Super Paper Mario

"Paper Mario should have stuck with stars instead of hearts"

Have you ever played a game that you hated (and I mean DESPISED and wished it had never been created) only to play it a year or two later and say "Wow...this game isnt really that bad. I mean there is alot of room for improvement, but its still a decent game." Well that would be me with the game Super Paper Mario. When I heard that there was going to be a Paper Mario on the Wii, I was overjoyed. Sadly it was not to be since Super Paper Mario is vastly different from the original Paper Marios. Im going to say this right now "this game would have been soooooooo much better if they had made it a turn based game like the games before it!!!" I know that defeats the purpose of calling it SUPER Paper Mario, but thats what I think. Now, onto the review.

Story: 9/10 - Best Part of the whole game.

The story was the highlight of this game in my opinion (its what kept me playing.) With all the humor, and cool characters even though the gameplay was horrible, the story made me forge on. The game begins with the evil Count Bleck the antagonist of the game forcibly marrying Bowser and Peach (sorry Mario, you had 15 games to ask Peach out after you save her every time) to summon The Void. After Mario and Luigi go to confront Bowser mistakenly thinking he captured Princess Peach they are confronted by Count Bleck. Mario tries to take on Bleck, but he deals a magical blow to Mario thus rendering him unconscious. After that everyone except Mario is magicaly taken to Count Bleck's castle. When Mario regains conscious he is sees a tiny little fairy known as a Pixl. The Pixl calls herself Tippi and then teleports Mario to the town of "Flipside." Mario then meets Merlon the ancestor to the founders of Flipside and tells you of the evil Count Bleck and his plot to destroy all worlds, and how the only way to stop him is to collect all eight Pure Hearts. Thus does Mario set out to save Princess Peach (who would have guessed) and save all worlds from destruction.

Music: 8/10 - Some memorable, but nothing really that special.

Everyone knows that if you are playing a Paper Mario game good music is a must. Thankfully Nintendo delivered and created some good remixes of the classics, and created a few new and catchy tunes. Although some of the music got a little repetitive after awhile it was nothing that made me wanna mute my tv and play while listening to my Ipod. The sound effects werent all that great, but once again didnt really effect me that much since they werent that noticable in the first place.

Graphics: 7/10 - Its Paper Mario, not Metal Gear Solid so theres not really that much to expect here.

Everyone knows this game was ported from Gamecube to Wii, so no one was really expecting any graphical leaps to occur. While not as bright and in your face as the graphics in PMTYD on GC they were still neat and well-trimmed. Some of the levels were pretty cool looking, but unless you were only paying attention to the graphics you wouldnt really care if they were just recycling the same backround over and over again because its not that noticeable. Unfortunately this installment of Paper Mario really didnt stress the fact that Mario and Co. are made of "Paper" so they were no power-ups that would make you turn onto a paper airplane or and little paper raft, and all the buildings and scenery could have passed as being solid instead of flat.

Gameplay: 3/10 - "Ugh, I dont even want to write this down since it is so horrible.

I saved the worst for last. First I will start with the controls.

Like all the PM games the controls worked just fine. If you wanted Mario to jump, he would jump (Higher than he has than ever before in fact). If you wanted him to open a door or talk to someone, he would talk someone or open a door hassle free. And lastly if you wanted him to use Pixl...bet you cant guess what he would do...he'd use the Pixl. So really there are no problems here...unfortunately I cant say the same thing for the rest of the gameplay.

Like I said at the beginning of this review, this game would have been leaps and bounds better if it was a turn-based game like its predecessors: Mario-RPG, Paper Mario, and Paper Mario the Thousand Year Door. Making the game like Super Mario Bros was a funny idea in the first place for me. The reasons I played all the Paper Marios was because they were turn- based RPG's. If I wanted to kill enemies by jumping on them as I scrolled left and right on the screen I would have broke out my NES. Nintendo also could have done a better job at keeping the RPGish features in the game like having real party members that follow you around and have real HP and fight with you instead of having a little animated butterfly fly behind you with another animated Pixl who does practically nothing tailing at the rear. Also what happened to Flower points (FP), since they are gone there are no special moves or sprites that made PM battles so fun and exciting. Now Nintendo tried to make things interesting by making Mario able to flip from 2D to 3D, but failed miserably. They would either use the ability to much and to the point where you are like "OMFG WTF" and shut your game off for a day, and then you start playing again. Or they use it so briefly that you breeze through the level without any hitches. Lastly once you understand what you have to do and where you have to use your 3D powers, the game is a total breeze. You could beat it in 2-3 days unlike the possible 2 weeks it would take to beat the previous Paper Marios.

Replayability: 4/10 - Tiny little things make MIGHT make you want to play this game again.

The story and the humor is really the only reason you would want to play this game again. There are some tiny little bonuses like 2 pits of 100 trials, catch cards, and a hidden arcade but there is nothing all that special compared to all the other bonuses in the previous games, so dont expect much.

Conclusion: If you are like me and had nothing to do this weekend and play this game again, then be my guest. You might be surprised to find out that even though this game wasnt "Epic" like the others, it was still an alrite game. If you havent bought this game yet I suggest you do, since its a pretty cool game... just dont get hyped up and expect another master-piece like I did.

My Personnel Review: 7.7/10

GameFaqs Review: 7/10

( This was my first ever review, so I hope it was usefull =]. I wish everyone "Happy Gaming" )

---Cappy1992---

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 04/06/09

Game Release: Super Paper Mario (US, 04/09/07)