Reviews: Okay, Fine, One Review

My plan was to do two reviews tonight, one of them being Smash Brothers Brawl, but two things are keeping me. First of all, time became a problem, and second of all, I feel I could still do more with Brawl before I want to review it. Instead, I'll just do one game, Paper Mario.

Paper Mario is a very old game, actually, brought back thanks to the Wii's Virtual Console. It's an RPG introduced in Nintendo's N64 era, though unlike most games in this 3D friendly era, it's mostly two dimensional. The game is a spiritual sequel to the Super Nintendo's Mari RPG, but the designer is different and there is a new art style and game play. In this game, you play as Mario who has to defeat Bowser, which is pretty typical for a Mario game but surprisingly simple for a Mario RPG. Nearly every game has Bowser as a reluctant ally or clueless bystander compared to the much worse villains each RPG introduces. The story is equally simple. To defeat Bowser, Mario has to collect seven magical macguffins, each guarded by a usual challenge and boss guardian, to dent the otherwise indestructible final boss and reach his inaccessible lair.

One problem with the story is that I already played Paper Mario 2: The Thousand Year Door and Super Paper Mario, and both had both more advanced stories and better writing. The characters are more developed, the missions more varied, and the humor more clever. By comparison, things felt flat in Paper Mario.

The gameplay is where Paper Mario shines, of course. The game's party is minimalistic; you can only ever have Mario and a second character that serves as an ally/assistant. This ally has no hit points, no equipment to modify, and a grand total of two levels to gain, though at the maximum level each partner has four attacks. Each one has different abilities, as well, making it wise to change them on a regular basis based on what enemies you fight. As a Mario RPG, there are action elements. Button presses affect Mario's attacks and defenses, and good timing does more damage or even doubles your attack strength, while defenses reduce enemy attacks by at least one point of damage. That may seem minor, but unlike the average RPG, where attacks do thousands of points of damage by the end of the game, in this game you're lucky to do 10 points of damage for an attack at the end of the game.

All the partners have similar action commands, though they are different with each player. The player also gains a number of special attacks, and unlike the normal mp system in the game, this one is more a sliding scale that raises with combat and turns spent on improving it. The real advantage of this variety of abilities is it gives a number of special traits and weaknesses to the enemies, so the character has to exploit them. Shelled enemies like koopas are heavily armored but can be stunned by knocking them upside down, enemies with spikes on their head/back are immune to jump attacks normally, and fire-based enemies are immune to any attack regarded as direct physical attack but not weapon attacks.

Outside of combat, the game uses experience levels, but nothing increases automatically. Instead, the character can choose to increase maximum health, maximum magic points, or "badges." Badges are other modifications that can be made to Mario. They include base enhancements, like increases to damage, defenses, and even hit points/magic points, but it also includes all magic-based special attacks for Mario and abilities in specific situations, like if Mario is low on health, looking for hidden items on the normal game world, or uses specific kinds of attacks or items.

Again, the original doesn't compare to the sequels. The second Paper Mario game had hit points and other traits for characters, a very clever "stage" system that replaces the normal special attacks' sliding bar, and a wider range of abilities for badges. Paper Mario is more an exploration of history and a great starting point for the series. It's just like playing Super Mario Brothers after already play Super Mario 3. Of course, as an RPG, it takes much longer to play, but depending on how much time you kill, it shouldn't take much more than twenty hours, making it a reasonably quick RPG. I give the game a B for now, but it could be an A- if seen with fresh eyes. I suggest you give it a try, enjoy the weird world of Paper Mario, and laugh at the Ninja Turtles parody back when it was closer to relevant. If you must.