Super Paper Mario Review
Creasing us up.
Version tested: Wii
The question has to be: Is there finally another must-have game for the Wii? But then of course it could be: Have Nintendo lived up to the reputation of the Paper Mario series? Or perhaps it's: Is it as funny as the GBA's Superstar Saga? Worry not, we'll address them all.
Let's begin by trying to explain exactly what Super Paper Mario is. Which is no mean feat. It's not quite an RPG. It's not quite a platform game. It's not quite an adventure. Draw the three points on a piece of paper, creating a genre triangle. Then plot a mark for SPM... somewhere on the wall behind you. Glance at it, and you'd think it was a standard platform game. Look at the menus and you'd think it an RPG with as many fiddly options as Paper Mario: Thousand Year Door. Play it for a few moments, and you'll discover how the 2D levels can be "flipped" into 3D, completely changing all the rules for how to approach a level. Let's accept it doesn't really fit into any category, and be rather delighted by that.
So guess what? Princess Peach has been kidnapped. Mario and Luigi charge off to Bowser's castle to give him what-for, only to barge in on a meeting with his minions as they prepared to launch their latest kidnapping attempt. And then, floating in the air, the real culprit appears - Count Bleck. He proceeds to capture everyone but Mario, leaving the plumber with a lot of work to do. Meanwhile, well, Princess Peach and Bowser have unwittingly gotten married. So yeah - awkward.
(Having spent so long with the game's manipulation of 2D and 3D, as I stare at the screen to write this I see it as a flat background, and one that when flipped, would reveal hidden treasures between the words I'm typing, and display secret passages behind the save button. Mario, you see, has to travel to a town between dimensions, Flipside, from which many other dimensions can be accessed. And of course this is all essentially a pun on the visual dimension changes.)

Heart x Square = Sigma Spaceman. The sky told me so.
There's a prophecy - well, two rival prophecies. The Dark Prognosticus, and its Light counterpart. Bleck is fulfilling the Dark prophecies, bringing about the end of the worlds in an act of mysterious vengeance. So Mario has to... You already guessed, didn't you? Collect eight parts of something and unite them in some way. This time out it's Pure Hearts, scattered about the worlds for the last 1500 years, waiting for the hero of the Light Prognosticus to claim them.
But Mario doesn't do this alone. Along the way he picks up the three other main Paper Mario characters, whom you can switch between at will to use their special skills. Peach can float with her umbrella, Bowser can breathe fire, and Luigi has a super-jump. But you're going to be Mario the vast majority of the time, as he's the only one able to flip to 3D. There are other companions, playing the role of an RPG's expanding skill set. These are Pixls - small sprite-like creatures each with a specific talent to aid your crew. And all with a horribly (brilliantly) punning name. Carrie is a little hoverboard for you to ride on. Fleep can reverse background details to reveal hidden items. Thoreau can pick items up and, yes, throw them.
Once again, Nintendo's brand demonstrate the correct use of the Wii Remote. Here it's held sideways, like a SNES controller, which is perfect for play. But if you want more info about something, point it at the screen and highlight the object. Suspicious that there's a hidden platform? Scan the screen with the remote to reveal hidden items. It's comfortable, modest and instinctive - an eminently sensible use of the tech.

Taken directly from New Super Mario Bros is the Mario gigantism, letting you smash all in your path. Most fun when playing as Peach.
It's really rather surprising quite how little Super Paper Mario has in common with the previous Paper games. The one thing that stands true is everything that happens being predicated upon it being a paper world. Turn sideways, and things disappear. Rotate the level into 3D, and large background details like trees, rocks, etc, become flattened against the back wall of a diorama. Mario, of course, doesn't become 3D, but merely vertically flips 90 degrees, so he can be seen at this new angle. So say you're stood in front of a large pillar blocking your path. Flip to 3D and it might well be a background detail to simply walk past; it could be a large three dimensional structure in the middle of the path, with room to walk around either side; or perhaps it's an optical illusion, revealed at this angle to in fact be a series of steps, reaching backward in the scene. And so on. It's with this freedom of design, and brain-hurting logic, that the entire game is constructed.
Which makes it a partial shame that Super Paper Mario's great strength is the writing, and not the majority of the level design. (More of that later.) It is consistently hilarious, and toward the end, even impressively touching, offering genuine pathos. Each of the eight chapters is a uniquely designed world, some playing off Mario traditions (desert world, cloud levels, spooky castles), and others completely original, and each with a pretty funny premise to go with it.
Let's take Chapter 3 as an example, with its story about rescuing your otherwise constant companion Pixl, Tippi (she gives hints, see?) from an uber-nerd gecko. Perhaps coming dangerously close to upsetting a significant core of their fanbase, Francis is a freakish geek, obsessed with Anime and videogames. His rules include, "Roleplaying games should be no less than 180 hours long, not counting side quests," and, "I love going on message boards and complaining about games I've never played." Touchy, eh, Nintendo? (Although it's impossible to disagree with, "If it's got fierce giant robot on giant robot combat, it's an instant buy.") It's in his lair that you spend a lot of time exploring, chatting with his hilarious robot cats.
There are all the in-references you'd hope for. Francis' level looks as though it were created in Picross, and at one point the conversation with him becomes a pastiche of those freaky Japanese dating games. (I can't be sure, but I think there might have been a Phoenix Wright reference too). Such brilliantly daft moments are pleasantly frequent. One early dragon-like boss appears to crash like a PC, bellowing, "CTRL ALT DEL!" after many other similar gags. The game even manages to turn into a text-based RPG at one point. And it's for this, and the vast amounts of dialogue, that you keep playing. It isn't, however, for the platforming.
Unlike The Thousand Year Door, where platform moments were included as a quick in-joke reference to Mario's other life, Super Paper Mario has platforming at its core. Gone are the turn-based fights, replaced with old-fashioned jumping on heads, or lobbing turtle shells. While it's complicated by the 2D/3D switcheroos, and enlivened by an inventory of power-ups, either found or bought from shops, the main game seems to have more in common with the recent DS's New Super Mario Bros. than the Paper series. But sadly isn't nearly as perfectly constructed. At first the device of revealing the 3D is adorable. But you quickly find yourself cynically thinking, "So there will be a pipe behind that rock then." It seems like the notion could have done so very much, but never gets further than the first few ideas. And some chapters, particularly Chapter 4's side-scrolling space shooting levels, are dreadfully uninspired.
Completely different are the between-level sections in Flipside, and later, Flopside. And again, it's here that the writing lets the game shine and be so adorable. With minimal jumping to perform, here you're finding secrets (which is at this point a huge amount of fun when manipulating the dimensions), chatting with townsfolk, visiting shops, and attempting to locate the hidden towers for your Pure Hearts. The dialogue is all wonderful, and you'll stop and talk to everyone you meet, and visit every nook and cranny seeking out bonus gags.

Count Bleck is a superb baddy. Mostly because he narrates himself in the third-person, said John enthusiastically.
I have pages of notes of wonderful lines in front of me. ("Who are you really, you incontinent little imp?") I don't want how entertaining this game really is to get lost in the concerns over the somewhat lacklustre design of some later levels. ("Thou art toast!") But it's impossible not to be really very surprised by how scrappy levels start to feel in the second half. ("Ack! I drip with moisture. But... does it make mine hair look... hot?") Rather than presenting any sense of increasing challenge, instead the layout of the areas just becomes more poorly chosen, leaving you feeling lost, rather than stuck. ("Your blows are like miniature jackhammers wielded by tiny angry road workers.")
But as I've said already, you make your way through these sections because of everything else the game gets so right. It's all fairly elementary, with even the boss fights possible to bluff your way through using favourite attacks, rather than more appropriately matching skills to weaknesses. The only way you'll get stuck is if you've missed a hidden pathway, because you forgot to check an area in 3D. And in the end, this seems to make things simply more relaxed. And perhaps that's how it should be.
This is a game where the local underground pub is called The Underwhere. Where people get married "until your game is over". Where a furious Bowser declares, "No more sequels!" And it contains more moustache jokes than both Mario & Luigi handheld games put together. That's a lot of moustache jokes.

Peach is great for kicking defensive ass during the boss fights.
Perhaps there will soon come a time when Nintendo will run out of grace for gently mocking their own catalogue of games. But with every "serious" Mario game, something like this coming along to poke them in the ribs and snicker self-referentially is a pleasure. Super Paper Mario will not satisfy those looking for platforming to match Nintendo's normally stellar standards. And you eventually realise it never intended to. If anything, the game's central dimension-shifting gimmick seems to have been created as an opportunity for writing more jokes, only accidentally pushing the gameplay in a platform direction. This does of course significantly leave you wishing for a game that saw the potential for such a lovely idea seen all the way through.
But Super Paper Mario is about deconstruction, rather than building. (It literally deconstructs platforming down to a single black line on a white background at one point - a bold, if astonishingly boring in practise, idea.) Over-punishing it for being a slightly weaker platformer than Mario's dedicated outings would be to miss its purpose. Knocking a mark off to make it an 8 is an appropriate response. Every level might not be the greatest jumping experience of your life, but you'd be hard-pushed to want for a more vivid and cunningly beautiful side-scrolling game. It's bursting with ideas and jokes, and visually is constantly gorgeous. So much kudos must go to the translation and localisation team at Nintendo, who have outdone themselves all over again in creating unceasingly funny dialogue.
So an admittedly muddled review. Is it a new Wii must-have? I'm going with, perhaps. It uses the Wii tech so cleverly, remembering that simple is best, but letting it play in a way impossible on any other console. It's non-stop hilarious, and utterly adorable. If only it had been more inventive with the 3D potential, it would have been a stand-out classic. As it is, subdued by this shortfall, it's a gorgeous, confusing little buddy, that's lovely to hang out with.
8 / 10
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Comments (68) Latest comment 4 years ago
Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!
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(Well, somebody had to do it, didn't they?)
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LOL!
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@jamespo
No turn based combat but enemies still have health points.
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Bleck? That's a bit close to Blerk, isn't it? Which would make perfect sense.
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Are we talking about the same game here? I'm more than half way through and I'd be surprised if I had to start backtracking from now on because so far I haven't, not a single time.
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For some strange reason I keep thinking I'm reading C*nt Blerk instead of Count Bleck.
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Der_tolle_Emil: Sadly you're approaching the back-tracking levels, where things get a bit more lacklustre than you'd like.
[maven]: Phew - tell me what I did right!
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But fear not, for that is not the fault of the game, which is excellent, but due to the fact that my other half will not stop playing it
From that fact alone I have come to understand that this game is a must have for wii owners. It is not too taxing, full of humour and nearly as good as Thousand Year Door, which I am a massive fan of.
Its lost some of its charm but removing the turn based battles in my opinion, but the 3D switcherooery makes up for that.
A very solid 8/10 without a doubt, go and buy it !
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I dunno about anyone else but I find the Wiimote's teeny-tiny D-pad a bit awkward to use and kept wishing I could plug in the Nunchuk so I could use the analogue stick. Also having to press A to switch to 3D is a bit clumsy since it's right next to the D-pad and, of course, the Wiimote's lack of buttons means that switching characters and Pixls requires a visit to the Pause menu. Minor inconveniences I suppose but ones that didn't affect the previous games as they used the conventional controllers which, of course, have more buttons.
I'm really enjoying the game so far, it's funny, it's colourful, it's typically Nintendo cute and charming and the music is lovely too. It's a real "feel good" game really.
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Surprises me a bit, given that this is a Gamecube port. If it's just the pointing thing, that could have worked with any dual stick control, though of course a little less elegantly.
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6 is pretty bad, but nothing compares to 7. And not only back-tracking, but THE SAME SEQUENCE FOUR MILLION TIMES IN A ROW.
And breathe.
But yes - at points it was getting dangerously close to being given a 7 just for that bit.
(Anyone's who's played it will probably want to add that, yes, there is a very smart reason for it. But that doesn't change how maddening it was at the time).
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\o/
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Linky
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Agreed, it really jumps off the screen thanks to the colors and perspective.
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They can't still be using the excuse that there isn't enough room on the DVD, this isn't a 24 MB cartidge!
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A titter here and there but it ain't funny.
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Who wants to play an innovative fun different title which actually does something NEW with gaming.. when they can play another generically boring shooter where you just run around shooting things with your cursor?
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A titter here and there but it ain't funny."
(spoiler) Well anyone who plays super paper mario and doesnt laugh at the geek who posts on forums who sounds like 99% of all 360 owners on this board.. is probably one of them!
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The dialogue is droll, but I think the amount of A tapping seriously dulls some of the enjoyment.
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Like bioshock you mean? LMAO..
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Good stuff JW.
Oh the shame of it, the SHAME of buying two Wii games in the same week.
Peej
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You know how Nintendo have those responsible "go outside and play, too" messages? I'm guessing they figure they're doing the responsible thing by the kiddies by encouraging them to read a bit.
As a bonus, they protect their "franchises" from the god-awful dubbing you hear on Anime.
Personally, I don't mind either way.
Edit: But I do prefer the N64 version's combat (I don't know about Gamecube version since I didn't own one).
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It's definetly far away from Oblivion, WoW etc. but you can definetly spend a lot of time with this game.
Also: I find the game is very funny. Almost every dialogue has some sort of joke in it that makes me grin at least a little - even if some are very similar to the first games, like lots of characters simply being in awe looking at Mario's 'stache. It's also nice that the dialoge changes (a lot) depending on which character you are currently playing. Makes replaying some sections later again worthwhile.
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An enjoyable 20 hours worth of gaming (with a few weak sections here and there) but without any real replayablity beyond a couple of hour of worthwhile optional side quests. - Northy
"Roleplaying games should be no less than 180 hours long, not counting side quests," - Francis is a freakish geek, obsessed with Anime and videogames.
I put it to you that Northy is some kind of Mario character
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- Average would be 8. 7 is above average.
Wife is currently enjoying this. Something about it just really doesnt appeal to me. Maybe its all the tedious text...?
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Just use the ignore button: the worst thing you can do to troll that's begging for attention.
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Just use the ignore button: the worst thing you can do to troll that's begging for attention."
NOW AM I BEING RETARDED.. But are the TROLLS who are TROLLING a nintendo thread now accusing someone who owns the console/game and is replying to said trolls a troll?
WTF is that all about? Are you two (unclelou and les) REALLY that retarded?
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This isn't a "Nintendo thread", it's a comments list for a review of a game. Read the review, post related comments. Otherwise, you seem to be somewhat missing the point.
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Oh, wait, hang on, I don't really care. I'm someone who likes games, not consoles, and this is clearly the wrong meeting.
*sidles out the door*
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Push up on the D-pad in 2D and left on the D-pad in 3D.
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I wasnt. The original comment was that if this wasnt a 120 hr long game then it couldnt possibly be good.. So I was merely stating that bioshock wasnt exactly a 120hr long game either... Didnt stop it being good did it?
"sweetiepea, the reason people are annoyed is because you're insulting people based on comments they've made relating to the review,"
Where were these constructive comments based on the review that i replied to with insults exactly?
"
This isn't a "Nintendo thread", it's a comments list for a review of a game. Read the review, post related comments. Otherwise, you seem to be somewhat missing the point."
What do you think would happen when the halo 3 review comes out.. and lets say i post in the thread saying "who cares halo is shite, buy a wii!".. everyone would jump on me and start insulting me would they not?
see?
Or do i have to draw diagrams?
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Ah shite.. sorry.. just realised the context in which you said the 150 hour thing.
Sorry, was too busy getting annoyed at the trolls that i immediately badged you as one.
Sorry! You have my apology!
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And we didn't even need the diagrams.
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No, as always, it was you. Not yet used to it?
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But my comments to the other two still stands.
@unclelou: Why do you feel the need to troll every thread regarding a nintendo game.. then proceed to call anyone who shouts you down a troll?
Hmm.. I guess that must be the definition of a troll then?
Personally i just think it's retarded.
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And please bear in mind that I have both a Wii and DS, before you confuse the occasional criticism with trolling. The latter is what you do. I also don't have a 360, though I know you "accused" me of having one several times. I know it's a strange idea for you, but I am one of those persons who care about games, not the platfroms they're on.
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Current on 8-3 and can confirm that the later levels (especially 4, 7 and this bastarding 8) are prone to inspire furious head/wall interaction. I currently have an all-consuming hatred for whichever git decided it would be a good idea to include that mirror puzzle. TWICE.
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.. especially once everyone completes it in the short time it takes..
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smelly: on the contrary, I think it is the techno geeks and those that associate with them that will find level 3 hilarious. For the rest of us it is just mildy amusing.
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I found the level where the world was being sucked into the black hole a bit crappy..
endless fight after fight.. it was like playing halo.
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I don't know, the basic idea and the way it looks appeal to me a lot and it's written very well, but I just wasn't interested in playing it more after a few nights.
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The RPG element has been almost completely removed, to the extent that calling it a Paper Mario (let alone a "super" one) is borderline fraudulent. (And in terms of aesthetics, PM never looked all that much like paper to begin with, but - whereas they could have made the textures more convincing with the Wii - SPM looks more like some demented retro Tron rip-off. IMO there's very little charisma in it.)
The absence of turn-based combat removes the strategy element, which - although very "lite" - I found quite infectious in Thousand Year Door.
I guess the jokes are occasionally amusing, but overall - despite the reviewer's take - I'd say the writing is a step back from PM and TYD.
Lastly the control scheme: I agree the pointer-based tips are gimmicky and unnecessary, and changing the grip on the remote sort of takes my focus out of the gameplay. Similarly, the game requires frequent changes of character, for mostly boring reasons (as opposed to challenging puzzles) without giving you a good way to do so. In Thousand Year Door on Gamecube, you could manage this with a single D-pad button; here, it's a trip to a menu, and feels tedious somehow.
All in all the game just seems too easily impressed with itself. Again and again I walk into a nearly empty room, see the puzzle, look for the twist, and there isn't one. It's just the most obvious of ideas dropped into lazy designs.
Happily, I've got the excellent Galaxy to play, and also downloaded the original Paper Mario for $10, so no shortage of good stuff. But Super Paper Mario reinforces a lesson: ALWAYS rent first, no matter how confident that you'll like a game.