Discord gifs are the most reliable source of games critique
replayed this to help get over a recent silly heartbreak and could barely stop sobbing through the last couple hours. this game is shallow, jank and extremely inconsistent… but also beautiful, deranged and ungodly raw. i think it’s time i stopped pretending it isn’t still one of my favourites. spm, like love, will constantly disappoint with surprisingly boring space and cloud levels and is basically overrated but fuck, when that memory theme hits and tippi reminds herself she still has hope after everything, would i not let it beat me to death one last time :’)
jk jk i mean the level design is pretty good but sometimes speech bubbles look like they’re coming out of the wrong places. 9/10
jk jk i mean the level design is pretty good but sometimes speech bubbles look like they’re coming out of the wrong places. 9/10
A lot of people out here disrespecting what is probably the single greatest Mario game ever made, a real shame.
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!
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!
I’d like to apologize to everyone over the years who heard from me that Super Paper Mario wasn’t actually as bad as everyone made it out to be.
Perhaps this is a series destined to only have two games worth playing, both of them being the chronological first entries. Super Paper Mario, unlike its predecessors, is a game defined by occasional moments, rather than anything that can meld into a cohesive whole. Playing through it is like stirring water into oil. Yeah, you’ve got the part where you work off a debt, and the part where you play a Princess Peach dating sim, and the part where Mario dies and goes to the River Styx, but these are little more than sandbars peeking out from beneath a sludgy lagoon. You’d be hard-pressed to call them forgettable, but that’s only because it’s twice as difficult to remember anything else from the bulk of the game.
I think that the only reason I had fond memories of this to begin with stemmed from me being stuck at my elementary school “girlfriend’s" house every day after school with nothing to do besides play this or Cars (2006). She didn’t have too many Wii games, and I didn’t think of her the way that our moms wanted us to, which meant that it was going to be Super Paper Mario or nothing. A man dying of thirst will drink from the foulest stream. Honestly, the one thing I remember really liking at the time was the fake-out Underchomp fight where the game turns into Dragon Quest for three minutes before chucking you back into the platformer stuff. It’s good to know that I’ve been an insufferable Thousand-Year Door turn-based RPG purist since before I hit fifth grade.
I digress. The point to make here is that what I was once content to pass the time with as a child has since been revealed to be incredibly fucking boring through the lens of a new run through it. Honestly, I couldn’t even bring myself to finish it this time around. I managed before, when I was younger, and had lower standards, with literally nothing else to do. A decade and a half later and I had to bail before Chapter 6 hit.
There’s just so little to like and so little to do in the massive, sweeping valleys between the very brief peaks that this game has that makes it genuinely kind of tough to discuss. How many ways can I say “it’s just walking to the right and then walking to the left and then walking to the right again”, really? You go to a place, get told you need a thing, walk to the thing, get the thing, walk back to the place to deliver the thing, end of stage. Sometimes you don’t even get that much — the entire Sammer Kingdom is just knocking out way too many mooks across way too many rooms and then holding right for five straight minutes before you do one of another countless middling boss fights. With your mechanics reduced to little more than various flavors of jumping on a guy’s head, you can pretty much sleepwalk through every lengthy encounter by getting sufficient height and chaining incredibly easy bounces with less satisfying momentum than Super Mario Bros. for infinite damage.
I suppose what really got the hooks into its fans was the narrative, which I regret to say was not the sweeping, epic tale of love everlasting that I thought it was when I was ten. Maybe it’s the muted, reversed-instrument “dun dun DUN” score that sweeps over the emotional scenes that sells this as being grander and more impactful than it is. What really damns the entire overarching plot for me is that how few characters are actually permitted to be characters; you can end the game with twelve(!!!) supporting Pixls in your party, and I literally cannot remember the name of a single one of them save for Tippi. Where the previous two games usually had your partners reacting with dialog wholly unique to them in any given scene (meaning that if you really wanted to see all of the text in the game, it would necessitate something like at least eight different playthroughs), Tippi is virtually the only one ever allowed to speak. Partners in the previous titles would often talk for Mario — Mario is little more than a symbol in the vein of Mickey Mouse, you see, so he’s not actually allowed to speak in full sentences — which added personalized flavor to cutscenes based on who you had deployed at a given time; here, the entire burden falls squarely on the wings of your living mouse cursor, and she just isn’t interesting enough to pull that much weight.
The good moments here are genuinely impressive, and you could make the argument that they’re some of the better bits that the series has to offer, but they’re ultimately little more than that: moments. No greater implications, no cohesion, nothing to really sink your teeth into. It commits the cardinal sin of being immensely boring for the overwhelming duration of its runtime, and the vignettes hinting at a greater experience somewhere in here cannot possibly withstand the torrent of sluggish tree climbing sections nor toilet paper fetch questing nor infinite heavenly stair scaling.
Count Bleck’s real name being Blumiere implies that he’s French, making him the most vile villain Nintendo has ever created.
Perhaps this is a series destined to only have two games worth playing, both of them being the chronological first entries. Super Paper Mario, unlike its predecessors, is a game defined by occasional moments, rather than anything that can meld into a cohesive whole. Playing through it is like stirring water into oil. Yeah, you’ve got the part where you work off a debt, and the part where you play a Princess Peach dating sim, and the part where Mario dies and goes to the River Styx, but these are little more than sandbars peeking out from beneath a sludgy lagoon. You’d be hard-pressed to call them forgettable, but that’s only because it’s twice as difficult to remember anything else from the bulk of the game.
I think that the only reason I had fond memories of this to begin with stemmed from me being stuck at my elementary school “girlfriend’s" house every day after school with nothing to do besides play this or Cars (2006). She didn’t have too many Wii games, and I didn’t think of her the way that our moms wanted us to, which meant that it was going to be Super Paper Mario or nothing. A man dying of thirst will drink from the foulest stream. Honestly, the one thing I remember really liking at the time was the fake-out Underchomp fight where the game turns into Dragon Quest for three minutes before chucking you back into the platformer stuff. It’s good to know that I’ve been an insufferable Thousand-Year Door turn-based RPG purist since before I hit fifth grade.
I digress. The point to make here is that what I was once content to pass the time with as a child has since been revealed to be incredibly fucking boring through the lens of a new run through it. Honestly, I couldn’t even bring myself to finish it this time around. I managed before, when I was younger, and had lower standards, with literally nothing else to do. A decade and a half later and I had to bail before Chapter 6 hit.
There’s just so little to like and so little to do in the massive, sweeping valleys between the very brief peaks that this game has that makes it genuinely kind of tough to discuss. How many ways can I say “it’s just walking to the right and then walking to the left and then walking to the right again”, really? You go to a place, get told you need a thing, walk to the thing, get the thing, walk back to the place to deliver the thing, end of stage. Sometimes you don’t even get that much — the entire Sammer Kingdom is just knocking out way too many mooks across way too many rooms and then holding right for five straight minutes before you do one of another countless middling boss fights. With your mechanics reduced to little more than various flavors of jumping on a guy’s head, you can pretty much sleepwalk through every lengthy encounter by getting sufficient height and chaining incredibly easy bounces with less satisfying momentum than Super Mario Bros. for infinite damage.
I suppose what really got the hooks into its fans was the narrative, which I regret to say was not the sweeping, epic tale of love everlasting that I thought it was when I was ten. Maybe it’s the muted, reversed-instrument “dun dun DUN” score that sweeps over the emotional scenes that sells this as being grander and more impactful than it is. What really damns the entire overarching plot for me is that how few characters are actually permitted to be characters; you can end the game with twelve(!!!) supporting Pixls in your party, and I literally cannot remember the name of a single one of them save for Tippi. Where the previous two games usually had your partners reacting with dialog wholly unique to them in any given scene (meaning that if you really wanted to see all of the text in the game, it would necessitate something like at least eight different playthroughs), Tippi is virtually the only one ever allowed to speak. Partners in the previous titles would often talk for Mario — Mario is little more than a symbol in the vein of Mickey Mouse, you see, so he’s not actually allowed to speak in full sentences — which added personalized flavor to cutscenes based on who you had deployed at a given time; here, the entire burden falls squarely on the wings of your living mouse cursor, and she just isn’t interesting enough to pull that much weight.
The good moments here are genuinely impressive, and you could make the argument that they’re some of the better bits that the series has to offer, but they’re ultimately little more than that: moments. No greater implications, no cohesion, nothing to really sink your teeth into. It commits the cardinal sin of being immensely boring for the overwhelming duration of its runtime, and the vignettes hinting at a greater experience somewhere in here cannot possibly withstand the torrent of sluggish tree climbing sections nor toilet paper fetch questing nor infinite heavenly stair scaling.
Count Bleck’s real name being Blumiere implies that he’s French, making him the most vile villain Nintendo has ever created.
This review contains spoilers
This game sucks.
Super Paper Mario is not only the worst game in the Mario franchise, it is a strong contender for the worst game in Nintendo's history. Every single aspect of this game is bad from its lacklustre gameplay, to it's badly implemented partner system and a story so incredibly edgy it makes YIIK look like The Godfather.
The entire time during the game I can never tell if it wants me to play an RPG or a platformer, it spans across both genres and fails miserably at both. Because the whole unique shtick with this one that separates it from the other games in the series is that you can.... play the game in 3D. Is this a fun mechanic? No. It's absolutely terrible and makes it pointless to play as any character other than Mario when traversing through the overworld, which by the way has some of the most uncreative and ugly looking NPCs and enemy designs in any Mario game.
Mario does nothing in this game, he literally just walks around and doesn't have any funny interactions like in Paper Mario 64, the protagonist of this game is Tippi. A butterfly who got sent to The Flipside dimension by the father of Count Bleck, the game's main villain. Bleck wants to destroy the worlds after he lost his Tippi because the son of a cult leader can never find true love... WOW. Incredible message game! Where'd you steal that from? The Phantom of the Opera? But noooo that story wasn't edgy was it? So lets just add in this magical tome call The Dark Prognosticous to make this game's story seem mature than it is. GARBAGE
Any when Bleck is done having his little Kylo Ren tantrum he unleashes the chaos heart to desroy all the worlds, including The Mushroom Kingdom so Mario has to go around dimension hopping so other characters can complete his quest for him. Oh and btw Luigi is evil, because I guess that helps with his character development?
'Are any of these dimesnions worth saving' you might ask and the answer to that is NO. The only one thats actually unique or interesting is the one that actually gets destroyed in the main story that has these awesome little samurai dudes, easily the best part of the game.
If you noticed by now I'm only ragging on this games terrible fanfiction-tier story its because the gameplay has NOTHING noteworthy to mention. Theres this retro 8-bit powerup that has a funny interaction with a Koopa Troopa in World 3 but thats the only entertaining this game does, the boss fights are the easiest of any mario game, the final boss of the game is the easiest one and every enemy is defeated almost exactly the same (You just use Bowser's fire)
The partners are nearly all USELESS apart from the one you get for beating the games post game pit of 100 trials and you know why? Because it actually helps you speed up with this god awful game and help you beat it faster so you can put it back in the box and never touch it again. And this game can be SLOW at times, if not for some unfunny meta humour NPC making you do some dumb quest then definitely some of the level design taking you on literal railroads for 15-20 seconds to sell the "WOAH THIS GAME IS ACTUALLY PAPER" aesthetic, something that the previous game on the GameCube did way too much and something this game does equally as often to absolutely zero laughs or smiles at the quirkiness.
World 1 is bad - You go through this desert and it mostly serves as an introduction to a minor villain in O'chunks who is Bowser's rival
World 2 is actually good - The villain in this one turns into a giant spider and chases you down like Resident Evil 3, the only actual challenging part of the game
World 3 is awful - The meta humour is on point with Bowser being a painfully unfunny joke and the villain is some nerd who kidnaps Tippi because he likes Funko Pops
World 4 is so bad I can't put it into words - The level design is utterly atrocious
I don't remember World 5
Haha I love the little Samurai Dudes!
World 7 is bad - You get Luigi back but its too late in the game for him to do anything actually meaningful
World 8 is also bad - Everywhere looks the exact same because the castle has 1 aesthetic which is black with white outlines, and this game expects you to find gaps in 3D when it looks like this.
I hope after you read this review and if you're on the fence about playing this game that you take the following advice:
Don't.This game sucks.
Super Paper Mario is not only the worst game in the Mario franchise, it is a strong contender for the worst game in Nintendo's history. Every single aspect of this game is bad from its lacklustre gameplay, to it's badly implemented partner system and a story so incredibly edgy it makes YIIK look like The Godfather.
The entire time during the game I can never tell if it wants me to play an RPG or a platformer, it spans across both genres and fails miserably at both. Because the whole unique shtick with this one that separates it from the other games in the series is that you can.... play the game in 3D. Is this a fun mechanic? No. It's absolutely terrible and makes it pointless to play as any character other than Mario when traversing through the overworld, which by the way has some of the most uncreative and ugly looking NPCs and enemy designs in any Mario game.
Mario does nothing in this game, he literally just walks around and doesn't have any funny interactions like in Paper Mario 64, the protagonist of this game is Tippi. A butterfly who got sent to The Flipside dimension by the father of Count Bleck, the game's main villain. Bleck wants to destroy the worlds after he lost his Tippi because the son of a cult leader can never find true love... WOW. Incredible message game! Where'd you steal that from? The Phantom of the Opera? But noooo that story wasn't edgy was it? So lets just add in this magical tome call The Dark Prognosticous to make this game's story seem mature than it is. GARBAGE
Any when Bleck is done having his little Kylo Ren tantrum he unleashes the chaos heart to desroy all the worlds, including The Mushroom Kingdom so Mario has to go around dimension hopping so other characters can complete his quest for him. Oh and btw Luigi is evil, because I guess that helps with his character development?
'Are any of these dimesnions worth saving' you might ask and the answer to that is NO. The only one thats actually unique or interesting is the one that actually gets destroyed in the main story that has these awesome little samurai dudes, easily the best part of the game.
If you noticed by now I'm only ragging on this games terrible fanfiction-tier story its because the gameplay has NOTHING noteworthy to mention. Theres this retro 8-bit powerup that has a funny interaction with a Koopa Troopa in World 3 but thats the only entertaining this game does, the boss fights are the easiest of any mario game, the final boss of the game is the easiest one and every enemy is defeated almost exactly the same (You just use Bowser's fire)
The partners are nearly all USELESS apart from the one you get for beating the games post game pit of 100 trials and you know why? Because it actually helps you speed up with this god awful game and help you beat it faster so you can put it back in the box and never touch it again. And this game can be SLOW at times, if not for some unfunny meta humour NPC making you do some dumb quest then definitely some of the level design taking you on literal railroads for 15-20 seconds to sell the "WOAH THIS GAME IS ACTUALLY PAPER" aesthetic, something that the previous game on the GameCube did way too much and something this game does equally as often to absolutely zero laughs or smiles at the quirkiness.
World 1 is bad - You go through this desert and it mostly serves as an introduction to a minor villain in O'chunks who is Bowser's rival
World 2 is actually good - The villain in this one turns into a giant spider and chases you down like Resident Evil 3, the only actual challenging part of the game
World 3 is awful - The meta humour is on point with Bowser being a painfully unfunny joke and the villain is some nerd who kidnaps Tippi because he likes Funko Pops
World 4 is so bad I can't put it into words - The level design is utterly atrocious
I don't remember World 5
Haha I love the little Samurai Dudes!
World 7 is bad - You get Luigi back but its too late in the game for him to do anything actually meaningful
World 8 is also bad - Everywhere looks the exact same because the castle has 1 aesthetic which is black with white outlines, and this game expects you to find gaps in 3D when it looks like this.
I hope after you read this review and if you're on the fence about playing this game that you take the following advice:
Don't.This game sucks.
Discord users have no emotions.
Super paper mario is such a weirdo.
In a war between the N64 and Gamecube duo, and the Sticker-Splash-Origam trinity, Super is just there in the middle doing its own thing.
It's technically and RPG since the characters "Level up" but it's also a regular 2d platformer.... except is not just that because the ability to switch between the 2D and 3D world makes for 3D exploration / puzzle solving that makes for a bizzarre mix.
THe aesthetic is also weird: a weird combinatio of the older PC interface, classic MS paint, classic computer and technology assets, and PAPER.... it's absolutely dated but also feel timeless... somehow.... it's neat.
All of these bizzarre decisions don't even stop here: you know how this game was sold as a clasic mario journey with nothing important in terms of the story?
Well, the commercials were kinda right..... except for the part where you witness Peach's and Bowser's wedding, a brainwashed evil luigi, bizzarre species and character designs, a manor FULL OF SLAVES, THE END OF THE WORLD, aliens pooping in space, HELL, THE OTHER HELL, some of the most tragic and complex mario characters ever created and legit some of the best Nintendo villains.
SUper Paper Mario is the third unsong hero of the Paper Mario series, an absolutely phenomenal experiemnt that feels as both a acid trip, and an incredible experience.
In a war between the N64 and Gamecube duo, and the Sticker-Splash-Origam trinity, Super is just there in the middle doing its own thing.
It's technically and RPG since the characters "Level up" but it's also a regular 2d platformer.... except is not just that because the ability to switch between the 2D and 3D world makes for 3D exploration / puzzle solving that makes for a bizzarre mix.
THe aesthetic is also weird: a weird combinatio of the older PC interface, classic MS paint, classic computer and technology assets, and PAPER.... it's absolutely dated but also feel timeless... somehow.... it's neat.
All of these bizzarre decisions don't even stop here: you know how this game was sold as a clasic mario journey with nothing important in terms of the story?
Well, the commercials were kinda right..... except for the part where you witness Peach's and Bowser's wedding, a brainwashed evil luigi, bizzarre species and character designs, a manor FULL OF SLAVES, THE END OF THE WORLD, aliens pooping in space, HELL, THE OTHER HELL, some of the most tragic and complex mario characters ever created and legit some of the best Nintendo villains.
SUper Paper Mario is the third unsong hero of the Paper Mario series, an absolutely phenomenal experiemnt that feels as both a acid trip, and an incredible experience.
Superb tongue in cheek writing with lots of funny moments. It can get surprisingly dark without ever having tonal dissonance, has some of the most interesting characters in a Nintendo game, and displays tons of creativity in both the writing and aesthetic.
Sadly it plays like a mediocre puzzle platformer with some RPG elements mixed in. It generally lacks any interesting gameplay situations and doesn't really do anything with the central mechanic of switching between 2D and 3D. Ultimately the gameplay holds it back from reaching the heights of its predecessors, in spite of the great writing.
Sadly it plays like a mediocre puzzle platformer with some RPG elements mixed in. It generally lacks any interesting gameplay situations and doesn't really do anything with the central mechanic of switching between 2D and 3D. Ultimately the gameplay holds it back from reaching the heights of its predecessors, in spite of the great writing.
I never got far in this game as a kid, but I loved every moment of it. I was so used to the classic Mario games that all felt very cookie cutter in design. This was my introduction to a more story driven and different Mario. I was fascinated by the world, characters and gameplay. Everything was so different and I feel like that's what this title was meant to be. The gameplay is interesting as there's still leveling up and items to use. But the main mechanics are still very traditional 2D Mario. I loved being able to play as Bowser and Peach as they each had their own playstyles. Overall this game is unique... and that's the best way to put it.
Video games were invented in 2007 with the release of Super Paper Mario.
The last paper mario game nintendo let intelligent systems do interesting things with and not mandate the stupidest creative restrictions ever conceived in all of media.
This is a strange departure from what came before it, but it still retains a lot of what made them great in the first place. It introduces plenty of unique mechanics and characters that are decently varied as well as a creative looking world to explore. Thanks to its complex plot and memorable characters, it's definitely an experience worth trying out.
FUCK THE HATERS I DON'T WANNA HEAR IT. This was the first game that made me feel something
i dont know if this is a controversial opinion but i think this game sweeps every other paper mario title
search super paper Mario into discord gif search
This review contains spoilers
As I went through the first half of the game, I was incredibly worried that the game wouldn't live up to my expectations. The gameplay was extremely underwhelming, it's a pretty tedious puzzle-platformer with platforming that feels worse than the RPGs. Even then, I was hoping the story would make up for it, but the first four chapters left a pretty rough impression on me. It had an absolutely glacial pace where it didn't feel like the plot was progressing that smoothly outside of a few brief moments. All of the worlds were really underdeveloped, I didn't feel any real attachment to the places I went to outside of some worlds only having a single notable landmark. It was really frustrating, since I thought a lot of the interesting elements were stuck behind a dull and tedious experience. I was ready to write about this being disappointing.
And yet... minutes before I started writing this, right before the credits started to roll... I actually cried.
I cannot understate how much more engaging Super Paper Mario becomes at its 2nd half. Chapter 5 actually managed to hone in on a lot of the worldbuilding I found was lacking in the previous chapters, the villains were getting more present within the story, I got invested the world that I was only really visiting for a brief time. I was really interested to see the direction it would go with its worlds moving forward.
...and then chapter 6 happens.
If you're at all familiar with Persona 3, then you're probably familiar with people talking about October 4th being the point where the emotional gutpunch really comes in, with a feeling of dread and resolve coming out of it. Chapter 6 is that exact moment for SPM. The impending feeling of dread throughout the world made every single one of the 1v1 samurai battles far more tense, with the race against time ongoing. You feel the need to hurry as fast as you can to get the pureheart, but before you know it... it's too late. The world is destroyed and you're thrown out of it. Once you go back through the door to that world, all that's left is a white void. It goes on and on endlessly, with only scattered fragments of what it used to be. It's an incredibly haunting experience in a game that has been pretty cheerful up to this point. Outside of a few humorous moments, it doesn't really let up on this emotional weight. I could go on about how it does this, but I just want to focus on one particular point of interest, Count Bleck.
Count Bleck is one of the most engaging villains that the Mario series has ever had to offer. His conflict of wanting to destroy everything after being separated from the one he loved isn't a completely unique premise, but with the way it's explored is genuinely sad Even behind all of his fun theatrics, you can feel the emptiness and regret he feels over everything. It makes the fact that Tippi still believes in him and believes that things can be set right so heart-wrenching. Seeing that hope reach him by the end as he helps set things right with the love that he's still been able to hold on to is genuinely beautiful.
I know excusing bad gameplay solely over the strength of a story is a mindset that's been joked about a lot, (Hell, if you found this from my twitter media thread, you know used a meme that does exactly that) but I think most of the time, the experience of the story makes going through some rough gameplay completely worth it. (Provided that it's not picking up ALL of the slack from the gameplay) While I think some tweaks to both the gameplay and narrative pacing would've made this even stronger, I can safely say that I'm really happy with my playthrough. It makes me want to go back and fully finish the other two games that came before it. Despite what Discord gif search might have to say, Super Paper Mario is pretty dang cool.
And yet... minutes before I started writing this, right before the credits started to roll... I actually cried.
I cannot understate how much more engaging Super Paper Mario becomes at its 2nd half. Chapter 5 actually managed to hone in on a lot of the worldbuilding I found was lacking in the previous chapters, the villains were getting more present within the story, I got invested the world that I was only really visiting for a brief time. I was really interested to see the direction it would go with its worlds moving forward.
...and then chapter 6 happens.
If you're at all familiar with Persona 3, then you're probably familiar with people talking about October 4th being the point where the emotional gutpunch really comes in, with a feeling of dread and resolve coming out of it. Chapter 6 is that exact moment for SPM. The impending feeling of dread throughout the world made every single one of the 1v1 samurai battles far more tense, with the race against time ongoing. You feel the need to hurry as fast as you can to get the pureheart, but before you know it... it's too late. The world is destroyed and you're thrown out of it. Once you go back through the door to that world, all that's left is a white void. It goes on and on endlessly, with only scattered fragments of what it used to be. It's an incredibly haunting experience in a game that has been pretty cheerful up to this point. Outside of a few humorous moments, it doesn't really let up on this emotional weight. I could go on about how it does this, but I just want to focus on one particular point of interest, Count Bleck.
Count Bleck is one of the most engaging villains that the Mario series has ever had to offer. His conflict of wanting to destroy everything after being separated from the one he loved isn't a completely unique premise, but with the way it's explored is genuinely sad Even behind all of his fun theatrics, you can feel the emptiness and regret he feels over everything. It makes the fact that Tippi still believes in him and believes that things can be set right so heart-wrenching. Seeing that hope reach him by the end as he helps set things right with the love that he's still been able to hold on to is genuinely beautiful.
I know excusing bad gameplay solely over the strength of a story is a mindset that's been joked about a lot, (Hell, if you found this from my twitter media thread, you know used a meme that does exactly that) but I think most of the time, the experience of the story makes going through some rough gameplay completely worth it. (Provided that it's not picking up ALL of the slack from the gameplay) While I think some tweaks to both the gameplay and narrative pacing would've made this even stronger, I can safely say that I'm really happy with my playthrough. It makes me want to go back and fully finish the other two games that came before it. Despite what Discord gif search might have to say, Super Paper Mario is pretty dang cool.
count bleck is dreamy why didn’t peach wanna marry him
super paper shut up it's a good game
shame they stopped making paper mario games after this one
:( me playing Super Paper Mario (it's bad)
some paper mario fans would kill me for saying this but I honestly thought this was better than TTYD
Playing this as a kid with no knowledge of the earlier games may influence my opinion, but this game is fantastic. Even now, all of the elements come together perfectly and encapsulate an era of Nintendo that unfortunately seems to be missing nowadays.
I love this game with all my heart but overthere stair has to be the most agonizing thing ever concieved by a human, I would rather undergo Chinese water torture than have to experience overthere stair again
one of the best games ever. the whole aesthetic of it is amazing. I would love an HD remaster someday, or perhaps a sequel, if I were so lucky. the flipping mechanic is one of the most unique gameplay elements I've ever seen, and I want more.
Very unique game that just needed a bit more polish to truly be great. It really is a crime that this game got lambasted so hard on release when we compare the state of Paper Mario today, when the real charm of the series was the story book nature that all future releases failed to understand.
Had a lot of expectations for this game... but in the end it sucked really bad. The level design absolutely butchers it and also the fact that Intelligent Systems turned this beautiful, RPG franchise to a platformer and could not recover after that. SPM also ruins the best moments in the game with either humorous dialogue in a very dark atmosphere/setting or reviving characters in the game which were clearly considered dead for the "happy" ending. The story was good at best, very different for a Mario game I'll say. A romantic story as well as a villain who posed a huge threat to the universe itself... this was also not executed well as the villain does nothing in the beginning parts of the story and suddenly starts doing something during the ending. The gameplay was horrible, and the game itself was way too easy. The final boss was one of the most disappointing battles of all time, and I will say it's my least favorite out of the Mario franchise. Expected so much from this game, in the end I got a bad platformer with missed potential.
I think we should have more platformer RPGs in this style because this one is a bonafide keeper
the most colorful black sheep
super paper mario is a far cry from the structure that the previous games perfected, opts for classic mario roots injected with the weirdness that ttyd brought to the table. the results are far from bad. this game is great
super paper mario is a far cry from the structure that the previous games perfected, opts for classic mario roots injected with the weirdness that ttyd brought to the table. the results are far from bad. this game is great
TTYD will always be the definitive Paper Mario game but christ this game is something we will never see Paper Mario and Mario in general ever do again.
SPM has its quirky gameplay, for sure. But the story is so god damn good it propels the gameplay along and makes you stay for the entire ride, something I rarely see games even do anymore.
peak. peak. peak. peak!
SPM has its quirky gameplay, for sure. But the story is so god damn good it propels the gameplay along and makes you stay for the entire ride, something I rarely see games even do anymore.
peak. peak. peak. peak!