Paper Mario: Rise and Fall of a Best Seller Nintendo Game

There’s an old saying in the film industry, which is that the remake is never as good as the original. This statement sometimes applies to video games as well. In this article, I’m going to review the three Paper Mario games to date and explain which one was the best in terms of overall creation and design.

Paper Mario

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When the Paper Mario franchise first debuted on the N64, you could clearly see how much time and effort had been placed into creating the game. It was definitely among the top 10 N64 games of all time. The game was essentially a combination of Mario and turn-based battles. Sure, the graphics weren’t up to par with those of Super Mario 64, but the game was designed to focus more on storyline and battle sequences than on visual appearance.

Throughout the game, the bosses you faced at the end of each chapter included:

·         Chapter 1 – Koopa Bros. (Koopa Bros. Fortress)

·         Chapter 2 – Tutankoopa (Dry Dry Ruins)

·         Chapter 3 – Tubba Blubba (Tubba Blubba’s Castle)

·         Chapter 4 – General Guy (Shy Guys’ Toy Box)

·         Chapter 5 – Lava Piranha (Lava Lava Island)

·         Chapter 6 – Huff N’ Puff (Flower Fields)

·         Chapter 7 – Crystal King (Crystal Palace)

·         Chapter 8 – Bowser (Peach’s Castle)

Each boss was unique, and the location of each boss was unique. The music in the game was well-composed and I very much enjoyed the ability to choose which of Mario’s stats to upgrade when you leveled up (HP, FP or BP). The game had a built-in limit of 50 HP, 50 FP and 30 BP, meaning that Mario’s maximum level would be 27. This made it a bit difficult, as the final boss (Bowser) had 99 HP, nearly double that of Mario’s maximum HP of 50. However, in general, the power of a boss was appropriately matched to the typical power Mario would have at the time of facing that boss.

The game was extremely popular among the general Nintendo video gaming community, and continues to be popular even today, in terms of downloads on the Wii’s Virtual Console.

Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door

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Due to the popularity of the original game, Intelligent Systems created a sequel in 2004 for the Nintendo GameCube, three years after the original Paper Mario. It expanded on the concepts used in the first game, with a funnier storyline, better graphics and more strategic elements. An in-game audience was introduced, Mario’s allies were given their own HP and they were now able to use items, and the previously set limits of 50 HP, 50 FP and 30 BP were removed, making it so that by the time you reached the final boss of the game, you could have upwards of 150 HP and 150 FP. The maximum limit of BP was increased from 30 to 99. Overall, the game was well thought-out and designed, and all of the developers’ hard work in creating the storyline was definitely apparent.

Throughout the game, the bosses you faced at the end of each chapter included:

·         Chapter 1 – Hooktail (Hooktail’s Castle)

·         Chapter 2 – Magnus Von Grapple (The Great Tree)

·         Chapter 3 – Rawk Hawk and Macho Grubba (Glitzville)

·         Chapter 4 – Doopliss and Mario (Creepy Steeple)

·         Chapter 5 – Cortez (Keelhaul Key)

·         Chapter 6 – Smorg (Excess Express)

·         Chapter 7 – Magnus Von Grapple 2.0 (X-Naut Moon Base)

·         Chapter 8 – Bowser, Grodus and Shadow Queen (Thousand-Year Ruins)

However, there was one aspect of the game I didn’t really enjoy so much. There was too much back-tracking in the game. For instance, the player ends up visiting Hooktail’s castle at least 3 times. In Chapter 4, you’re constantly running back and forth between Twilight Town and Creepy Steeple. In Chapter 6, you’re constantly visiting every cabin on the Excess Express train to solve mysteries. In Chapter 7, you have to travel backwards throughout many of the earlier towns just to find General White, the Bob-omb for activating the cannon. The “Pit of 100 Trials” takes upwards of 2 hours to go through, and you’ll more often than not have to visit it at least twice, if not more, depending on how often you want to gain star points and level up. But this was my only beef with the game.

Super Paper Mario

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Three years went by after The Thousand-Year Door was released, and we came to Super Paper Mario, the third game in the Paper Mario franchise. It was originally slated for a 2006 release on the Nintendo GameCube, but it was pushed back into 2007 to have its controls redesigned for release on the Wii. This is clearly evident in the game because the graphics resemble those of GameCube games more than those of Wii games. In any case, I was ecstatic when I heard that there was going to be a brand new Paper Mario game out on store shelves. However, all of my enthusiasm was for naught.

If you’ve played the first two Paper Mario games, you’re probably aware of the “First Attack” and “Bump Attack” badges. Basically, by wearing these badges, if you could inflict enough damage on an enemy in the field to K.O. it by getting a first strike, you would defeat it without having to engage it in a turn-based battle. Now, although turn-based battles can sometimes be tedious, I tend to enjoy them since I can take as long as I want to figure out what attack or item to use against the opponent(s).

However, in Super Paper Mario, it’s different. Intelligent Systems took the idea of the “First Attack” and “Bump Attack” badges, and applied it to the entire game, removing all of the turn-based battles. In fact, practically all of the previously-included strategic components were removed. FP, BP and badges were taken out of the game altogether. Mario could no longer perform special “Star Power” attacks. All of Mario’s partners were removed, and replaced with regular “abilities” that in previous Paper Mario games, Mario would have obtained in addition to having a separate HP partner. Now, this issue was somewhat mitigated by the fact that in Super Paper Mario, you could switch between Mario, Peach, Bowser and Luigi, but all of them shared the same HP. This of course made it more difficult because all of the enemies would target your character alone, as opposed to the past, where the enemies would split their damage over both Mario and his partner.

My biggest issue with Super Paper Mario is that it just seems like Intelligent Systems added in one new feature (flipping between 2D and 3D) and removed 10 older features that separated the franchise from the regular Super Mario games. In fact, one aspect I really didn’t like about Super Paper Mario was that the developers removed the upgraded item bag. In Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, by reaching Level 50 of the “Pit of 100 Trials,” you could double your item carrying capacity from 10 to 20. But this feature was removed in Super Paper Mario, and all of the items which previously restored Mario’s FP were changed to restore Mario’s HP (because FP no longer existed in the game). In fact, there’s really no point in cooking two items together anymore to discover all of the food recipes, because practically all of the cooked items have the same effect of only restoring Mario’s HP and doing nothing else.

What other things are wrong with Super Paper Mario? Well, you don’t get the hammer until Chapter 5, which means that enemies who have spikes will trounce all over you unless you have a Fire Flower. This is because other than the hammer, all you can do is jump on an enemy or use an item (and believe me, the selection of attack-oriented items is very thin). And since badges are removed, you can’t use “Piercing Blow” if an enemy has too high of a defense. Also, the storyline is very bland, with Peach being married to Bowser. Couldn’t Intelligent Systems have created a more in-depth storyline? Don’t you think the idea of forcing a good person to marry a bad person has been overused in the gaming industry?

In any case, throughout the game, the bosses you faced at the end of each chapter included:

·         Chapter 1 – Fracktail

·         Chapter 2 – Mimi

·         Chapter 3 – Francis

·         Chapter 4 – Mr. L and Brobot

·         Chapter 5 – King Croacus

·         Chapter 6 – Mr. L and Brobot L. Type

·         Chapter 7 – Bonechill

·         Chapter 8 – Dimentio, Mimi, Mr. L and Count Bleck

Oh and you’ll absolutely love this! Enemy HP bars were removed from the game as well. And not just the HP bars of regular enemies, but the ones of bosses too. Great, isn’t it? So when you now battle an enemy with 100 HP, you’ll have to MANUALLY keep track of how much damage you’ve inflicted! So get out that pen, paper and calculator, and start subtracting HP damage!

Super Paper Mario is definitely the worst Paper Mario game I’ve played to date. And to prove this, IGN gave both the original Paper Mario and Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door higher scores than Super Paper Mario. Do not buy this game. It’s definitely a complete rip-off in every sense of the word. Perhaps the developers have decided to follow in the footsteps of in-game character “Chet Rippo.”

In fact, unlike the first two Paper Mario games which BOTH received “Best Seller” awards, Super Paper Mario HAS NOT YET RECEIVED THAT AWARD. Why? Maybe because the game was cheap to create, not as fun to play, and was highly over-rated, constantly being advertised as one of Wii’s must-have titles, but not living up to its usual high-quality standards.

Closing Remarks

The best Paper Mario game was definitely the original, with The Thousand-Year Door coming in second place only because of too much back-tracking.

Do not waste your money buying Super Paper Mario for the Wii. It’s as simple as that. Buy the original Paper Mario for N64 or Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door for the GameCube, but for the love of God, AVOID Super Paper Mario at all costs!

Hopefully, when the next Paper Mario game comes out in 2010, it will return to its turn-based franchise. Otherwise, we’re all screwed, because the game will cost even less to make, and still sell for the same high price in stores.

As for me, I’ll continue waiting until 2010, when Intelligent Systems will hopefully live up to its name.

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