A masterpiece of a Mario game. Princess peach saves herself, Bowser becomes your homie, and Luigi turns evil and gets a dope theme song. Count Bleck makes a cooler villain than Bowser. Each world was so colorful and unique. The pixels were charming; I loved how each of them had a unique personality. This game had a ton of references to other games/media, but they went over my head. I collected all the cards and recipes in this game, and cleared both pits of 100 trials.
Super Paper Mario is such a radical departure from the format of the first two games that it hardly feels right to call it a sequel of the same franchise. Nevertheless it's a fun arcadey experience. Surprisingly the storyline is really quite good. Entertaining, phantasmal, full of heart. A good ride.
This game's story is literally top tier in Mario terms-- It feels like they made the story and then weaved the Mario characters into it slightly. The major downside of this game is the often very oddly cryptic puzzles alongside the fact that it's VERY hard to pick up an old save file if you don't remember which pure heart you had / which pure heart you put into a pillar... Still worthwhile.
dude. playable bowser. 4.5 stars.
Why did they not keep the mechanics from TTYD
Best Story in the Paper Mario Series but has the least interesting gameplay
Had a lot of strange feelings when replaying this tbh. It used to be my favorite Paper Mario game (mostly since it was my first), and I’d always think about how the writing and world design were far more interesting here this than in TTYD whenever I reflected on the series. But even though I still do like it quite a bit, I’m not sure if that’s a very honest position for me anymore.
I do think it has a handful of ideas that are more realized than its GameCube predecessor (primarily how the game assigns unique mechanics to the 4 main characters that carry throughout the whole game, especially swapping to 3D). And yeah I do get more out of the writing and character dynamics here; but honestly, as I was playing more and more I found myself just puzzled at its very existence.
I understand that it was originally intended for the GameCube—and therefore might’ve faired better as a companion to TTYD than a sequel—but I couldn’t shake the feeling that this is just way too weird and different of a project to the entirety of the Paper Mario series that it’s nearly impossible to compare them side-by-side. This is a side-scrolling platformer through and through and what that genre invokes/necessitates is almost totally opposed to that of the turn-based RPG genre. It doesn’t matter how much you try to blend the two as they were made to be entirely unique experiences.
I do think it has a handful of ideas that are more realized than its GameCube predecessor (primarily how the game assigns unique mechanics to the 4 main characters that carry throughout the whole game, especially swapping to 3D). And yeah I do get more out of the writing and character dynamics here; but honestly, as I was playing more and more I found myself just puzzled at its very existence.
I understand that it was originally intended for the GameCube—and therefore might’ve faired better as a companion to TTYD than a sequel—but I couldn’t shake the feeling that this is just way too weird and different of a project to the entirety of the Paper Mario series that it’s nearly impossible to compare them side-by-side. This is a side-scrolling platformer through and through and what that genre invokes/necessitates is almost totally opposed to that of the turn-based RPG genre. It doesn’t matter how much you try to blend the two as they were made to be entirely unique experiences.
Great story.
My clearest memory of this is watching the very long opening, repeatedly selecting "no" when Mario is asked if he'd like to save the world, being met with a game over, and having to watch the whole opening again.
A lot of people look down on this game for the fact that it departed from the Paper Mario series. I understand that complaint, but I still think this game is excellent in its own right.
I love the story of this game and.. that's pretty much it. The gameplay aspect of it is not the high point, in fact, I'd argue that it is it's lowest point. It's a 2D platformer and not really interesting overall, in comparison to the previous games of the franchise.