"Utterly disappointed"

Paper Mario Thousand Year Door for the Nintendo Gamecube was filled with charming dialogue, cohesive level designs, and a solid length to match. Sequels don't always live up to expectations. Games like Halo 2, Kotor 2, and Metroid Prime 2 Echoes were all good games, but did not capture the essence that made its predecessors great. Paper Mario TYD was a beautifully crafted game; it was filled with charming moments and a strong combat system. It was a great rpg for a system that lacked in that genre. Super Paper Mario for the Wii changes things up a bit. Even with a successful formula, the developer opted for a different direction. Players will still see the rpg elements in Super Paper Mario, but the game play has gone from a turn base system to a class platformer style game play.
Back for another round…

The game starts off in classic Mario fashion. Bowser is up to evil once again. Bowser is trying to solidify his rule with his marriage to Princess Peach. Sounds horrible, but wait, Bowser isn't the antagonist in this game. In fact, he is one of the heroes. How can that be? A new antagonist is introduced. Count Bleck is looking to open a rift or a void that will destroy all the dimensions in the Universe. Mario, the chosen hero is endowed with this opportunity to save the world once again. In order to do so, Mario has to collect pure hearts that can be used to stop the sinister Bleck's plan. Along the way, Bleck's minions will try to stop Mario and his friends. These pure hearts are scattered throughout different doors that lead to different worlds. One such dimension included outer space, which gives the game some variety. The Paper Mario series has had games in the series with strong, charming storylines. Super Paper Mario on the hand does not entirely live up to expectations. Charming dialogue was present in Super Paper Mario, but it wasn't nearly enough to override a somewhat lacking story. Super Paper Mario still had moments of excellent dialogue and riveting story development, but it ultimately failed to capture the same dynamic feel of Thousand Year Door.

Super Paper Mario's game play is a blend of platforming and rpg. Thousand Year Door had a unique turn base system that required the player to do specific functions before each attack. In this edition of the series, it plays very similarly to class Mario games. The player can use Mario to stomp on enemies. Like TYD, the player will notice numbers that pop above the enemies to signify the damage caused. SPM's approach to a more old school Mario type game is a hit or miss. At times, the platforming works well. Other times, the new approach felt tacked on. Unlike previous side scrolling Mario games that Nintendo made, this one didn't have the consistency. There were several levels where the game was lacking.

With all the jumping around, Nintendo was able to utilize the Wii controller and made it work to some extent. I was skeptical at first. The Wii controller needed to be turn sideways to play Super Paper Mario. I thought the control interface would be too simple for its own good. For the most part, I was wrong. At times, the simplistic interface worked in Super Paper Mario's advantage. The problem still existed in SPM. For one, using Tippi became problematic. It threw off the flow of the game, when you needed Tippi to identify invisible blocks or doors. Instead, using the motion sensing as a way to scan the screen caused an abrupt flow to the game.

One negative aspect of this joining of platforming and rpg elements is its inability to blend well together. In a platformer, I want to continue playing with little story segments to disrupt the flow of the game. In rpgs however, I want a good, solid story to engage the player into the life of the characters and the world that surrounds them. Story segments that break up the action are important in an rpg. Due to Super Paper Mario being a blend of the two, the dialogue that would otherwise be an effective mechanism to get the story across in an rpg, does not work so well in this platformer/rpg hybrid. This is because the story segments and dialogue get in the way of the action that is present in platformers.

Unfortunately, the enjoyment of Super Paper Mario depends on your tolerance for either genre. I like platformers and I love rpgs, but I found the joining of the two genres made the game sporadic at times. As an rpg, Super Paper Mario doesn't excel in any one area that you'd come to expect from top of the line rpgs. As a platformer, the platforming elements while solid, doesn't quite hold to the standards that are present today. What saves this game from utter disaster is the charming dialogue and loveable characters that is present every now and then. Had there been more, the game could have been a very good game. There simply wasn't enough. Super Paper Mario is a game that does things fairly well on a somewhat consistent basis across multiple areas. But because it doesn't excel in on area, the game is lacking that special component that makes games great. As a Mario fan, I was left disappointed. Keep in mind however; the game still has many enjoyable areas spanning the 15 or so hour adventure. There just wasn't enough of it…

During your time spent in this game, you'll be able to control entities called Pixls. Each pixl has a different ability. For example, Boomer is a bomb shaped figure. By using his ability, you can place him down like a bomb to blow up enemies. By incorporating this into the game, it kind of added some sense of cohesiveness into the adventure. Even though the erratic flow of dialogue and game play affected the cohesiveness of the game on a very high level, the incorporation of Pixls was able to save the game a bit. Some Pixls were required to move along in the game. For example, some areas can only be accessible through a small creak in a wall – this required Slim. Due to this, Super Paper Mario felt connected during these sequences.

There are several characters available. Each character had different capabilities. Mario had the ability to flip, which is the ability to go from 2D to 3D. By doing so, it allows Mario to complete and cope with certain obstacles. Bowser, who is slow, packs a powerful punch in his taps and breath of fire. Some puzzles also required certain characters to do so. For example, Peach might be required to get across a gap that is great in width. Another may require Mario to flip and get past obstacles in 3D. Speaking of puzzles though, the game's puzzles were far too simplistic. Many of the puzzles that are present can be solved quite easily. A lot of times, it's quite obvious. And even the times that required some thinking didn't take long to figure out. The weak puzzles ultimately hurt the game further.

Level design was also a hit or a miss. There were levels that were brilliantly designed. There was one sub-level within chapter 4 that required the player to travel sideways and upside down to complete the level. Other times, the level designs felt discombobulated. Due to this, the developer was ineffective in trying to get a strong feeling towards the game's atmosphere.

While a lot of the items present were a nice addition, many items became useless due to the game's overly easy adventure. To get you acclimated with the game's difficulty – the game has some of the easiest boss battles around. There were a few boss battles that felt unique, but for the most part, the fights felt forced and lacked any intensity. For most of the adventure, the difficulty affected the enjoyment of the game. Sure healthful items were useful, but even then, most of it became unnecessary when the player won't find him or herself in danger most of the time. A few products used to restore health are enough to sustain you through a chapter. The difficulty was simply far too easy.

Perhaps the strongest aspect in Super Paper Mario is the strong musical score. The beautifully orchestrated music was able to enhance the atmosphere. Due to this, the game was able to set off a tone that made it more enjoyable to some extent. The muffle sounds are also expected from Nintendo games. So the sounds were definitely welcome because of its nostalgic content. The graphics on the other hand weren't overly impressive. It was good, but it didn't provide that stunning vibe that Thousand Year Door had. Character models were solid. One thing that I didn't particularly like was the intentional pixilated characters running across the screen every time you got a star. It actually almost made me want to just skip using this enhancement every time I came across it.

Length wise, the game is around 15 or so hours. The length was definitely truncated when compared to Thousand Year Door. In fact, TYD was more than twice as long. I can understand why the game was noticeably shorter than its predecessor though – the platforming style game play would become far too repetitive if the adventure was too long. However, I can't help but feel a little shafted because its predecessor was much longer. The replay value isn't very high either. This is mainly because the game's adventure isn't that fun. One thing about TYD – it was flat out fun. Everything about it just felt right. Super Paper Mario just didn't have the ingredients that its Gamecube predecessor had that made it great.

Heavy anticipation leads to utter disappointment…

Super Paper Mario had its moments that felt like it would capture the essence and soul that made Thousand Year Door great. There were other times, where you wonder how the two can have such a disparity in quality. Super Paper Mario simply failed to achieve what the other games in the series has done. The platforming/rpg hybrid was a nice attempt at something different, but the excessive dialogue that works in traditional rpgs did not work in a game with platforming as its main mechanism for game play. There really isn't much more to say. I loved Thousand Year Door for the Gamecube. Super Paper Mario for the Wii? Not so much. It had its moments that I enjoyed the adventure. It simply wasn't enough. I was utterly disappointed. I can't wholeheartedly recommend this game. A rental should suffice to quench your insatiable curiosity to one of Nintendo's main characters.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 06/26/07