Its crazy how this game is still as charming as I remember playing it. I'll admit at the start it's a little slow and Chapters 1 and 2 are not too memorable aside from a few instances, but Chapter 3 is when things really start to pick up and then it just keeps getting better. Paper Mario is a fun, creative, and overall interesting adventure that proves that even if confined to just using mushroom kingdom only species of characters, you're still able to make many well written and unique designs from those restrictions alone.
While things aren't as fine tuned as its sequel, it's still a game worth revisiting and with the announcement of Thousand Year Door Remake, I'm hoping this and Super Paper Mario will eventually get that remake treatment too.

This is the most hated game in the series, and for good reason, the things it does are just heavily flawed to the point where its not fun to play. Battles are useless, exploration is boring, puzzles are unforgiving and vague, the backtracking is horrendous.
Lots of factors to consider when playing this, now funny story, I never actually beat this game until recently. I lent this game to a freind and right when he was about to give it back and I just said he can keep it, cause I didn't want this game in my house.
Years later I'd get the game again to finish what I started and after seeing it all, it never got any better. This game is the sole reason paper mario is the way it is now and for that, it's horrible. But I mean the music is nice, that's about it.
Ignore/Skip this one at all costs. You will die of boredom playing this game.

Talk about a game that's just... there... If you thought there was no such thing as "playing it safe" pay no attention to Super Monkey Ball 3D. This overall release just feels pointless, a lot of the levels are filled with nothing, using the same models and graphics recycled from Banana Blitz this game does try to seperate itself with its paper craft like style in the story execution. Literally other than that its just Banana Blitz without the jump + boss fights.
Its a boring nothing of a game with quite possibly the worst monkey race and monkey fight modes in the series. Nothing is truly memorable about this game, I went through the whole thing doing everything and nothing. Even the final world you unlock is nothing. Just skip this one, there are better games to play out there, this isn't one of them.

I'm so torn on this game, at moments it can be a fun time, but most of the mechanics and the overall level structure is so unforgiving that you NEED to play with save-states in todays age. Whenever you enter a room and don't collect the star and accidently leave the room the star disappears and you have to do the task over from the start again. With how easy it is to easily leave rooms its nothing but a chore to get through. There needed to be more mechanics to help us traject where we want the ball to move because there simply isn't.
A fun concept, but maybe if more thought was put into it then it could've been something special. Ignore this one if you want.

For what it is, it does its job well. A fun little arcadey experience with its repetitive missions, minor story, semi-reliable controls, but all carried by its fun and replayable level design. I mean, other than the fact that its locked behind apple arcade, this game really isn't worth keeping a subscription for. I think this game should've taken the Mario Run approach by charging you $10 for the whole experience since to me, this game is super short and having to pay $6 every month just to keep playing doesn't seem worth it.
If you do plan on playing it though, play on an ipad with a controller if you can, plus use up that free 1 month subscription while you're at it. Otherwise, you wont be missing out on much.

Also no this is not better than Sonic Frontiers.

I think easily this games strongest suit is the exploration. It's so fun to just explore this unnamed house as the size of an ant, using pikmin like creatures to solve puzzles and collect things. It's a 3D Pikmin collectathon and it does its job super well, for an indie game its extremely well polished and I had no issues with it on that front. I do have an issue with how it handles its collectibles though, for some reason there is no way to track how many things you have in a level. Sure it'll show the counters for each thing you need but in terms of like a way of finding the ones you're missing? You're out of luck. That's why if you look this game up there's multiple forums of people posting about how they can't find those 5 missing pieces of pollen or 4 tinykin they missed. A simple fix would be to add a tracker you get for completing the speedrun challenges. It would be a nice incentive other than the optional outfits you get. Having customizable options is nice but I think a tracker would make the work you go through to get it feel worth it.
But yeah that's a main thing holding this game back from true greatness. Other than that, this game is fantastic.

Wow. Talk about a game that completely blew away my expectations.

For this being a 40 hour game the fact that it managed to make me enjoy my time with it as much as it did, is an accomplishment and should not be understated. Games of that length WISH they could be as engaging as this game was. Like I said, invest everything into the POW + Stache stat and just learn to play good, because if you do that, you wont ever have to focus on gear catered to defense and you'll be killing foes before they get the chance to attack ya. The best rank upgrades to get are Counterer (does 150% more damage when countering enemies) Casual Bros (reduces the amount of bp used for a bros attack), and Quick Level (self explanatory) And then the gear upgrades so that you have 5 gear slots by the end. The game is not hard, the game does not drag, it is purely the matter of if you know what does what. If you fight literally everything you encounter you will be just fine. Not once did I ever have to grind in these games. Unless I wanted to. The common misconception is that battles are slow, but they're not, they're only like that if you allow them to be. Speaking of. I really loved this battle system, it brought back a thing from Superstar where every bro got a new attack/move whereas in Inside Story and Partners in Time they shared the same move pool. The dreamy bros attacks are also very fun to use, and alot of these are just bangers in terms of the variety they put in. The world exploration is probably the best its been since Superstar Saga imo. There's just a lot of beans and goodies to find throughout the world. Exploration never became a chore imo.

That being said, this game wasn't perfect, that final boss is just annoying. They really can't ever top BIS in terms of a game finale. Hell, even Superstar Saga did it better. While this one definitely felt like a finale to a game, the Dreamy Bowser fight really left a sour taste at the end. I'm fine with Final Bosses being able to heal, if its limited, this mother fucker just does it whenever he feels like it and in turn it can make the fight drag on and on. Something that I haven't experienced in this game till now. there were numerous times where framerate would drop and sometimes it did actually hinder how I played. The final boss for example has a move where Mario and Luigi are running towards the camera and have to dodge dreamy bowsers fire, thing is, everytime he does this the whole fucking game lags. I think it might've slipped past game testing cause it makes these already shitty 3D dodging segments even more unbearable. SPEAKING OF. FUCK 3D dodging segments. This has to be this games biggest flaw since I hated every time the camera shifted to a 3D perspective while battling because the depth perception is awful. And these are just everywhere, they're not all bad, but the ones that are end up souring a lot of these great boss fights.

The story is just really predictable... man, I'm sorry but once you figure out how this game works you can tell what'll happen at each area you visit. You know exactly what will happen and what will be awaiting you. The game does like to shake it up at times, but its very far in between as the moment to moment gameplay is easily something that you'll love or hate. I ended up liking it but this is where I can see people get annoyed with how it doesn't do much to shake up the narrative.

Character writing though is still fantastic, only characters that suck is some of the early people you meet and Starlow, but Starlow was already pretty shit anyways so I don't really give a fuck. Dreambert clears in like every way possible, that's my goat. He is easily the best partner in this series. It helps that I also really like his design and personality too.

I didn't expect myself to like Dream Team as much as I did and in some areas it even beats out BIS with the 2D dreamy mechanics and the big luigi battles being improvements to the formula.

This feels like an apology for how Yakuza 6 left us, and I know that was their first time with a new engine but Yakuza 6 really felt like chore to playthrough and it highlighted how much of a downgrade it was from the previous engine in terms of combat. Gaiden aims to be more like Judgment with its 2 fighting styles and while it isn't Lost Judgment as the foundation if you recall Judgment was still a fun time. And yeah, for $50 you're getting what is essentially Kaito Files but with more content and is reasonably priced.

There's just something so welcoming seeing Kiryu return to his usual self, like a cool cousin you haven't seen in a while. And getting to play as him again really cemented that feeling. I think this games narrative is very short but its so engaging man. Things really just keep moving with each chapter and there's only 5 of them. For it being an in-between as the prequel to 7 and the start of 8 it really gets me excited to play Infinite Wealth when that comes out drastically soon.
Overall, if you like Kiryu in any shape or form, definitely do not skip out on this, if you're hesitant about the 50 dollar price tag, don't be, you're getting your moneys worth with this one. All we can do now is wait for Infinite Wealth to completely blow us out of the water.

After recently finishing the SNES Mario RPG for the first time getting to play the Remake months after was a solid experience. As a remake this might be one of the best out there, it's perfectly faithful and the new additions are all welcome and nice to have. But it does make the already easy game more easier to play, but in its defense the game was never trying to be this difficult RPG that required mastery of the player. It still lives up to its gateway beginner RPG nature that anyone can easily pick up and become a fan. So I understand why this was chosen to be remade, it can appeal to a wider market because the skill ceiling is so low.
Perfect for newcomers, but a fun return for veterans.

After the commercial flop that was Paper Jam, where does AlphaDream go from here? Well why not remake a game that isn't playable on the 3DS? Thus, we have Superstar Saga DX. It's called this in Japan and its a better name than "+ Bowsers Minions" cause lets be real it rolls off the tongue easier. Plus the new Bowsers Minions just sucks, it's too slow and uninteresting to be its own mode. I think its cool that we get some context for what was happening behind the scenes of the main plot but the mode feels tacked on and not really worth going through. Nah what were here for is the base game being remade in the modern engine, and boy is this game beautiful. I still have a bias towards the sprite based worlds the GBA/DS had but this game keeps the 2.5D map traversal but enhances it with superb lighting that makes each area feel distinct. There were some major and minor tweaks made to the combat but it still roughly plays like a Mario and Luigi game, this time more closely resembling Inside Story which is not bad. It still keeps the things that makes Superstar Saga have its own identity so that's most important. It's a pretty faithful remake and if you somehow missed out on the original Superstar Saga then this is a great alternative. It just goes a little lower because of the Bowsers Minions mode.

I'm gonna go against the general opinion here and say that this is a great first title in a new series. I think everything it does perfectly cements what the series will become in the future and lays out the foundation for future games to improve upon and refine later. Superstar Saga is a charming RPG with an interesting world and very great characterizations of our two bros, never before have we seen Luigi be this different and expressive from his older brother. You gotta remember when this game came out the only other game starring Luigi was Luigi's Mansion, every other game before that he was just Player 2. In this game there's more emphasis on the brothers relationship and how both work best with each other but are more than capable of handling things on their own. With everything this game got right, especially the combat, its kind of crazy how well crafted this game was in its length and overall feel. If you're looking for a short but solid RPG that involves reaction based combat and great observation of enemy patterns, this is the game for you. For it being on the GBA and being THIS good, is wild.

This started as a fun little blast to the past but the difficulty spike when you get to around world 4 and world 8 are insane. It's something to where the game becomes more annoying to play because their idea of level design is throwing like 500 of those annoying enemies, something akin to bad Mario Maker levels. It was a nice romp until I got to the final boss which soured my entire mood, while he wasn't hard i'm pretty sure it's a universal bug where the boss would disappear from the stage and then never return, this happened to me about 5 times before I finally beat it, but the damage was done. For a cute little 2000's 2D platformer, it's fine, but nothing worth checking out other than nostalgia.

I'm not exaggerating when I say this is a sin against humanity, I HATED this game and how much it consistently wasted my time. With the constant story beats that kept dragging on and on, fighting the same fights over and over again, padding for the sake of padding. This game had it all. For any aspiring game designers out there I point you towards this game, a complete example of what NOT to do when creating a fun game. There is virtually nothing fun about this game and anything this game has done the previous entries have done better. This is a soulless complete heap of garbage that I've ever played and I will NEVER return to. Game deserves all the hate it gets, it really is that bad, there was no saving grace here, nothing in this game was memorable and nothing stood out.
You order food at a restaurant and this is the kind of the stuff they dig out from the back of the trash can and serve to you on your plate. The combat was frustrating, the exploration was uninteresting, the music is forgettable, EVERYTHING IN THIS GAME WAS HORRIBLE.
The Paper Toad Missions make me want to pull every single last strand of hair out, these stupid paper morons and their horrible one liners, I hated them with a burning passion.
The Countless amounts of gimmick and minigames this game throws at you is so exhausting, the previous M&L games had minigames yes but this game throws it in all the damn time, you're always doing SOMETHING whether its a poorly designed stealth mission, a find the item mission, a chase the guy mission, a mission where you just play HIDE AND SEEK???
WHAT DEMOGRAPHIC WAS THIS MADE FOR? IT CAN'T BE FANS OF MARIO AND LUIGI, BECAUSE THEY WOULDN'T PLAY THIS, AND IT CAN'T BE NEW FANS BECAUSE OF HOW DIFFICULT THIS GAME GETS LATER ON.

Yes, I think this is without a doubt the hardest Mario and Luigi game in the series, which isn't saying much cause these games aren't even hard but this one just... oh my god. This one just was a pain in the ass. The devs try to remedy this games poor enemy pattern design by making boo cookies stupidly cheap and their sole purpose is so you can practice the bs enemy patterns but you know what my counter argument is to this? The whole fun of a M&L game is learning the patterns and picking up those yourself, yes its trial and error but the enemies always, ALWAYS, gave an indication of who they'll be attacking. In this game because there's 3 people to worry about it makes dodging so uncomfortable and when the game requires you to press all 3 buttons at once I despise it. NOBODY can tell me this was a fun control scheme, say what you want about Partners in Time, but you were still controlling 2 bros at the end of the day, the babies were just piggyback riding off of them. In this game you gotta manage 3 at one time and it's not fun, it's so frustrating because if one falls the other 2 will and then it becomes a domino effect. I really want to know what was inside the devs head when making this cause this wasn't fun at all to play. The Bros attacks in this game are also so forgettable and lame and nothing fun like in BIS or hell, even Dream Team. The Big Paper Craft battles were so boring and such a tacked on gimmick, you could remove these from the game and NOTHING would change. They're so insignificant to the entire game that playing them made me wish I wasn't.

But yeah, those are my thoughts on Mario and Luigi: Paper Jam. A complete waste of your time that no one should ever subject themself to. This is a one and done, forever.

A solid metriodvania with a lot style and love put into its central mexican culture theme. As a Mexican myself I was very happy with a lot of the games artstyle and the overall life it gave to its environments. On top of all that it was a fun beat-em up style metriodvania with an interesting world to explore. The story was pretty basic but with these types of games its not really the story you play it for, they're heavily gameplay focused and its something Guacamelee does well. If you're looking for a short but fun time to get into, you can't go wrong with this game. I picked it up on a sale and I was very satisfied with the game.

This is the downfall of the Mario and Luigi series, an absolutely pointless game with a ton of wasted potential, less replayability, and overall the reason to NOT get a 3DS at the time. I have to ask, why this game? Why remake this game? Why not the one you guys skipped before it? Partners in Time is such a mixed bag in a lot of areas that you could have easily made more enjoyable if AlphaDream chose to focus their time on that one. But here we are. This game on its own is fundamentally the same game as the original with a bit of changes here in there, the changes range from astronomically huge to they changed the creative toad designs into the stale bread generic toad design. Visually I think this game really is beautiful, but with great visuals come cheap performance, this game runs at a solid 30fps, while the original ran at a clean 60fps. If you think that's not a huge difference then maybe you should play both back to back like I did and realize that this remake is not consistent in its timing windows. A lot of the game is just slower and more drawn out than the original with battles taking longer only because the slow battle transition animation has to play every time. If you think the original was easy you have not played the remake, they somehow made it more easy to play with damage values being reduced and you earning more and more from battles than you would have playing the original.
It's just... disappointing, that this was the game that made an entire gaming corporation go bankrupt, and it killed off this series entirely. If you haven't played Bowsers Inside Story and you have a 3DS, just find the DS one, ignore this, it serves no purpose in the market.