8.5/10 – 25 hours
Review as written on 8/6/2023
Endlessly cute, charming, and clever. A game that has aged very well and is an impressive effort all these years later.
Wanna know what Paper Mario fans are whining about? Play this game. In it you’ll find unspeakably charming dialogue and polish, simple, interactive turn based rpg with surprising depth, and (mostly) fun puzzles that keep you smiling for the entire run time. The simple Paper Mario (PM) formula is a joy to play through. Battles start out simple and can easily remain that way throughout the game, but you are given many tools to optimize your build, whether through upgrades, stat buffs, or badges. The latter is my favorite aspect of the classic PM formula; I had a blast swapping out different builds and balancing both offense and defense. Power Bounce, Quake Hammer, HP and FP regen, Close Call, and Speedy Spin were lots of fun to use.
World traversal was also quite fun. Your different party members serve simple roles, with their movement utility largely tied to their area of unlocking, but are fun to use in the world. Bowser’s castle is an exceptional example of this, where you swap between each member’s abilities to solve puzzles. Said puzzles are charming and simple, but can fall flat as the solutions are usually not too intuitive or clear. That could just be me though.
The artistic design is on point. Many great area and boss themes to be heard (Captain Guy, Final Boss, Bowser’s Castle Approach, Shooting Star Summit). The paper aesthetic works wonders: the seamless folding transition when entering buildings never gets old. It also preserves this game’s look very well.
Now, allow me to whine for a bit. As much as I love the interactive commands in battle, inputs often felt inconsistent. This is likely due to the Switch’s emulation, but it still posed problems for me. When it goes wrong, it often costs you an optimal usage of a turn, and that is quite infuriating. Getting the jump on enemies in the field can go wrong as well, as the refresh rate for their attacks vastly outspeed Mario’s so it can feel unfair when an enemy swings twice in the time it takes to take out my hammer. Some bosses, namely chapters 6 and 7’s bosses, are pretty annoying as well. In particular, chapter 6’s boss has multiple attacks that require mashing the A button to throw off a swarm of minions as well as deadening his attacks, which is really annoying on repeat. This trend is carried by a few other enemies such as bats and Fuzzies, and you run into quite a few in the latter half of the game. Very, very annoying to fight.
I love the party members, and I get they should not be universal problem solvers, but I feel they were neutered a bit too much. Like previously mentioned, they feel designed for their native areas, and some are scarcely useful outside those said areas. Only Parakarry, Lakiluster (lol), and Watt were useful in battle throughout the game. The others felt situational, and all did during exploration, save for the final area. Goombario is irrelevant throughout the entire game, Sushie is underwhelming, and Kooper is useless outside of ground combat, which is a shame since I really like using him. The most infuriating is how Bow can’t even damage the final boss, which is beyond stupid. What’s the point of even having her here??
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