Paper Mario: Color Splash retains the series' delightful humor and creative visuals, injecting a vibrant paint-themed twist into its world and puzzle mechanics. While the combat system can feel simplistic, and the emphasis on Thing cards sometimes disrupts the flow, the game boasts beautiful set pieces, witty dialogue, and a consistently lighthearted atmosphere. If you're seeking a charming adventure with a focus on playful exploration over intricate RPG mechanics, Color Splash will leave you with a smile.

With mechanics that contradict eachother, (mostly) lackluster areas, boring enemies, even more boring characters, and an unnecessary world map, I still really like this game. The writing is really good, the areas that aren't lackluster are REALLY interesting, and the characters (despite being REALLY BASIC) are fun to talk to. Also the music is really good. Personally, there's a lot of bias involved as this was the very first game i ever bought day one, but i find it to still be a decently fun time

My last Mario RPG for ages was Super Paper Mario (I didn't like Partners in Time, so after Super Paper, I just had no interest in pursuing later MaRPGios), so this was a chance to see what I'd been missing. Origami King had just come out, and I'd been inundated with discourse surrounding Sticker Star for years, but I actually knew little of what to expect for Color Splash. More of what people disliked about Sticker Star?

Well... probably... but I do think it's a fine enough game on its own.

The main thing is that you basically have to treat Paper Mario before and after Sticker Star as different series. A shared aesthetic lineage, to be sure, but the goals of each sub-sub-series is so different as to be incomparable. Color Splash has no interest in matching the world-building of Paper Mario, the scope of Thousand Year Door, or the tragedy of Super Paper; it just wants to be a silly series of incidental adventures with some Mario characters. And that's perfectly fine! I don't need every game to be a deceptively expansive RPG or anything like that. Simple li'l adventurey deckbuilders are okay, too.

Not that combat is especially interesting. Deckbuilding at least naturally encourages the player to experiment with the standard cards, but there really aren't too many, and you're likely to settle into something after a while. The ridiculously-named "Things" are the main bit of spice, essentially being one-off summons. They're... I guess it's cute how they change things up, but being one-and-done, it's hard to get real jazzed up about experimenting with them, especially knowing that some puzzles and some fights require some of the Things, and it's not always telegraphed what you'll need. You can at least grind 'em out if you need one you already used, but, like... was this really the easiest way to handle this mechanic?

Nah, you're definitely mostly here for the scenarios and writing. And there's a good deal of variety there! To name a few, there's a pirate adventure, a [muffled Shy Guy voice] BATTLE ROYALE, a Metal Gear Solid-esque infiltration sequence, a cooking challenge... to my knowledge, this is even the first Mario game to have the dubious honor of a Hot Springs Episode. Not to bring up a tired conversation point, but would this all be better with distinct Paper Mario OCs? Perhaps, but I'd argue that it's more effective in some ways to have some no-name Shy Guy randomly confide in Mario his own existentialist ennui. Anyway, it's fun to see how this game develops established supporting members of the Mario cast. Being a former Lemmy's Land Tourist, I'll frankly take any characterization I can for the Koopalings. And Birdo's reinvention as a lounge singer just... feels right for her. Definitely my current headcanon for her day job.

Also, without giving it away - the Green Power Plant was such a cool surprise. Holy moly.

My main emotional takeaway from this game is that it ended at precisely the right time. I had a lot of fun with its scenarios, and its mechanics were enough to lead me through them, but I think any longer - even one or two more stages - and the game would've worn out its welcome. Maybe that's a sign that tracking down each and every one of those Toads was a bit much? Whatever the case, while I definitely am more of a fan of the original Paper Mario series, this at least showed me that modern Paper Mario has its own merits. Solid enough time.

P.S., Thank you for remembering the Super Mario Land Staff Roll theme existed, game.

P.P.S., Another entry for the "when the hell else will I be able to recount this" list. This was my first regular livestreamed game for Designing For (viewable here), following our experiment with Live-A-Live. I didn't already own it, so I ordered a physical copy off GameStop's website (since I generally prefer physical media as a rule). I was confused when the disc wouldn't work on my Wii U, like the console simply couldn't read the disc. I had to check over and over again before I finally caught it - inexplicably, I'd received the German copy of the game in the mail from GameStop, and my Wii U was region-locked. I actually did try looking for a copy at physical stores (while observing social distancing, this being in the middle of COVID), but I ultimately just bought the game digitally off Wii U eShop. Still own that German copy, tho.

I know this might sound unbelievable, but it's exactly as it says. Last week, while playing Paper Mario: Color Splash, I encountered a bizarre and unforgettable moment. Just before a crucial boss battle, I felt an urgent need to use the restroom. I sensed something was off but hoped I could quickly finish the battle first. Unfortunately, I was mistaken. I had a major incident, but even after that, I still felt the urge to go. I checked the time on my phone and realized I had to get back to the game. Not wanting to miss out, especially on such an important part, I cleaned up as best as I could and resumed playing. Throughout the battle, I could hear my stomach making loud noises, and I was sweating profusely. I hoped the battle would end quickly, but the boss kept unleashing relentless attacks. Eventually, I couldn't hold it any longer and had another incident. Surprisingly, after the battle, I found a hidden area with amazing rewards in the game, including a special item that made the remaining gameplay much easier. It was a messy gaming session, but it had a surprisingly rewarding ending. I'll definitely remember this moment whenever I play Paper Mario: Color Splash in the future.

Score: 7/10

I’m going to need a stiff drink to get through this one…

After Nintendo defecated all over the Paper Mario franchise with Sticker Star, my hopes and dreams to experience a fresh, new game in the series that recalled the JRPG genre format of the previous titles I adored as a child were dashed indefinitely. Playing the abysmal excuse for a Paper Mario game that Nintendo slopped onto the 3DS was the closest I have come to a “monkey’s paw” scenario in gaming. Some divine, sadistic force technically granted me my wish but tossed a litany of loopholes into their wish-making magic that would make me regret that this desire ever crossed my mind for the rest of my life. If Sticker Star was nothing but a torrent of grief, pain, and disappointment, why did I even think to entertain the notion of playing its direct follow-up on the Wii U: Paper Mario: Color Splash? Like a devout religious man who has faced a hardship so agonizing that they wonder if their God has forsaken them, I still have not renounced my faith in Paper Mario. Plus, I seem to be more gullible than I let on. I allowed the hearsay from the internet to convince me that Color Splash was a significant improvement on Sticker Star and that it at least made some headway into emulating the old Paper Mario guard we knew and loved. This collective of people must reside along a river in Egypt because I now know from firsthand experience that they were all in denial.

One aspect I will give Color Splash a bit of credit for is that the game introduces its source of conflict in a manner atypical to a mainline Super Mario series standby. In fact, Color Splash’s premise is surprisingly a bit morbid. On an ominous night with inclement weather, Peach delivers a letter from the distant land of Prism Island to Mario’s residence. Mario leaps out of his chair upon seeing that the latter is composed of a dead Toad, who has been drained of all its color and folded to fit an envelope like some mafioso threat. Shocked and horrified, Mario and Peach set sail to Prism Island to uncover the source of this transgression delivered to them by mail. Upon docking their boat on Port Prisma’s wharf, Mario and Peach witness a disquieting scene where the islet is empty and splotches of its color have been muted to a blank, ghostly white. We then catch a Shy Guy in the act of sucking the paint out of the Toad they arrived here with as the victim of a grizzly murder, giving us the impression that he and his savage race of hooded menaces are the ones responsible for all of these bizarre killing sprees. As lifeless as their empty sheet bodies are flattened on the ground like an unfolded burger wrapper, the status of their mortality is not set in stone. After toying around with a mechanism at the center of the plaza, punching in its code unlocks a paint can located in its center. Huey, the floating, sentient paint can with a color-oriented name the developers thought would be more clever than it actually is, will use his anatomical form to house paint for Mario on a mission to collect the seven color stars and restore this land to its radiant self. While Color Splash’s opening sequence fumbles back into reintroducing undesirable aspects present in Sticker Star, the Shy Guys committing what can be best described as arts and crafts vampirism is a genuinely interesting set-up. Hell, if the commander behind this paper toad genocide is General Guy from the first Paper Mario instead of Bowser, I’ll donate my own blood to Shigeru Miyamoto.

Alas, as the game progresses, all of the unsavory little snippets from Sticker Star become more pronounced. Upon exiting Port Prisma, I don’t even know what expletive I shouted when I saw that progression through Prism Island would be mandated by a map grid as it was in Sticker Star. I hate having to repeat myself, but implementing a feature as streamlined as this in your subversive subseries intended to distort the typical tropes of the most recognizable character in the gaming medium is completely counterintuitive. But wait, the world map grid isn’t constructed like the ordinary constricted linear path that we all saw in Sticker Star. As Mario completes the main objective and the grid extends further across the map, one may notice that its trajectory is a tad asymmetrical. Mario’s journey through Prism Island will have him running all over creation, zigzagging around as carefree as a giddy schoolgirl. While I can almost appreciate the developer’s efforts in averting the congested, block design that boxes in the levels of a “world,” their attempt is laughably tepid. Wearing a bowtie to work instead of your regular necktie isn’t exactly a bold example of sticking it to the man, guys.

I suppose what ultimately matters more when discussing Color Splash’s world is the content and quality of each of the areas inside the map. The first area outside of Port Prisma, “Ruddy Road,” recalls the mild and breezy grassy plain trope that has served as the starting section of the first chapter throughout the series. Because of Sticker Star, however, a concern now arises if this chapter is ever going to deviate from this thematic setting. It turns out that the level theming for each of Color Splash’s chapters doesn’t abide by the restrictions of standard Mario themes. However, many of Color Splash’s chapters are fairly reminiscent of The Thousand-Year Door, and this is hardly an instance of glowing praise. The flat grassland of “Ruddy Road” will lead to the “Indigo Underground” where the progression from the previous level almost mirrors that of traveling from World 1-1 down the pipes to the dark and damp sewers in the original Super Mario Bros. Eventually, the chapter-ending goal is located in a foreboding tower. Sure, both of the classic Paper Mario games (and Sticker Star…) feature this thematic arc as their first chapter, but the stark similarities between Color Splash’s future chapters ring an eerie sense of commonality with The Thousand-Year Door. I don’t think it's a stretch to compare the gladiatorial match between Mario and a swarm of enemies in “The Golden Coliseum” to the WWE smackdown of Glitzville, briefly placing the regular flow of combat in the frame of a stage for violent entertainment. To get to each island level of the fourth chapter, Mario must sail on the “Violet Passage” on a sea vessel commanded by a band of Toad pirates, whose uniform at least discerns them from the copied and pasted Toad models reused from Sticker Star. There’s also a faction of Toads who operate a rail line, but there are no quaint, Agatha Christie mysteries to be solved. Implementing those into the chapter would take a considerable amount of intricate narrative unraveling, something only the classic Paper Mario games were evidently capable of executing. This isn’t what we meant when we requested a Paper Mario game similar to The Thousand Year Door! Even in emulating some of its distinctive chapter themes, none of these wannabes could hope to match their influences because they are ultimately bogged down by Sticker Star’s formula of traversing through linear levels to obtain a Macguffin with the occasional RPG fight in between. Playing a remixed version of the first level from Super Mario Bros. 3 with the dimensional shifting mechanics from Super Paper Mario in “Green Energy Plant” is relatively neat. Still, it’s also based on a level from another fucking Mario game!

While the field gameplay follows the same objective as in Sticker Star, Color Splash implements a new mechanic that coincides with its stark overall theme. To make Prism Island shine again like the fourth of July, Huey imbibes Mario’s hammer with his ceaseless storage of paint that generates from his paint bucket body, allowing Mario to double his idiosyncratic weapon from the Paper Mario subseries as a crude, blunt paintbrush. Unsightly white spots will be filled with a downward whack, and little increments of the restoration process will be compensated with a paltry sum of coins. The lurid shades implanted in Mario’s hammer are the primary colors of red, blue, and yellow, and the player will have to recollect their elementary school education of which combination of these colors mix to make the secondary colors of orange, green, and purple. Unless you are color-blind, finding the appropriate hues to fill in these splotches won’t be an issue. However, the incentive to fill in every colorless crag of Prism Island’s areas is practically nil as they aren’t impediments to progression. All the player gets for being meticulous is an unnecessary surplus of coins and an arbitrary completionist percentage. One new mechanic that does coincide with progression is cutouts, snipping out full outlines of land with a giant pair of scissors to prolong the apparent Staples sponsorship. Unfortunately, the cut-out mechanic directly involves the usage of the gamepad outside of the general function of a standard controller, forcing me to interact with a clunky apparatus more intimately and causing me great duress as a result.

To elongate my pain, swiping the attack cards used during combat also involves expending more unwanted engagement with the gamepad. What are attack cards, you may ask? In lieu of Sticker Star being old hat, the sticker mechanic has simply been rebranded as cards that Mario shoves in front of his face during battle like he’s hiding that he has a royal flush. Apparently, the developers all think we are small children who are easily fooled, for the card system is essentially identical to one of Sticker Star’s most befuddling and flawed mechanics. The saving grace with the cards is that Mario no longer has to weed them from the field, as they are rewarded to Mario for the clean-up job with his paint hammer among other methods like hitting blocks and winning battles. It’s quite fortunate that the cards are at least in abundance because the waning color meter on each enemy is not an efficient visual aid to gauge their health, forcing the player to use overkill attacks to ensure victory. Still, I will never be able to stomach their decision to relegate basic combat to a series of items no matter how comparatively plentiful they are. The action commands are relatively more involved during combat than in Sticker Star, but they never ascend over timely pressings of the A button. The game also provides little motivation to humor the combat just like Sticker Star, for there is still no RPG-oriented incremental stat increase. Funny enough, Color Splash does include a health upgrade for Mario every time he completes a chapter. Why increasing Mario’s longevity isn’t contingent on something such as experience points like in any other RPG game is beyond my understanding.

To my chagrin, the “things” from Sticker Star also make their return in a collector’s card format. They no longer have the power of a total trump card but are still incorporated into the boss battles nonetheless. The mighty foes who serve as obstacles to acquiring the Big Paint Stars for the Port Prisma fountain are none other than the Koopalings, and I couldn’t be less enthralled to see them. When did Bowser’s little bastards become synonymous with banality? Having other series regulars like Petey Piranha and Kamek here reflects poorly on them by associating with the seven standby boss battles for modern Mario fare. Since the Koopalings are here to cause chaos, Bowser can’t be far ahead. It’s revealed that the Koopa King dipped his shell into the rainbow pool in the fountain to see what his backside would look like with a radiant glow of seven different shades. However, Bowser’s disturbance caused the colors to mix, which resulted in a Bowser coated in black paint conjuring up the idea to render this world as colorless as he. Oh, and he also contractually kidnaps Peach, because of course he does. After creating a rainbow road from the combined power of all the fountain’s stars after they return to their rightful positions, Mario gets a lift up the eye-catching arch from Luigi of all people to fight the Koopa King in his fortress situated above the clouds. “Black Bowser” sure looks insidious, and it’s apparently the most evil form that Bowser has ever taken. You see, we’re expected to believe that the coagulation of the colors has unleashed some tyrannical, demonic force possessing Bowser to do its bidding. Are we supposed to believe that Bowser has always been nothing but a rival for Peach’s affections like Bluto and has never thought of world domination beforehand as a primary goal? Hardly.

Despite the pervasive backlash, Intelligent Systems and Nintendo thought it would be ideal to replicate Sticker Star onto a home console. Everything that made Sticker Star appalling shifts over without considering how they impact the experience, regardless of how the fans reacted to these new implementations with utter contempt. Given that Color Splash makes the same mistakes twice over, I’m entirely convinced that Nintendo keeps cranking out Paper Mario titles to spite consumers because all of the changes they’ve made are so minute that it feels like they’re mocking us. Still, I’m sad to say that all of those changes are what ascends Color Splash over the pits of despair and into the realm of stark mediocrity. I have to accept that Paper Mario is now the Olive Garden of the Italian plumber’s subseries, dishing out bland, cheap imitations of the finest cooking I’ve ever eaten.

Oof, madone!

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Attribution: https://erockreviews.blogspot.com

I am convinced everyone in the world likes this game but me. I cannot stand nearly every aspect. Just thinking about it infuriates me. It is an RPG where you don't even want to do the battles. Combat is an actual waste of time and resources. You can't target enemies properly. It is just such a mess. They had a PERFECT turn based system already. And they ruined it. How did they do it?

What does this game have to offer? It has colorful and pretty visuals and some funny writing, and comedic lines and self references... but why in the world would you need to play a game to experience either of those things? You play a game to have fun, not to suffer through a dull and awful system to get to some mildly amusing scenes.

This game will make you hate Toads. EVERYONE is a Toad. It is like you are stuck in Toad purgatory. Any charm or interesting characters are just cut out of this series now for 50,000 Toads. And the story is so uninspired and generic. Your companion is flat and uninteresting. The conflict is dull.

I had to force myself to finish this piece of garbage. I know people say Sticker Star is worse, but the fact that this game came out afterwards and it's still awful makes it worse to me.

A favorite Twitch streamer of mine mentioned this game earlier in the week and called it "the second best Paper Mario game." I was naturally quite intrigued by this. I had heard some fairly good things about Color Splash, but never such high praise as this. I was in between bigger games, and Color Splash happened to be one of the few Wii U games I'd brought with me from America with the intent to finish eventually, so I set to work. Five days later and about 40-50 hours of gameplay later (getting nearly all the cards and doing enough stuff to get the "real" ending), I can say that this is not just a great Paper Mario game, it is the BEST Paper Mario game.

The story of Color Splash revolves around Peach recieving a strange letter in the mail: A folded up Toad with no color! She brings it to Mario, and the two of them along with a single Toad retainer go off on a boat to the island the letter was postmarked from: Port Prisma. Upon arriving there, they find an island whose paint has been sucked up in droves by a mysterious force of largely Shy Guys, and with the help of their new friend Huey the paint can, Mario sets off to work to save the island and return its color. It's not an incredible feat of storytelling that has something super in-depth or meaningful to say about the human condition, of course. This IS a Mario game, so the guess of who's behind it all isn't that difficult. That said, the real winning part of the story is its presentation and the dialogue.

This game is, even for a Paper Mario game, incredibly silly and irreverent in its humor. It's constantly breaking the 4th wall, making homages to other Mario and Paper Mario games, and poking fun at RPGs and the Mario series in general with its own spin on a very modern humor. It's a sense of humor that will probably date the game to a certain extent, compared to the other Paper Mario games certainly, but it had me absolutely in stitches the entire time I was play. I loved getting to an area with new NPCs because I just HAD to talk to everyone. Huey especially is the ultimate realization of the replacement for the colorful cast of sidekicks that the first two Paper Mario games had but the next two did away with. He really feels like a companion and a character rather than just a guide through the story, and Huey in particular is probably what puts the writing and humor of this game above the other Paper Mario games for me. Huey is the only actual new Mario character in this, as all the citizens of Port Prisma are Toads and not some new kind of islander (despite the Stars looking like Isle Delfino Shines, that is entirely coincidental and no Mario Sunshine references or characters are in this at all, actually), but the way the game is written, the island really feels like it has a personality all its own in a way that feels different from other Mario RPGs. I'm sure some people will bounce off the humor of this game, but it clicked with me 100%.

Further on the topic of presentation, this game is really nice looking. Paper Mario is hardly a photo-realistic art style, of course, but they really lean into the paper-craft look of the series in a way that is a logical progression of how they were treating things in Sticker Star. It's also referenced in the dialogue/humor a lot, how everyone/thing is paper, but everything looks that way and acts like it too. Enemies will tear up the cardboard to try and smash you with it, Toads will fling themselves like shuriken to make a staircase, Bowser's goons will tape doors shut with Bowser-branded tape to keep you from getting past. The game's HD look and its style make the game look great, and except for a few cutscenes, the game keeps a really solid framerate as well.

Even still, the best part of the presentation may be the game's music. Now I'm not usually one to notice music in games or even talk about it, but holy crap this game has some incredible music. It has a really well done orchestral score that I think may be my favorite sound track to a game ever. It does a great job at setting the atmosphere for more serious moments (the few there are), as well as creating a specific brand of silliness for different lands you visit throughout the island. Music is of course a very subjective topic, but this is the only game I've ever played that I've thought "where can I buy the soundtrack for this thing?"

Speaking of lands, that's another thing this game does a little bit differently from other Intelligent Systems Mario RPGs. Rather than a traditional hub world, the game has several dozen "stages," which are more linear experiences unto themselves. You find different exits in each in the form of stars, and those starts create paths to other stages. Many stages even have redundant exits leading to already explored stages just to make the world map a bit more easy to get around. It's a really clever way to design an RPG's world, as it means that things lack a concrete "point A to point B" cohesion, but it also means that each stage feels like a complete experience in and of itself.

Now finally, we get to the meat and potatoes of an RPG, the combat. I'm gonna start out immediately with clarifying that, as you may've guessed, this is far from the most complex RPG combat system in the world. If Final Fantasy V is the baseline you set for RPG combat systems, and anything less will make a game super boring for you, then you won't find much to love here. That said, this is the most complex a Paper Mario game's combat has ever been. By expanding on Sticker Star's dull and pointless combat, they've managed to create something really compelling and interesting.

The biggest problem Sticker Star, the previous Paper Mario game, had was that the combat felt like a waste of time. Your stickers were limited, and because there was no XP system in that game, getting into battles felt like something universally worth avoiding, since it would just drain your precious sticker supply. All you cared about were HP and stickers, and battles drained both of those things for very little reward past the occasional rare sticker. Color Splash fixes all of this this by adding one more thematically appropriate resource pool: Paint.

In Color Splash, instead of stickers, you have battle cards. Battle cards don't require being painted to be used, but they're far more powerful when imbued with paint. However, your red, blue, and yellow paint reserves are limited, so in addition to keeping track of how many of each card you have (out of a max of 99), you also must keep track of how much paint you're using. Battling enemies will use up paint and cards, yes, but battling enemies will net you more paint as well as EXP, which is the only way to increase your maximum paint supplies, which you'll want as high as possible. 1-Up mushrooms that refill your paint supplies in battle are rare, and XP doesn't affect how hard you hit, only the power of the card affects what damage you do, and more powerful cards need a lot more paint. Pre-painted cards do exist and can be bought in-game, but they're far more expensive and harder to find than unpainted cards. Enemies are persistent with the instance of the stage, so if you clear out a room, it'll stay cleared out until you exit the stage, so each stage effectively acts like one larger resource management puzzle (albeit a bit of a simple one: this is far from the hardest game in the world), and the large variety of them makes opening up a new stage always something exciting.

The last returning feature to be improved upon from Sticker Star is the Thing system. Things are objects which are not made of paper that you'll find in the world that can have the paint squeezed out of them to have them turned into a battle card. These are almost always a part of the solution to some puzzle at some point in the game, whether its an environemental puzzle or a certain part of a boss battle, and knowing which ones to have and when is crucial to not getting stuck. The up-side to this is not only can you buy another of any Thing you've found at a store, like you could in Sticker Star, but unlike Sticker Star, there's a Toad in a trash can right next to that store who will give you a hint (granted its a very obvious hint) of what kind of Thing the next puzzle you'll encounter will require. It removes any element of clairvoyance you'd need to have to guess which Things to take along with you for the next stage, and helps the game flow much better since you aren't constantly backtracking to get the Thing you had no idea you'd need.

Verdict: Highly Recommended. This game is one of my favorite games I've played all year. It's up there with Dad of War as a game I thought I might like when I started it, but grew to absolutely adore as an all-time favorite over the course of completing it. I stand firm in that this is the best Paper Mario game, and it is also a contender for best Mario RPG (and that includes Mario & Luigi games) as well. The humor certainly won't be for everyone, and the combat will be too simple for some RPG fans as well, but if you've enjoyed any of the other Paper Mario games, you will likely enjoy this game quite a lot as well.