Super Paper Mario Review

This game is not what you might expect. In fact, it’s better to expect nothing and be pleasantly surprised than to think the marriage of RPGs and platformers might be the best thing ever… and walk away disappointed. Super Paper Mario is different, that much is certain. It resembles the Paper Mario RPGs as much as it resembles the traditional Super Mario Bros. series but still feels like something entirely new. Yeah, it’s not so easy to explain.

Super Paper Mario is akin to a platformer, because it does away with the turn-based battles. Instead, you jump on enemies, kick turtle shells into them, or even pick them up and throw them into other bad guys. As much as I liked Paper Mario’s old battle system, playing real-time has always been Mario’s specialty, and Super Paper Mario is better off for it. The RPG aspect comes into play, because Mario still has hit points, and he still levels up. Every enemy you kill gives you a couple hundred points. Once you’ve gotten so many, you’ll go up a level and increase your HP and attack power (alternately). There isn’t much need to spend extra hours leveling up, but it’s a possibility that certainly doesn’t hurt. “Grinding” isn’t as tedious as the traditional RPG, either, since Super Paper Mario offers so many chances to score bonus experience points. If you continue to jump on enemies after already killing one, your score will go up quicker. And if you shake the controller after each bounce, you’ll earn extra stylish points. It’s quite rewarding and makes the usual Mario head-stomping so much more entertaining.

Originally a GameCube game, Super Paper Mario doesn’t take great advantage of the Wii remote. The remote is held on its side like an NES controller, which seems like a natural fit for a Mario game. But aside from shaking the remote for stylish points, the only other Wii-specific command is pointing at the screen to learn information about items and enemies or to uncover invisible doorways. The pointer is seldom used, though, which makes it easy to forget that it’s even an option when you’ve stumbled into a room that is, at first sight, empty.

This is primarily a 2D game, but Mario’s latest ability allows him to switch to a 3D view, swinging the camera directly behind him and showing the level in a whole new light. Large pipes blocking your way are now peripheral obstacles that can be side-stepped. Enemies on the 2D plane disappear but are sometimes replaced with new, hidden monsters. “Hidden” is the keyword here. Important doorways or items are often hiding behind blocks or staircases and can only be seen/grabbed when in 3D. It’s a clever setup that lends to some ingenious puzzle designs, and switching between 3D and 2D is as simple as pushing the A button. You can’t stay in the 3D view for long, though. A special meter starts to deplete when in 3D, and if it hits zero, you’ll lose a heart. Doesn’t sound like a big deal, but it can stack up quickly. Controlling Mario in 3D space, however, doesn’t work so well. Didn’t we learn anything from Super Mario 64 DS? Using a D-pad to control a 3D character just feels awkward. The position of the camera also makes it difficult to calculate the distance of jumps. Stomping on an enemy or hopping onto a pipe become chores in 3D, whereas they were a cinch in the other dimension.

Mario has other abilities, too, which are granted to him as he finds little creatures called pixls. Mario can only equip one pixl at a time, but the powers they give him are very helpful. There is a pixl for picking up and carrying objects and enemies, a pixl for laying bombs, and even a pixl that brings back Mario’s trusty hammer. If that’s not enough for you, you can also switch between playing as Mario, Peach, and Bowser. Peach is able to float across gaps while Bowser can light stuff on fire with his breath. Only Mario can flip between 2D and 3D, though, so he is obviously the most important and most played character. But with all of these different characters and abilities, there’s plenty to play around with.

Super Paper Mario spans eight worlds held together by an overworld, the city of Flipside. Each world contains four chapters which play out like traditional platforming levels. Well, that’s not entirely true. Super Paper Mario is more of an “adventure” game, since every level contains just as many puzzles to solve as there are goombas to kill. A puzzle can be anything from finding food for a character to paying off a debt for breaking a girl’s favorite vase. But for every clever puzzle that utilizes Mario’s abilities in original ways, there is another that will do nothing but irritate and annoy you. I don’t know why, but Paper Mario games love to make you remember long-winded passwords. At one point, a character even warns you to go grab a pencil and paper so you can write down his 30-step secret combination. Look, if I wanted to get off the couch for a video game, I would have played Wii Sports.

Super Paper Mario is at its best when levels consist of straightforward platforming. Nothing is more fun than running around as Mario in 2D, but it wouldn’t be an RPG without a heavy dose of story and pointless fetch quests. Once you complete a world, you have to search Flipside for a pillar that will open the next. Finding these pillars requires a lot of backtracking and guesswork, and it’s incredibly tedious. Flipside is not built very efficiently, either, so you can expect to get lost quite often. And in the Paper Mario tradition, there is a lot of dialogue. I can understand the need for dialogue in an RPG, but Super Paper Mario feels more like a platformer, and having to stop every five minutes to read a conversation that isn’t even interesting or relevant ruins the fun. Why do characters always need to state the obvious or remind you that you have to save the world after everything you do? Even if Nintendo miraculously incorporated voice acting, the dialogue would still feel like a drag.

The style and charm of the Paper Mario series is still there, though. The graphics don’t look like much of an improvement over the GameCube, but they get the job done and create a fun atmosphere. Every world has a unique look to it, particularly one world that is an homage to 8-bit graphics. The game rarely takes itself too seriously, either, with witty remarks and kooky boss battles. Any game that has a dating sim for a battle is worth checking out. And though the lack of voice acting kills me, the music is excellent. It sounds like Paper Mario: TTYD but with more rock and electronica in it.

From beginning to end, this is a pretty satisfying and entertaining game. It doesn’t last as long as other Paper Marios, though. A good 15 hours is all it takes to get to the end boss. The game can continue afterwards, since there will likely be secrets you missed. There’s also the Pit of 100 Trials, a series of single-room puzzles that grow increasingly harder and complex. Going back and playing the actual chapters in each world, however, isn’t so fun. All of the doors are unlocked, puzzles solved, and bosses beaten. There’s nothing left to do in them. I suppose you could just start a new game, but that would mean having to deal with all the dialogue again. Platformers and stories just don’t mix.

Final Comments

How much you will enjoy this game depends on how much you like your platformers spoiled by heavy-handed stories and tedious overworlds. Super Paper Mario has a lot going for it, and it’s definitely a good game for Mario fans who can’t wait for Super Mario Galaxy or who loved the previous Paper Mario games. There’s a lot of cleverness and diversity here, enough to have hooked me for 15 hours straight. But the dialogue really does drag the action down. And all too often, seemingly “cute and funny” puzzles and tasks just end up annoying and dumb. It’s worth playing, but it’s far from being on the same page as past Mario games.