Dylatron0712
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This review contains spoilers
As a teenager who has grown up only playing the newer Paper Mario releases barring a little bit of Paper Mario 64 on the Wii U virtual console, I was pretty excited to play this after hearing so many good things about it from older Nintendo fans, and it definitely lives up to the hype. It has a super creative main story with consistently interesting settings and setpieces and a combat system that I actually wanted to engage with rather than reluctantly accept as I had done with the most recent games. I think the thing that truly sets this apart from other games and makes it a cult classic though would be the atmosphere and ost. The latter is a prime example of using the same sonic palate and tools to create dynamic and interesting moods throughout the story. Glitzville and the Great Tree, for examples, use similar sounding synths but have entirely different moods and contribute massively to the immersion of their respective areas for me. All of these things made for a super creative and enjoyable experience overall.
However, I do have some gripes that prevent this from being truly fantastic, at least for my tastes. The most notable one would be the backtracking, which should be no surprise for those who have played the original game. Although the remake has improved this aspect greatly, it still definitely feels present and at times the game feels like it’s stretching its content thin through reuse of areas or enemy types. My second notable complaint is simply that the combat lost its appeal for me once it was taken out of a story context. For instance, the Pit of 100 Trials doesn’t have the story or sense of progression of the plot to make the accompanying gameplay enjoyable for me. I know some people absolutely love this game’s combat, but for me it did its job great during the main campaign and lost replayability quickly outside of that.
Other than those gripes though I found this game largely an incredibly solid experience that kept me wanting more the whole way through. I can definitely see why this is a classic, and I hope Nintendo is releasing this as a signal that they want to return to this gameplay style for the series. It’s Nintendo though, so I’m not getting my hopes up.
However, I do have some gripes that prevent this from being truly fantastic, at least for my tastes. The most notable one would be the backtracking, which should be no surprise for those who have played the original game. Although the remake has improved this aspect greatly, it still definitely feels present and at times the game feels like it’s stretching its content thin through reuse of areas or enemy types. My second notable complaint is simply that the combat lost its appeal for me once it was taken out of a story context. For instance, the Pit of 100 Trials doesn’t have the story or sense of progression of the plot to make the accompanying gameplay enjoyable for me. I know some people absolutely love this game’s combat, but for me it did its job great during the main campaign and lost replayability quickly outside of that.
Other than those gripes though I found this game largely an incredibly solid experience that kept me wanting more the whole way through. I can definitely see why this is a classic, and I hope Nintendo is releasing this as a signal that they want to return to this gameplay style for the series. It’s Nintendo though, so I’m not getting my hopes up.
This is pretty solid game overall with no glaring issues but a bunch of minor ones. Although the exploration was fun, I felt there were way too many crates with upgrade materials rather than interesting rewards. Although the combat was fun and the encounters were consistently cool throughout the runtime, it was a little bit too mechanically simple for me. Overall, this feels bogged down by too many “buts” when I think about its quality to be truly stand-out, but it’s definitely good.