a little old school, a little bit of new school, odd taste but good

After a 15 year drought of the 2d platforming game play that made Nintendo’s pasta loving plumber a household name, Nintendo is finally giving Nintendo fans they want more 2d jumping action from Mario. The first was New Super Mario Bros for the DS which while good definitely didn’t stack up next to it’s classic counterparts. Next comes Super Paper Mario a game that was originally going to join Zelda twilight Princess has gamecubes last hurrah has now been released for the Wii. While Super Paper Mario is definitely a throw back to Mario’s 2d platforming days it doesn’t come has close has New Super Mario BrosNew Super Mario Bros has it throws in ’sPaper Mario puzzles and RPG elements into the mix.

Story.
The game begins with some lengthy cut scenes. The Princess has gone missing and Mario and Luigi decide to pay a visit to main suspect number 1, Bowser. Only when they get there they get attacked by a mysterious count bleck and Luigi, Bowser, and all of Bowsers troops get sucked into a black hole, while Mario gets knocked out. While Mario is knocked out Bleck stages a wedding and hypnotizes Peach into marrying Bowser, this unnatural union creates a chaos heart which Bleck is using to destroy the fabric of reality. Meanwhile Mario is transported to a town called Flipside where he learns to stop the worlds from all falling into the void he must collect all the pure hearts scatter through several worlds.

Graphics.
The graphics in Super Paper Mario are a bit of a mixed bag. In the 2d realm we see the same sprites that we have seen in previous Mario games. The background environments are lush and for a 2d platformer we have a lot of eye candy. Problem comes with the 3d mode that is in the game. Early in the game Mario will learn to flip into 3d mode in order to get past obstacles, in these worlds the game looks kind of barren and there is just not a lot to explore considering how all the 3d parts are just long passage ways with stuff from the 2d world scattered about them. Luckily you won’t be doing the 3d stuff has much has the 2d.

Sound.
We get the usual Mario voice over’s from the 4 main characters, Mario, Bowser, Luigi, and Peach and there isn’t anything new to there muffles and gruff. For music the game has a lot of original music in there with some remixed music of the classic, if you played a Paper Mario then you know what to expect.

Gameplay.
The game mixes in the classic gameplay of Super Mario Bros and a few of the RPG elements from the Paper Mario series. This is an interesting mix of gameplay that has it’s strengths and it’s faults. First lets get to the good parts.

If you liked your classic Super Mario then Super Paper Mario has plenty of that old school action. The worlds are set up like classic Super Mario Bros stages and we see plenty of old baddies, Goombas, Koopas, and even several different flavors of hammer bros. Stomping on them of course is the main way of getting rid of these pests. The game also takes an interesting twist on the RPG level up formula by making the points you get for stomping enemies and grabbing enemies like EXP points and the points are equal to what you got in classic game. So if you smash 3 goombas in a row without hitting the ground expect your points to go 200, 400, 800 points. Also new is when you smash an enemy you can tilt the controller and Mario will do a little show off move in the air, if done successfully you get more points for doing it. Also there are quite a few areas in the game lifted from the original Super Mario Bros.

Also the game is more puzzle centric then your old school Mario platformer is. There will be areas that Mario can’t get to so you will have to flip in 3d mode, in 3d mode there may be extra power ups, enemies, doors and routes to follow, or you may just have to use it to get around rocks. Adding to the puzzle elements are pixels and Mario’s friends that are recruited into the party once Mario finds them. Peach has her parasol and can float over long distances, Bowser is slow but he does double damage and burn things away with his fire breath, and Luigi is a lot like he is in the lost levels a bit harder to control then Mario but he can jump a lot higher. But since the flip is going to be your number one way around obstacles expect Mario to be your number one guy.

Next to characters you will be collecting Pixels each with an ability that will be needed in order to complete the game. They do things like slim you down, shrink, give Mario the hammer ability he picks up early in his RPG games. ETC and there are several of them for you to find.

You don’t really power your character up really with classic weapons like in new super Mario bros. Mushrooms automatically refill your HP when you grab them rather then make Mario bigger. But there are a few interesting power ups, there are slow and fast flowers that make Mario speed up or slow down and he will get triple the EXP and coins he gets from enemies killed. The coin flower will make coins rain down from the sky. But the coolest one is the star man, remember Mega Mario from new super Mario bros, now imagine him old school. When you grab this whatever character you get not only grows huge but they also turn into what they originally looked like in the original Super Mario Bros 20 years ago, Peach and Bowser have certainly changed a lot since those days.

Has for the RPG elements you will be leveling up and increasing your HP, Defense, and attack strength every time you do so. Also in town you will find your usual inns and shops that sell stuff for the coins you collect. The items and there uses should be familiar to Paper Mario fans and there are also is a restaurant were you can take your items and combine them to power them up, but if you get the wrong combination you wind up with a mistake which only gives you one HP worth of healing.

Also the game has a pretty complicated story compared to Mario Platformers and while we do get a few good twists and turns, and some comic humor in some stages there is a down side. Some characters don’t shut up, they tell you there life story, and in some cases it’s quite literally that, it makes me wish Nintendo had a button that you can press that would make Mario go “SHUT THE F*** UP ALL READY”

Now for the bad side of the game and there are just two things in the game that keeps it from being perfect. 1st is that the game is way to easy, now Mario platformers have gotten easy over the years thanks to the ability to get tons of 1 up’s easily. While Super Paper Mario doesn’t have the 1 up problem, rather it’s harder to die in Super Paper Mario then it is in Super Princess Peach. With the recovery items and enemies that will only take 2 to 3 hit points per hit it’s hard for Mario and company to really die. I only died once in the game and it was do to be being ill prepared because I forgot to do a little shopping before going into a world.

Second problem is that some of the puzzles are annoying, while most of them are clever and fun to complete a few of them are just a pain. For example in one stage you find 3 blocks and you get the advice from your pixel Tippi to go back to the town at the beginning of the stage, so you back track. You find a person and they make you type out the word Please! several times. Then they give you a 25 move combination to hit those in that order to move on. Yes you have to write them all down and you have to do it right to proceed. I have a feeling that someone at Nintendo was laughing there butts off when they made this, I just wanted to grab them by there neck and beat them senseless with the wii remote. And there are a few more like that.

Final Recommendation.
While Super Paper Mario isn’t quite has fun has the two types of games it’s merging Super Mario and Paper Mario it is executed with quite a bit of charm. If you own a Wii I recommend picking it up.