Having had 5 months (From April to September 2007) to salivate over the multitude of YouTube clips, the substandard European artwork simply fails to deliver justice to what the disc itself contains. It's loud, vibrant assault of colour with self-indulgent nods to the past results in a game that is technically capable, graphically astounding and yet - despite that - still feeling completely original to everything ever attempted before it.
The game retains the original Paper Mario design of.. well, paper everything. Crisp, loud, vibrant colours populate the world that feels distinctly Japanese. Technically, the game does what would be expected of a Nintendo title. It runs in 480p with 16:9 and despite being so bright and often brimming with glee, the game still remains smooth and silky without a wobble or drop in stability. Graphically the game feels very close towards being cel-shaded (especially compared to its Nintendo 64 counterpart), but at the same time delivering its own take on the Mario universe without necessarily abandoning the norm. Who cares about high defintion eyebrows, i have pixels!
Keeping it spoiler free, Princess Peach has been captured, and in typical fashion Mario has to go and save her. The staple here never really changes, and - 20 years on - i'm still left wondering "why doesn't she just get a bodyguard?". The text delivers the story (unlike the optional narrative of Metroid Prime trilogy) and contains some very funny moments including references from times gone by and even some fully recent ones. A short while into the game you're introduced to the main staple of the game, which really makes this Paper Mario super: The ability to flip between 2d and 3d.
Design wise, the flip mechanism is integral to your progress in the game itself. An obstacle in 2d may not be in 3d and vice versa. That mechanic alone takes level design one step forward in terms of what you see and what is really there. A block in 2d may not be a block in 3d, but simply well-arranged obstacles to hinder you from proceeding. That said, 3d use must be applied sparingly. Too much and it will deplete your health, which adds a level of strategy and sporadic use so you don't jump to 3d and breeze along through the game.
In 2d the game controls exactly as you would expect Super Mario Bros to. Use of the D-Pad pretty much ensures you can move and jump with precision - the game responds to this with little quibbles. The Paper Mario RPG elements are automated into the gameplay. Level building merely comes from generally playing the game and executing special attacks by well timed shakes of the remote to accumulate further points. While level building traditionally means several hours going off into secondary quests this feels highly automated and built into the gameplay, as opposed to leaning into the games' RPG roots. The light difficulty of the game means you won't need to level build unless you specifically want to.
In 3d, the D-Pad is more tailored towards four explicit directions of movement (up, down, left and right), and so having to move from one block to the next in 3d while the clock is ticking down on you can prove frustrating at times. On the same scale of niggles and pickles, the game goes one further than fetch quests by seemingly inane things such as being a servant to earn off your debt and having to ask please repeatedly until your conversant is pleased with your needless begging. And text. Lots. Lots. Lots....................................................................... Of Text. There is a barrage of it, throughout the whole game. If you like your games lean and trim then this definitely will not be for you. It becomes a double sided sword, not reading means you miss the humour. Reading means you become painfully aware of the text.
The game retains its giddy appeal with sound quality, being hyper and cheeky with some dance-flavoured remixes. Some songs, particularly when grabbing a star, have lodged firmly in my head and are on constant endless loops ever since. Music needs to fit the mood and admittedly, even though at first i thought the songs were rather unremarkable i found myself humming along to them while i was playing through various stages. If you look at this game as a Super Mario platformer, you will be disappointed. If you again look at it as a Paper Mario RPG.. then in the purest sense of the word you'll be disappointed. Put in your mind what will happen if you cross paper mario and super mario, and you see what the intent of this game truly is. Blazingly fresh and unashamedly forthright in being the lovechild of several creative concoctions, this game is the result of Intelligent Systems creating lots of weird and wacky concepts and accepting everything to really make something truly new.
While not perfect, especially in the 3D plane, it's still otherwise a fantastic game to bridge two separate Mario series.
The one word to describe this game: Giddy. 9.0
Topic: Super Paper Mario (Read 7810 times)
