Holy smokes was this a fun ride. Had some extremely witty writing, vibrant and beautiful graphics, and was just overall a great experience for me.
I'm well aware of the rocky history of Paper Mario games in recent years. I acknowledge that, this being my first Paper Mario game, I can't take into account the series history as a whole. However, there is absolutely no contrarianism here: I loved this game. I never thought I would feel connected to a can of paint.
Everything is vibrant. I love how everything is "paper based". The walls are made out of cardboard, one of the gates is made out of toilet paper. The joy of this is not only in the pun of everything being based around paper - it's the distinct visual style this creates. It feels handcrafted; and the graphical finesse takes it a step further, to where you don't even realize the "handcrafted" nature of it all. I love the colors at play here, the little small details in the buildings.
The battle system was a problem, I'll get that out of the way. It plays like an extremely simplistic card battler, like Baiten Kaitos, but extremely watered down (and weird). Essentially you have two main resources in the game, paint and cards. You have to have a deck of cards in order to play attacks on enemies, and painting these cards endows them with more power. This is problematic, because you will run very quickly out of cards. The game doesn't do the best at supplying you with cards out in the field, so you will have to buy them. You will constantly be traveling back to the main town, Port Prisma, in order to buy new stuff. It's also tedious to make money in this game, the best way is a Rock-Paper-Scissors tournament called Ro-Sham-Bo (not making this up).
Yet this backtracking isn't as sour as it could be just by the fact that you travel by levels. It takes the level system from the Mario platformers and makes it fit into the context of an RPG. While I always do like an interconnected world rather than disparate levels - I find it really worked to this games advantage. Each 'level' is unique as hell. Some are better than others (my favorite was Dark Bloo Inn), but all of them have a distinct identity and gimmicks in the most positive sense of the term. The different routes each "Paint Star" opens, and the way the world is connected feels very intricate in a way I can't explain.
Back to a negative that is also a positive: the witty dialogue. I often got "joke fatigue", the feeling that they were just joking too dang much here. It made it hard to take things seriously. Yet there were times when the game could be serious and affecting, and it knew when to step back from the jokes for a little.
Heres a positive again: the music was kickin', love the violin in Port Prisma's town theme and the main theme repeated throughout the game.
Overall, just really loved this game. Just beat it. Probably the best Wii U exclusive in my opinion.
I think this game came out at a bit of an awkward time, but it makes me want to play more of the Paper Mario games, including TTYD.
I'm well aware of the rocky history of Paper Mario games in recent years. I acknowledge that, this being my first Paper Mario game, I can't take into account the series history as a whole. However, there is absolutely no contrarianism here: I loved this game. I never thought I would feel connected to a can of paint.
Everything is vibrant. I love how everything is "paper based". The walls are made out of cardboard, one of the gates is made out of toilet paper. The joy of this is not only in the pun of everything being based around paper - it's the distinct visual style this creates. It feels handcrafted; and the graphical finesse takes it a step further, to where you don't even realize the "handcrafted" nature of it all. I love the colors at play here, the little small details in the buildings.
The battle system was a problem, I'll get that out of the way. It plays like an extremely simplistic card battler, like Baiten Kaitos, but extremely watered down (and weird). Essentially you have two main resources in the game, paint and cards. You have to have a deck of cards in order to play attacks on enemies, and painting these cards endows them with more power. This is problematic, because you will run very quickly out of cards. The game doesn't do the best at supplying you with cards out in the field, so you will have to buy them. You will constantly be traveling back to the main town, Port Prisma, in order to buy new stuff. It's also tedious to make money in this game, the best way is a Rock-Paper-Scissors tournament called Ro-Sham-Bo (not making this up).
Yet this backtracking isn't as sour as it could be just by the fact that you travel by levels. It takes the level system from the Mario platformers and makes it fit into the context of an RPG. While I always do like an interconnected world rather than disparate levels - I find it really worked to this games advantage. Each 'level' is unique as hell. Some are better than others (my favorite was Dark Bloo Inn), but all of them have a distinct identity and gimmicks in the most positive sense of the term. The different routes each "Paint Star" opens, and the way the world is connected feels very intricate in a way I can't explain.
Back to a negative that is also a positive: the witty dialogue. I often got "joke fatigue", the feeling that they were just joking too dang much here. It made it hard to take things seriously. Yet there were times when the game could be serious and affecting, and it knew when to step back from the jokes for a little.
Heres a positive again: the music was kickin', love the violin in Port Prisma's town theme and the main theme repeated throughout the game.
Overall, just really loved this game. Just beat it. Probably the best Wii U exclusive in my opinion.
I think this game came out at a bit of an awkward time, but it makes me want to play more of the Paper Mario games, including TTYD.