I have quite the funny history with this game, because when it originally released, I loathed it, as someone whose favorite games were the first two Paper Mario games. I didn’t want to play it and would always complain about it, even though I was just a young wee lad. Little did I know what would happen to franchise after this game... Anyway, after a year or two with a Wii in my possession, I decided to finally give it a shot and I... kinda liked it? Didn’t find it anything special, but I didn’t hate it either. That was around 2011, and since then I had never replayed it, that is until this year, when I felt this urge of finally replaying this game.

The biggest point of contention for most people is the combat. The idea is fun in concept, a platformer with RPG elements. It's satisfying to jump around dealing numbered damage to everything in your path. The most brilliant thing about it might be how they transformed the usually pointless score tally into the level up system, because defeating enemies gives you points that add up to your score, which makes you level up by increasing your HP or attack power once you reach a certain score threshold. You can earn more points by chaining bounces on several enemies and pulling off Stylish moves by shaking the Wii Remote, which can be hard but adds to the satisfaction of this battle system.

However, everything is ABSURDLY easy. You jump a few times on an enemy and BAM, they're gone. This even applies to the boss fights, who can be cheesed in countless ways and offer no real challenge, EVEN THE FINAL BOSS! The boss fights rarely ever try something interesting, none of them incorporate the 3D switching mechanic into their fights and most of them don't even require you to use any of the partner abilities, and the ones that do boil down to simply spamming a single move. It's the definition of mindless, there is no need to create a strategy for any encounters, other than bringing healing items.

So half of the gameplay loop is the combat and the other half is exploring the areas and solving puzzles to progress, mainly using the biggest selling point of the game: the ability to switch the perspective from 2D to 3D. It's cool. It's really cool. Even now as an adult I still can't grasp how that even works, can't wrap my head around what kind of programming witchcraft the devs had to make for that to function.

But despite being fun to see the world through that new perspective, that mechanic is the solution to 90% of the game’s puzzles and roadblocks. You flip and find the right path or the required macguffin. Since the game is so over-reliant on that mechanic, you're not incentivized to use Peach, Bowser, or Luigi frequently since they don't have the ability to flip. If you like using them, too bad, because you'll have to keep constantly switching over to Mario. The partners’ abilities are also heavily underutilized, usually only required for the chapters they are found on. Sometimes when the game is feeling TRULY lazy it simply requires you to point the Wii Remote to the screen to find a hidden door. Not rewarding in the slightest.

Now something people often praise regarding this game is the artstyle, and it is undoubtedly one of the most unique Mario games when it comes to that. Everything is geometrical and abstract, be it the levels or the characters, all formed by angular lines and varied shapes. It's an aesthetic that gives this game its own identity, something that became increasingly rare in the Mario series in the years following the release of this game. It is pretty charming and I commend it for trying something completely unconventional for the series, but I'd be lying if I said I love this visual style.

Again, while it's great that they weren't restrained by what's considered conventional by Mario standards, I'd say this game goes a bit TOO far in that regard, especially the character designs. Most of the original characters don't feel like they fit in the Mario universe, it gives me this vibe of a fangame made by a kid that wanted to see their OCs interacting with Mario characters. And I say “a kid” specifically because the designs are so simplistic to the point I find some of them ugly.

The variety of locales you journey through is another of Super Paper Mario’s strongest assets. From retro grasslands to outer space, from a nerd fortress to a mansion with slave workers, from a monochromatic castle to heaven and hell themselves... You never know what awaits you, and even during a replay it’s still a blast to see the creativity on display in each of these areas.

But I feel the structure of the game clashes with the exploration of these areas, interrupting the flow by segmenting them into subchapters instead of seamlessly weaving them together, making them feel more like disconnected levels in a platformer game than well fleshed out interconnected worlds of an RPG.

And finally, THE main aspect that makes people remember this game fondly: the story. ‘Till this day you’ll see tons of peeps mentioning how great the story was for a Mario game, always bringing it up when talking about how the Paper Mario games that came after it dumbed everything down, featuring barebones plots with no stakes or character development, which is true.

I doubt a new Mario fan would believe me if I told him we once had a Mario game whose main plot was a love story of a heartbroken man who wanted to end the whole world by fulfilling a dark prophecy because his loved one was taken away from him and (presumably) killed by his tribe since their love was forbidden, but that is Super Paper Mario.

Unfortunately, I’d say the story is a bit of an acquired taste. Given how disconnected it is with the Mario universe, it feels like a fanfic that has nothing to do with Mario, but for some reason features him and his gang. Nowadays I can appreciate the introspective story blurbs about Blumiere and Timpani between each chapter, but as a pre-teen I couldn’t give two fucks about it. It’s a novelty, basically. An experiment that went against many conventions of the Mario series, something that weirded me out back when the game first came out, but that now I admire... for the most part.

All in all, Super Paper Mario is a game unlike any other in the Mario franchise. There was no game like it before it was released, and there has been no game like it since its release. It’s one incredibly tough game to evaluate, because it’s flawed to the core, but that’s by virtue of its own ambition, because the game isn’t afraid AT ALL of treading new grounds, which makes me admire it deeply. It’s a journey with many ups and downs, but the downs are never bad enough to sour the ride, so it was a pleasant experience from beginning to end to revisit this game again after many years.

PS: This is an abridged version of my full review of this game. If you're interested in reading the complete version, please check it out here!