Game Review: Super Paper Mario

Super Paper Mario is almost a good game.  It has clever puzzles, excellent control, and a wide variety of levels.  But it also has tedious dialog, annoying restrictions, and a lot of menu work for what is essentially an action game.

The Paper Mario series started out as a cute, stylized sequel to Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars.  It took RPG-like elements, experience points, progression, inventory, etc and merged them with a paper cut-out look and feel.  Houses would stand up and fold around you as you walked in, and several of Mario’s powers involved him being folded in different ways.

The papery gimmicks are still around, but much of the RPG qualities were dropped for this version. But all the dialog remained!  Some of it was cute and clever, but in the end it got tiresome.

You have an inventory, still, that you barely ever use.  In fact, it just fills up and becomes annoying. You can store items at certain locations for later retrieval, but why?  You really only need health items.

Finally, the levels get kind of tiresome.  Once you get the idea or hook of the level, expect to rinse and repeat at least 4 more times in coming levels.

It was generally fun, and there was a good variety of situations, but it just didn’t all come together in the end.

Best moment:  The introduction to Fracktail, the first big boss fight: video

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Pat’s Rating system:

  • How much would I pay for the game? I’d buy this for more play for about $10.  I’m just glad I borrowed it this time.
  • How many times would I replay it? Do I really have to finish it?  That was going through my head after level 4 or so… but I suppose one playthough is warranted.  Hint: use Bowser in boss fights.

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