Paper Mario fanatics are kind of the worst, huh? They're like the most annoying attributes of Nintendo nerds amplified by ten; they constantly whine about how dead their series is, get into absurd fights over which game is the best, they shove their games down your throat without giving you room to breathe. I suppose it has died down a little since that recent installment for the Switch, but I'm sure you all know what I'm talking about. It gets really tiring sometimes to hear the same things hailed as godsends, and instead of making me want to check them out it just drives me away out of annoyance. This can also be said for stuff like Outer Wilds and Hollow Knight, but I remember tracing this feeling in my head back to games like this.
All that being said, this game is damn near masterful in many aspects. The amount of heart and soul thrown in is just staggering. The story in particular is one of Nintendo's finest and most captivating. You probably couldn't count all the memorable characters here if you had four hands, and same goes for the songs featured throughout. It's also a really good RPG for beginners, seeing as the difficulty as a whole is very very low up until the final two chapters. There's a lot to love here. I do love this game, and ultimately I can indeed see how it reached its status.
A big thing about the ridiculous levels of hype, though, is that it makes the lower points sting that much more. This game is absolutely not free of those, I can tell you that much. Most notably, the backtracking can be pretty exhausting. In particular, Chapter 4's ridiculous amounts of wandering back and forth reduce it to a tedious nightmare, even despite the introduction of Vivian, whom everybody loves and everybody should love.
Less significant, but still worth noting is that the battle system started to wear on my nerves after a while, though I guess this is usually an RPG problem as a whole. I guess it's pretty hard to get that right, admittedly. But things like the Twilight Town/Creepy Steeple fiasco, or Chapter 7's asinine fetch quest...they really just make me wonder, what was the point? Was there not a better way to pad those chapters out? I don't know, man.
And the thing is, I probably wouldn't be as worked up about moments like this if its fans didn't tout it around as a flawless masterwork. It feels like the cracks are bigger than they really are, since everything good has been already said and then some. Sometimes when things reach this status it's just easier to talk about the negatives, even if it really is a wonderful time as a whole.
So for the most part it looks like the aforementioned loud, annoying fans were right. But really, in the end I still don't think a return to form for this series is necessary. It's part of what makes those early ones special, how one of a kind they are. Every series eventually declines with time, and it's not really a big deal how early or late it happens.
It's also just that like, projects like Bug Fables? That has "oh, this is for the REAL fans" energy all over it. That shit is annoying. Not touching it with a ten foot pole. Gootbye.
Anyway, uh, it's like 2 AM. This is a very scatterbrained and ranty review, if you can't tell already. I tried to bum rush through the last three chapters of the game today and I am totally out of energy. It's also deliberately my 500th game logged, though, so I wanted to write something longer despite being tired. Ultimately I'm glad I caved in and gave this a go. I think it was worth it.
All that being said, this game is damn near masterful in many aspects. The amount of heart and soul thrown in is just staggering. The story in particular is one of Nintendo's finest and most captivating. You probably couldn't count all the memorable characters here if you had four hands, and same goes for the songs featured throughout. It's also a really good RPG for beginners, seeing as the difficulty as a whole is very very low up until the final two chapters. There's a lot to love here. I do love this game, and ultimately I can indeed see how it reached its status.
A big thing about the ridiculous levels of hype, though, is that it makes the lower points sting that much more. This game is absolutely not free of those, I can tell you that much. Most notably, the backtracking can be pretty exhausting. In particular, Chapter 4's ridiculous amounts of wandering back and forth reduce it to a tedious nightmare, even despite the introduction of Vivian, whom everybody loves and everybody should love.
Less significant, but still worth noting is that the battle system started to wear on my nerves after a while, though I guess this is usually an RPG problem as a whole. I guess it's pretty hard to get that right, admittedly. But things like the Twilight Town/Creepy Steeple fiasco, or Chapter 7's asinine fetch quest...they really just make me wonder, what was the point? Was there not a better way to pad those chapters out? I don't know, man.
And the thing is, I probably wouldn't be as worked up about moments like this if its fans didn't tout it around as a flawless masterwork. It feels like the cracks are bigger than they really are, since everything good has been already said and then some. Sometimes when things reach this status it's just easier to talk about the negatives, even if it really is a wonderful time as a whole.
So for the most part it looks like the aforementioned loud, annoying fans were right. But really, in the end I still don't think a return to form for this series is necessary. It's part of what makes those early ones special, how one of a kind they are. Every series eventually declines with time, and it's not really a big deal how early or late it happens.
It's also just that like, projects like Bug Fables? That has "oh, this is for the REAL fans" energy all over it. That shit is annoying. Not touching it with a ten foot pole. Gootbye.
Anyway, uh, it's like 2 AM. This is a very scatterbrained and ranty review, if you can't tell already. I tried to bum rush through the last three chapters of the game today and I am totally out of energy. It's also deliberately my 500th game logged, though, so I wanted to write something longer despite being tired. Ultimately I'm glad I caved in and gave this a go. I think it was worth it.
10 Comments
I do love Thousand Year Door, its one of my favorite games of all time. But... yeah the fourth chapter's backtracking is a nightmare, I strongly dislike Chapter 2 and 7, and the unwillingness from diehard fans to give other games (or even other rpgs) a chance is just... exhausting.
One element that gets overlooked that I'm particularly not fond of is how the sidequest system is implemented. The Help Center is a fun little gimmick, but only allowing you to run one sidequest at a time just prolongs the game even further than necessary. Lots of padding. Lots of problems.
One element that gets overlooked that I'm particularly not fond of is how the sidequest system is implemented. The Help Center is a fun little gimmick, but only allowing you to run one sidequest at a time just prolongs the game even further than necessary. Lots of padding. Lots of problems.
i didn't mind chapter 2 at all actually, i've always found it a little odd that that's the one that gets brought up frequently from what i've seen
never bothered with the sidequests really
never bothered with the sidequests really
I wouldn't say Help Center's sidequest stuff is too bad, especially if you utilize blue pipes and badge setups to cut down on the backtracking, but some of it can be pretty... odd, for sure. I just focus on Pit Of 100 Trials though
Chapter 2's thing with backtracking is annoying, in fact I'd say it's on par with Chapter 4's cause it has two sections where you gotta go back and forth, one of which being the central gimmick of the dungeon itself. It doesn't look or sound that much, but if you replay the game a bunch it starts to add up and get annoying, which doesn't help since it's sandwiched between the great first chapter and my personal favorite chapter of the whole game, Glitzville
Chapter 2's thing with backtracking is annoying, in fact I'd say it's on par with Chapter 4's cause it has two sections where you gotta go back and forth, one of which being the central gimmick of the dungeon itself. It doesn't look or sound that much, but if you replay the game a bunch it starts to add up and get annoying, which doesn't help since it's sandwiched between the great first chapter and my personal favorite chapter of the whole game, Glitzville
I'm not really a fan of the Paper Mario games (my wife is, though). I'm just here to brighten the experience by being an annoying F-Zero and Suikoden fanatic instead. It's only been...19 years for F-Zero (18 if you count the Japanese-only F-Zero Climax), where's my franchise love?!
This doesn't even really work because I just love F-Zero GX and want another racing game that feels like that. Don't mind me. Nice review, though.
This doesn't even really work because I just love F-Zero GX and want another racing game that feels like that. Don't mind me. Nice review, though.
now that this is (tied for) your most liked review i’m really curious as to where the outer wilds comparison comes from here. yeah, both paper mario and hollow knight have their fanbases and both really really really want more, but as far as i know the two of us have only known one outer wilds fan that only ever met the first criteria
(not mad, so we’re clear, just honestly curious)
(not mad, so we’re clear, just honestly curious)
Outer Wilds fans never stop talking about it like it's the greatest game ever made, that's probably it
Outer Wilds fans just need to play more indie games or games in general
tbh i dont think of Bug Fables as a tribute to the paper mario games, that's the worst way to look at it. it's fantastic in its own right.
@randomPfp That part was weirdly bitter i don’t think i’d fully write it off nowadays
BlazingWaters
1 year ago
On something actually related to the game itself though I actually find Keelhaul Key worse than Twilight Town, at least the latter's enemy variety doesn't add to the tedium of the backtracking and pseudo-fetch quests. That point about experimenting after this game is also something I agree with as time passes cause like, I can't imagine the team from IntSys iterating and improving the formula here any further, it's as good as it can possibly get.