Super Paper Mario

"A great start to the Wii for Mario."

After waiting for this game to come out on the Gamecube, we're then told we could get it for the Wii as well. Suddenly, it's a Wii-only game. We've had to wait a while for this game (especially in Europe), but it was worth it.

Super Paper Mario features Mario in a world of thin, 2-D paper-like places and people. Same as its predecessors. However, this game takes on a whole new, and incredible, idea. Being stuck in 2-D is limiting, as you can only move back and forth. But with this game, you are suddenly able to switch into 3-D, showing everything from Mario's point of view. An ingenious idea, and it's incredible it wasn't thought of before.

With this new found ability to switch into 3-D, new things are revealed. A row of 10 coins in 2-D turn into a field of 50 coins, pipes hidden behind hills are revealed, and dead ends aren't exactly dead ends. All with the power of switching between dimensions. This ability is exploited throughout the game in many ingenious ways, keeping you on your toes. Your time in your new found 3-D is limited, as indicated by a gauge in the corner of the screen. When this gauge empties, you take damage. Which is never nice.

Super Paper Mario's battle system is different from Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door's turn-based battling. Now, the battles are just like the classic Mario Bros. from years back. Simply attack by jumping on top of their heads. Simple. No more eternal turnbased fighting which took ages, just plain jumping. Nice.

Of course, nice Mario would have a reason for attacking these poor minions. The game begins with Mario and Luigi in their house, when suddenly a Toad comes screaming into their back yard, yelling his head off about Princess Peach being kidnapped. Again. Naturally, our heroic chaps storm off to Bowser's castle to demand Peach's release, only to find Bowser trying to think up how to kidnap the poor Princess. Obviously confused when the brothers appear, he isn't best pleased when he realises someone got the Princess before he did. Suddenly, a strange person called Count Bleck appears and kidnaps everyone, leaving Mario behind. Simple, you may think. You obviously have to just go and save them. But this isn't all. Count Bleck forces Princess Peach to marry Bowser, triggering a dark prophecy, which will ultimately destroy the world. Not good. The game actually has an emotional backstory, which becomes more and more clear as the game progresses.

Mario ends up in a strange place called Flipside, where a strange force called the Void (looks strikingly similar to a black hole) has appeared in the sky and will eventually consume the whole universe. Flipside is your basic hub, where you come between levels, like other Mario games. This place is full with secrets for you to discover, so you'll have some exploring to do.

To prevent the all-consuming Void, you must collect 8 Pure Hearts (technically 7, as 1 is given to you at the start). The 7 Pure Hearts are conveniently placed in 7 different locations, leading to 7 different mini-adventures in 7 different, wonderfully designed, dimensions. But after getting the Pure Heart, your work isn't over yet. You must find the Heart Pillar and place the Pure Heart inside, which opens up the door to the next Pure Heart. The Heart Pillars are scattered throughout Flipside, and if you stick to the story, you won't have much time to rest your mind as you look for them.

Each chapter is split into 4 “sub-chapters”, such as Chapter 1-1, Chapter 1-2, etc. In each level, you must keep moving until you reach the Star Block at the end of each level.

Keeping up the Paper Mario tradition of teammates, a number of Pixls (not Pixels) will join you on your travels, each with their own different ability, such as exploding, shrinking Mario to an incredible size, and giving Mario more speed. The main Pixl is Tippi, a rainbow coloured butterfly that always stays with Mario. She is used to identify hidden objects, and give information on enemies, people and places. There's a fair few Pixls to get, and you find them at a surprising rate. Unfortunately, some Pixls, you'll only use a few times. And they aren't developed very well (minus Tippi). With Thousand Year Door, each teammate had a backstory to them, but with the Pixls, very little is revealed. You actually only speak to them when you first meet them. Apart from Tippi, you don't talk to any of the Pixls.

The controls are very simple. You hold the Wii remote sideways, use the control pad to move, and the 2 button to jump. The A button flips to 3-D and the + button opens the menu. Incredibly simple and easy. However, the control pad isn't the best way to control Mario. It works fine in 2-D, but when in 3-D, you really miss the control stick of Thousand Year Door. Fighting enemies in 3-D can be cumbersome. When with Tippi, point the Wii remote at the screen to reveal hidden things, like doors or steps, or use it to get hints or information on enemies and such. Really nice to use Tippi's searching ability to discover hidden secrets.

Annoyingly, badges are missing from this game. New things to collect are Cards. There are over 200 cards to get, which will take a while. Cards give you information on enemies, and characters. Owning an enemy's card gives you more power against that enemy. Cooking returns, where you can cook various meals with items.

Levelling-Up returns, but gone is the Star Points system of Thousand Year Door. It's replaced with the point scoring of older Mario games. Reach a certain amount of points and you level up. When you level up, either your HP is increased by 5, or your attack is increased by 1. Unlike Thousand Year Door, where levelling up was a big ceremony, you just suddenly get the message saying so in the middle of a battle, and the increase to your HP/attack is implemented. Keeps the game going fluidly.

If you die (God forbid), then you'll annoyingly end up at the main menu, meaning you have to restart from the last time you saved. Fortunately, the game is not that hard. I personally only died once in my first playthrough.

Returning from the Thousand Year Door is the Pit of 100 Trials, a very hard and tiring sidequest in which you must battle through 99 floors of enemies until reaching the bottom where a boss enemy awaits. The Pit of 100 Trials are always nice places to go after beating the main game or to gain points to level up, or for simple bragging rights.

Super Paper Mario isn't all about Super Paper Mario. You get to control 3 other characters, such as Peach and Bowser. Where with Mario you get the ability to flip between 2-D and 3-D, you can block other attacks or glide with Peach's umbrella, and Bowser's attack is double the power of Mario and Peach, making him a considerable force. Unfortunately, his huge shell hinders his speed, so he travels at around an inch per hour. But he can breathe fire, which is what we all want.

Super Paper Mario brings with it a load of new tunes for each level. Each bit of music has the Mario charm, including the older tunes from the older Mario games. Some bits of music sound a bit ‘out there', but still keep the charm and simplicity of most Mario games.

Each level is beautifully designed, with clever puzzles, exploiting the 2-D/3-D flipping ability in ingenious ways. The characters look great, as do the enemies. Particularly, the last level is simply totally black, with objects such as stairs and doors only drawn in white lines. Looks incredible. One level involves you travelling up a load of clouds. The clouds look nice enough in 2-D, but flip to 3-D and it looks simply stunning.

After beating the game, you get to return to any previously visited level. You can wander freely throughout the game, talking to individual characters and finding new things you hadn't previously, as well as the few sidequests, making this reasonably ok in terms of replayability.

Super Paper Mario is a great game, one for all Wii owners to have. It's Mario's debut on the Wii, and it was well worth waiting for. Very impressive 9/10.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 10/03/07

Game Release: Super Paper Mario (EU, 09/14/07)