadream did make an effort into making every character even more lively and animated (Toadette in particular stands out), the main characters in particular have a suprising number of cutscene specific animations that you don't see more then twice at most. The Paper Mario side of things is a little odd, we now have these white outlines (first seen on Super Paper Mario's start up screen) and strangly enough the Paper characters switch between the choppy Sticker Star and the smooth PM64, PMTTYD and SPM animations, it's not bad, but I sometimes did feel a bit distracted by the inconsistency.
Unfortunatly the environments are very by the numbers. On a technical level they look great and I like it when they mix the normal and Paper visuals, but outside of the prison mine no location in the game has a real identitity outside of the generic grass,desert,etc themes, which is my personal biggest complaint about the game.
Music
I won't say much here, considering how subjective music is, but personally I really love the soundtrack, the Mount Brrr theme in particular is absolutely marvelous.
Gameplay
First off: major props for the beginning of the game, within not even 5 minutes the Paper characters are unleashed into the M&L world, you have your hammers and two bros attacks before you even enter your first battle and tutorials are almost 100% optional, the game as a whole has a much steadier pace then Dream Team, only really slowing down for the Paper Toad rescue missions, which do offer a nice variety of different styles, but could have been a bit fewer in number, because there are times when you likely would rather want to skip them and move on and I'm not gonna lie, some of these Paper Toads are so wimpy that even I as a fan of the Toads, would have liked to smack them on occasion.
The field gameplay still checks out, being the same as in previous games, the trio drill, which also allows you to travel on walls and the paperplane being my favorites of the new field abilitys. The ability to sprint is also highly appreciated, you can even use it as a first strike (not on spiked enemies thought), it's like an improved version of the Bros Ball ability, without the Babys' presence to make it impractical.
Mario & Luigi still behave the same in battle, with some new Bros attacks and a dodge function that is similar to the Paper Mario games and lessens the damage you take from attacks, allowing you to study them, without taking the full blow.
Paper Mario is one of my favorite additions to the M&L gameplay yet, Trio attacks are very involved and tricky, yet rewarding, the stacking mechanic is really interesting and rewards good dodging, as Paper Mario remains at his most powerful when all 6 copys are there, it becomes tuffer later in the game when enemies can shave off copys like nothing else and with PM being a glass cannon you will quickly understand why they gave him both copys and better dodging abilitys, because he needs them, making later game battles more tense.
The Battle Cards are basicly a variation of the badge effects from Dream Team and I do enjoy the strategy involved in which ones to flip in order to get a different card from you deck and which ones to save up. The removal of the level up roulette is a bummer thought, granted you can still use beans in order to boost up your desired stats, but I just don't get why they felt the need to remove something thats been around since Superstar Saga and to my knowledge, well liked.
The boss battles are diverse and at times suprisingly demanding, overall I found them to be easier then in Dream Team, but a number of them can be very tense. My favorite battles are the Koopaling ones for the personality they bring, especially the Ludwig and Larry battle, where the two point out that there is nothing stopping them from using Battle Cards themselves and they take advantage of that.
Lastly there are the Papercraft battles, which start out only okay, but become more interesting once you get to the ones that have unique abilitys, at that point they become a fun variation of the at this point, traditional giant battles.
As you can guess I really did enjoy this game, despite the weaknesses it has and I do honestly think that calling it soulless is being quite unfair, but it's up to anyone in their own how they percieve this title and I don't find it suprising that it is as divisive as it is.
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Okay so I guess at this point we can safely assume that there are no new characters or enemies, as well as no characters or enemies from the previous M&L+PM games (that aren't Sticker Star). So probably also no Paper Mario references (that aren't from Sticker Star)
...unless you wanna count turning sideways or turning into the paper plane as ones.
Oh well.... at least there's still THAT remix...
...unless you wanna count turning sideways or turning into the paper plane as ones.
Oh well.... at least there's still THAT remix...
Starlow is still there and very prominent and Antasma cameos on one of Bowser's character cards, so there is at least that, as for Paper Mario there are few more things that could count as references:
-When the Bros first meet Paper Mario he does the Spring Jump animation, from TTYD.
-There is a Paper Goomba that appears at several points trought the game and acts as a guide and ally (although it's all a scheme), which could be seen as a loose reference to Goombario and Goombella (thought those two where obviously good guys).
-The Battle Cards need Star Points in order to be used and you earn them in battle, much like the star energy in the original Paper Mario.
-One challenge in the game is called "Super Paper Mario".
-One of Bowser's Character Cards uses his TTYD/SPM appearence.
Yeah, it's not a lot, but it's not like Sticker Star get's that much promotion outside of recycled assets (much like Dream Team, althought DT get's far more real references) which could very well be a sign of a short development time and Paper Bowser can talk again like I mentioned before, so they are bringing back pre-Sticker Star stuff, but at it's core the game is very much Mario & Luigi: Guest Starring Paper Mario, meaning that PM plays the second fiddle in terms of references, which goes back to the crossover aspect being wasted, but there is at least SOME stuff from pre-SS to be found.
For the most part, the biggest part of the crossover aspect involves the different versions of the characters meeting each other and those moments are great, especially thanks to the writing, but it's not what most people were hoping for, Paper Mario really is more like the newest gameplay gimmick ala' Baby Bros, Bowser and Dreamy Luigi, rather then the second half of a big crossover.
That truly is a problem with the game, granted it still has a lot of the Mario & Luigi charm due to it's writing and expressive sprite work and it does a lot of cool things with the regular Mario cast, but as a crossover it falls flat, which is the reason why I went into this game with the mindset of it just being another regular Mario RPG, because I don't think I would have liked it all that much otherwise.
See, when I say reference I mean something very direct. Like how Fawful had a very minor, hidden away role in Partners in time, how Popple had quite a few appearances and a boss battle in Dream Team, or even things like how Chuckola Cola and beanish people were a thing in TTYD....
WAIT A MINUTE! I almost forgot! That brings me to another thing:
Paper Mario was already connected to Mario & Luigi through TTYD. They took place in the same universe...
Does this mean there's also a Paper Beanbean Kingdom? That Paper Mario and Paper Luigi went on an adventure in the Paper Beanbean Kingdom and fought Paper Cackletta?
...or did Sticker Star really retcon the previous games?
WAIT A MINUTE! I almost forgot! That brings me to another thing:
Paper Mario was already connected to Mario & Luigi through TTYD. They took place in the same universe...
Does this mean there's also a Paper Beanbean Kingdom? That Paper Mario and Paper Luigi went on an adventure in the Paper Beanbean Kingdom and fought Paper Cackletta?
...or did Sticker Star really retcon the previous games?
Yeah I get that but it's still a hard thing to overlook just because of the nature of what this is supposed to be. It'd be like sort of like if Smash Bros. had none of the characters playing remotely anything like that they're supposed to be like. It just defeats the purpose of it being a crossover in the first place.
It certainly does and I can understand the lack of any real crossing over being a major dealbreaker.
I really wish someone would interview Alphadream on how the concept of the game came to be and why it turned out the way it did...
*COUGH*wario*COUGH*
apparently paper jam is a flop
>failed to make the top 40 in the UK
>debuted at 50k in Japan, lowest first week in M&L history, including Superstar Saga
maybe this will make nintendo reconsidered their approach to the mario rpgs????????? (har har har)
>failed to make the top 40 in the UK
>debuted at 50k in Japan, lowest first week in M&L history, including Superstar Saga
maybe this will make nintendo reconsidered their approach to the mario rpgs????????? (har har har)
All her fault.