I really, really wanted to see this game the way everyone else seems to - as one of the greats of Mario RPGs. it seems to have everything that I loved about Paper Mario 64 and Super Paper Mario with its witty writing and excellent characters. but I just cannot seem to get myself to love or even like this game very much outside of that - every playthrough I end up getting bogged more and more by the absolutely ridiculous levels of backtracking and it's just nowhere near as fun to play as either its predecessor or its sequel. something about it just doesn't land with me, which makes me sad
it gets 2 stars rather than 1 because its battle system is solid and it's still much better than the games that came after Super Paper Mario

also the music is one of the worst I've heard on an official Nintendo game and the art style is very gross looking compared to the original or post-Super entries (Super's I could stand because at least those were interesting even if it didn't always work). I want to talk to whoever thought this was okay