Print

Author Topic: Paper Mario 3DS images  (Read 48788 times)

CrossEyed7

  • i can make this whatever i want; you're not my dad
« Reply #120 on: November 14, 2012, 07:58:38 PM »
This is the first time in a Paper Mario game that there is no way to go back to re-read the previous line of dialogue (Z in PM and TTYD, Up on the D-pad in SPM). The D-pad would have been perfect for that function. This irritates me much more than it probably ought to.
"Oh man, I wish being a part of a Mario fan community was the most embarrassing thing about my life." - Super-Jesse

« Reply #121 on: November 14, 2012, 08:59:27 PM »
Not that there's much dialogue to miss.
YYur  waYur n beYur you Yur plusYur instYur an Yur Yur whaYur

CrossEyed7

  • i can make this whatever i want; you're not my dad
« Reply #122 on: November 14, 2012, 09:25:57 PM »
There are a lot of nice little touches in the game (being able to hammer in four directions rather than just left and right is a major (and long overdue) improvement), but they mostly serve just as glimpses of how awesome an actual Paper Mario on the Wii U could be if Miyamoto gets his nose out of Intelligent Systems's business and sticks to the main series games.



Minor spoilers for World 3 down here.


Boomerangs are being thrown at you as you make your way across the screen. You get to the end of the screen. Two Boomerang Bros. jump out. They introduce themselves as the Boomerang Brothers. You battle them. You kill them. They drop two battle stickers. You move on.

In a Paper Mario game, those Boomerang Bros. would have names and personalities and would probably be recurring minibosses. But nope. Their name is Boomerang Bros. Their personality is that they are the Boomerang Bros.

I think Galaxy 2 might actually have more plot and character development than this game.



I'm also not a fan of the Sierra adventure game type stuff with the Thing Stickers that I guess is supposed to be the replacement for partner field abilities. Some puzzles make sense well enough, but you get to World 3 and you have to wake up the Wiggler and I guess we'll have to use a Thing Sticker because Kersti's voice isn't loud enough. And in your inventory you have a jackhammer. So you try using that, because jackhammers are loud. Nope. That's wrong, and now you either have to go blow a couple hundred coins to buy another jackhammer for whatever puzzle you'll need it for later, or quit to the Home menu and restart the game. Also: I want to just keep my Things in my Thing inventory and then experiment when I get to a puzzle by flinging one Thing, trying that sticker, and if it doesn't work, I quit and restart without having to have that big sticker taking up space in my album until I eventually stumble upon the puzzle that actually needs it. But I can't even do that, because when I leave Decalburg after making that sticker, the game automatically saves. So the only way I can test it out without wasting space or coins is to first make a copy of my file (incidentally, why are limited numbers of save files still a thing in 2012?). RPGs or adventure games or whatever genre this is should not be discouraging experimentation so strongly.



Has anyone found a way to target specific enemies in battle, or is it not possible?
As far as I know, it's always front to back as they're killed (and if you use multiple stickers in one turn with the spinner, your second sticker will go to the second enemy even if the first one isn't dead from the first attack, which can also get annoying). Supposed to encourage more strategic sticker use, but that would be a lot easier if you could see individual enemy HP instead of the collective HP of all enemies put together, and if there was any way to see attack and defense stats. I don't see any reason why Kersti couldn't have at least served as a Tattler.
« Last Edit: November 14, 2012, 09:37:42 PM by CrossEyed7 »
"Oh man, I wish being a part of a Mario fan community was the most embarrassing thing about my life." - Super-Jesse

« Reply #123 on: November 14, 2012, 09:29:54 PM »
Has anyone found a way to target specific enemies in battle, or is it not possible?
YYur  waYur n beYur you Yur plusYur instYur an Yur Yur whaYur

« Reply #124 on: November 15, 2012, 12:34:13 AM »
Has anyone found a way to target specific enemies in battle, or is it not possible?
It's still too early for me to tell, but from what I've played, most - if not all - items (Line Jump, Hammer, Shell, Boomerang, Fireball, etc) hit the first enemy in line who's closest to Mario. Attacking Goomba #2 first and then Goomba #1 last doesn't seem to be possible. Which is odd since you were given the option to do so in previous installments (minus SPM).


I have mixed feelings about this one. :P It's not that I don't like it but...meh. Most of the game has been a cake walk for me. But it's still challenging here and there; I still can't find Wiggler's other three sections, I'm currently stuck in Shy Guy Jungle, and I'm not sure what Thing goes to w2-4's sticker area. Other than that, the game still maintains its funny charm and Mario is (once again) trying to save Peach from Bowser. I'll be honest, It could be better, but I'm still enjoying it.


P.S. Kersti Alley is useless.
"It's vital to reflect occasionally on whether one is overdoing whatever it is one person is doing." ~Toadsworth

« Reply #125 on: November 15, 2012, 07:21:46 AM »
So I'm guessing it's good as a Mario game, but it sucks as an RPG alone. (in other words, it's sort of the opposite of the Mario movie, where it having Mario in the movie made it worse)
VVVERExSTFJCQVM=

« Reply #126 on: November 15, 2012, 08:00:48 AM »
Well, it definitely felt disjointed from a regular RPG right off the bat. I think that they're trying to find ways to make Paper Mario more unique, instead of using the traditional Paper Mario ground. Or maybe make it more accessible to casuals?

It's pretty hard to compare it to the other titles when it's so different, but it's a very good game either way. While I'd like the Paper Mario series to return to its roots, I still love Sticker Star.
I'm a horrible person.

« Reply #127 on: November 15, 2012, 03:47:40 PM »
This is the first PM game in which I'm finding myself avoiding most enemy encounters. With no Tattle Log/Catch Cards or experience points, there's hardly any incentive to engage opponents, especially since you're not likely to gain back the stickers spent.
YYur  waYur n beYur you Yur plusYur instYur an Yur Yur whaYur

« Reply #128 on: November 15, 2012, 04:06:24 PM »
It depends, if you can get a "Perfect Bonus" (one hit finishes the battle), you can get a bunch of coins and one or two stickers. At least, that happens when I fight stuff in 4-1. Otherwise, you're only in it for the coins, which are still nice.
I'm a horrible person.

« Reply #129 on: November 15, 2012, 04:27:22 PM »
But often the only way to get a Perfect Bonus is to use a rare sticker. Why blow my Flashy Line Jump for a Shiny Hammer and a dozen Coins when I can avoid the battle altogether?
YYur  waYur n beYur you Yur plusYur instYur an Yur Yur whaYur

CrossEyed7

  • i can make this whatever i want; you're not my dad
« Reply #130 on: November 15, 2012, 05:36:36 PM »
Do the Toads in Decalburg care at all that Peach was kidnapped and Bowser is trying to take over the world? Do they ever comment on that at all? It seems like the whole thing is about their sticker festival -- and it's not even that special! It's not like a once-every-hundred-years-thing or whatever, it's an annual holiday! It's like if Putin flew out of the sky and kidnapped Obama during the White House Christmas Tree lighting ceremony, and all anyone in Washington DC cares about is "oh no, the tree is ruined! where will we find another tree in time?"

(Of course, technically, Washington DC would be Toad Town. Decalburg would be more like... I dunno, Duluth or something, which makes it even more ridiculous that nobody cares that their head of state was kidnapped right in front of them.)
"Oh man, I wish being a part of a Mario fan community was the most embarrassing thing about my life." - Super-Jesse

WarpRattler

  • Paid by the word
« Reply #131 on: November 15, 2012, 06:03:46 PM »
If the sticker festival is annual, then Peach being kidnapped and Bowser trying to take over the world are still more common occurrences.

CrossEyed7

  • i can make this whatever i want; you're not my dad
« Reply #132 on: November 30, 2012, 05:44:02 PM »
Iwata Asks: Paper Mario: Sticker Star

Interesting tidbits (but you should just go read the whole thing instead):

Tanabe: At our first meeting [for Super Mario RPG], Square presented us an image of Mario wearing a cape, riding a horse, and holding a sword!
Kudo: Our first proposal combined Square's specialty, a world of swords and sorcery like in Final Fantasy, with Super Mario.
Tanabe: I remember how the first thing Miyamoto-san said when he saw that was, "That's not right." He started with how Mario wouldn't have a sword, but might have a hammer.
Iwata: I suppose that when Super Mario became an RPG, Miyamoto-san had an idea in his head from the start about what he wanted to make use of and what couldn't budge.
Tanabe: But that was Miyamoto-san's only specific request. My impression is that Square understood the rest and turned it out nicely.




Paper Mario concept art, March 5 1997



Tanabe: The biggest reason was that Miyamoto-san said he wanted us to make a big change in the atmosphere for Paper Mario this time. I heard that Miyamoto-san was really thinking for a while about how to handle the Super Mario series and pondered over a number of things.
Iwata: We imagined rather early on that Paper Mario would be a good match for the Nintendo 3DS, and the papercraft atmosphere of the actual prototype was good.
Tanabe: That was about three years ago, at the end of 2009.
Aoyama: At the beginning of development, we were simply incorporating an idea making use of the stereoscopic display function. Then at the 2010 E3, before release of the Nintendo 3DS, we revealed several images.
Iwata: So why did it drag on until now?
Aoyama: After E3, Miyamoto-san played the prototype and said it was just a port of the GC version.
Tanabe: I had heard that at first Miyamoto-san said that something like an RPG would be fine, so for a while I thought that something like the previous one would be fine.



Iwata: Listening to you talk, it sounds like Miyamoto-san was a scary presence for the team.
Aoyama: Yeah, he was! (laughs)



Tanabe: Aside from wanting us to change the atmosphere a lot, there were two main things that Miyamoto-san said from the start of the project—"It's fine without a story, so do we really need one?" and "As much as possible, complete it with only characters from the Super Mario world.
Iwata: That's a difficult task. In some ways that would be the exact opposite direction from recent games in the series.
Tanabe: Yeah. With regard to the story, we did a survey over the Super Paper Mario game in Club Nintendo, and not even 1% said the story was interesting. A lot of people said that the Flip move for switching between the 3D and 2D dimensions was fun.



Kudo: I originally saw it in a way that's similar to Miyamoto-san. Personally I think all we need is to have an objective to win the boss battle at the end of the game. I didn't think we necessarily needed a lengthy story like in an RPG.



Iwata: When it comes to characters, in the session of "Iwata Asks" covering Super Mario Galaxy, Miyamoto-san said that he was finally able to put the essence of Mario into words for the first time. [...] He says that a Mario-like design follows from function, so when something otherwise comes into the mix, it doesn't feel right.



Iwata: Creatively, restraints aren't necessarily a bad thing. A lot of new attractive features come out of that.
Tanabe: That's right. At first, we were making a lot of individual allies as in a regular RPG, but when we decided to focus on stickers, in order to make a clear change with previous games in the series, it was like we started all over again by throwing out the system—including those characters—that we had made up to that point.
Iwata: You purposefully threw out the basic RPG structure.
Tanabe: Yes. We decided to make it so that players would face stronger opponents by throwing out the whole concept of experience points and levels in favor of gradually gathering stronger stickers.
I had actually been thinking for a long time that I wanted to get rid of the RPG experience points. In the Freshly-Picked Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland game, which Kudo-san and I worked on together, the player-character didn't develop at all. We adopted a system whereby they solved everything with money.



Nakajima: I've been involved throughout the whole series, but this is the first time the game has a world map, so you can play the courses over and over. We tried to make it enjoyable no matter when you play or which areas you play, so I hope people will really get into it!



Kudo: Well, as mentioned before, the mechanics present new challenges and the gameworld represents a new start. We worked hard so that this game would become the new standard for future Paper Mario games, so please play it to the fullest!



uuuuugggggghhhhhh
« Last Edit: December 01, 2012, 12:01:14 AM by CrossEyed7 »
"Oh man, I wish being a part of a Mario fan community was the most embarrassing thing about my life." - Super-Jesse

BP

  • Beside Pacific
« Reply #133 on: November 30, 2012, 06:03:16 PM »
Yeah, our worst suspicions have been validated.

It's really hard to hate Mr. Miyamoto for anything, and I still support what's being done with the Super Mario series and count NSMBW and SM3DL as instant new favorites. But could he be any more missing the point of what made PM1 and 2 so wonderful? Most fandoms of things that are for kids can only dream of having a more fleshed-out, mature alternate take on the series that's done as right as Paper Mario. It's almost miraculous we had it in the first place, and a real shame it's gone.
All your dreeeeeeams begiiin to shatterrrrrr~
It's YOUR problem!

« Reply #134 on: November 30, 2012, 06:51:38 PM »
We worked hard so that this game would become the new standard for future Paper Mario games, so please play it to the fullest!

EVERYONE STOP PLAYING
YYur  waYur n beYur you Yur plusYur instYur an Yur Yur whaYur

Print