LogFAQs > #970155859

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pictured: the thirst for the gender-coded bob-omb is real

Paper Mario is a Challenging Experience in 2022

The Paper Mario series had been the biggest notable omission in my role playing game experience. Despite loving Super Mario RPG and the Mario & Luigi series, I made it all the way to 2022 having never played a Paper Mario game. Nintendo's expansion pass for Switch Online, while controversial to many, emerged as a quick and easy way for me to finally address this lack.

At the same time, real-world events conspired to prevent me (and everyone else in the world) from playing the Advance Wars remake. So what better time to rip off the Paper Mario band aid? A brief aside: I am still a bit surprised that a new release date hasn't been announced for AW. At a time where the video game industry churns out yearly installments of military propaganda couched as violent first person shooters, the tactical strategy/cartoony nature of AW feels important as a kind of counter-balance.

Anyway - back to Paper Mario. I found it's story/writing to be quite charming but its gameplay to be utterly boring. Movement and battles c r a w l b y. Compared to Super Mario RPG - its predecessor - it felt like a step backward, sacrificing a third playable character and attack variety in favor of simplicity. Ultimately, the battles are my biggest issue with the game. Battles were always going to take two turns minimum, and you had to sit through the animations every single time due to the "timed hits" system. I'm optimistic that later games in the series adjust battles to make them more interesting.

Like all Mario RPG's it really relies heavily on humor to tell its narrative, and to a certain degree it succeeds. All of them possess a real self-aware and sarcastic brand of humor. Paper Mario feels intentionally more "wholesome" than both Mario RPG and M&L, both of which lean more into irony, parody, and sarcasm. This tone works with the visual style, which is great the entire way through the game. Really enjoyed the characters here, particularly Goombario and Peach. And of course Bowser, who always steals the show in any and all Mario RPGs.

But yeah, it's just so slow and the battles aren't fun. Fast-forward / god mode would really help this game's playability in 2022. Still, I was glad to finally play it. I suppose I should eventually get around to Thousand Year Door at least, but that probably isn't going to happen unless they put a remake on the e-shop or something.