Couple things I take issue with:
See, the issue we haven't covered is WHY were the Mario sidescrollers timeless? gameplay innovation, that's what. And not just the items--the level designs, the enemies, the overworld designs, all that stuff.
SM3D clings to old elements, that's true. what the game DOES with them will determine how worth my time it is.
I think I agree with you here, actually. You just put it in a less negative way than me.
SPM was a side-scroller in a turn-based RPG franchise...as far as audience reception, its fate was sealed from the beginning. casual fans, newbs, outsiders, whatever you call them, they had little to do with it.
It's really not that different from its predecessors. It's just streamlined. Instead of going straight left to right most of the time with some stuff a little off to the side, now it's just totally left to right (with some stuff in 3D). Instead of turn-based Action Commands, now it's real-time Action Commands. The rest of the game -- the story, the dialogue, the items, the cooking -- is still the same. It may be a side-scrolling game, but to call it a sidescroller implies many things that it is not.
Some Amazon reviews:
I bought the wii and paper mario because I was craving a little old school 2D mario action. I think this game is pretty satisfying once you get going and I enjoy it, but I dread all the stupid blathering. The dialog might be ok if it were sort but it isn't even that. It just goes on and on and on and on and on and on and on with inane stupid conversations that consist of nothing better than "I'm better than you!" "Nuh uh!" "Yeah huh!" "Nuh uh!" And if, for example you don't beat the villain at the end of the level you have to scroll through the entire stupid conversation AGAIN! Horrible, just horrible.
I was babysitting a tween recently and they didn't even stick with the game for more than 5 minutes because they said there was too much reading and not enough playing.
Ugh. I want to play not read!
I thought this would be like old school Mario. It's cute but I just don't get it. The pace is very slow, kind of boring. Going through lots of doors. Not for me, I guess I have a short attention span!
To me this game is not worth $[...] let alone $[...]. The beginning of the game takes about 15 minutes just to tell you a story then you're stuck in the first "world" forever. I guess this game is good for those who have a ton of time on their hands, it's not for the casual gamer. I thought it would be more like the old school Mario and I was definitely disappointed!
(Apparently Amazon censors out dollar amounts?)
This was the first game I purchased for Wii. It was fun, but at times it was so frustrating!!!! I spent 80% of the game clicking through word bubbles, which cant be avoided. At times I was so annoyed that I wouldnt touch the game for days. Aside from the lame story and word bubbles, it was neat. This game requires using your mind, it's not your basic "get-to-the-end-of-the-level" game. Sometimes you have to go back and forth through a level to ask people questions etc. I repeat...this game requires intelligence and critical thinking skills, if you dont have those things, DONT buy this game!!!
I loved the way the game challenged my mind with its unique brand of 2D-3D puzzles, but to get to those puzzles I had to click through dozens upon dozens of text. Just as Metal Gear Solid can feel like a movie with snippets of game to play in between cutscenes, Super Paper Mario feels like a story with entertaining bits of gameplay sandwiched between.
This game was awful! My seven year old had to have me read 20 minutes of dialogue boxes with words like "dimensionality", "Void" and "Minions" before the 1980s type game actually started. Actually, this is more like something that would have been exciting circa 1974. We will never play this again!
("This is boring like a 37-year-old game, not exciting like a 27-year-old game!")
My sister and I (both in our 40's) were totally addicted to Super Mario Brothers on the Wii. With it completed, we've been trying to find anything comparable. This is NOT it. This game is way too easy and way too boring.
This has to be the worse Mario game ever. I love Mario games and this was very dissapointing. First you have to click and read through 10 minutes of back and forth messages. Then you have to read crap like every other minute. The game itself is also dum. I would say it is for a 3 year old but they would not be able to read it. It is really dumb. Sorry I wasted my money on it. On ebay it goes after the boycott.
If it had been called something like "Paper Mario: The Tribe of Ancients and the Dark Prognosticus", fewer people would've thought it was New Super Mario Bros. and maybe not as many people would've been disappointed. Also if New Super Mario Bros. Wii had already come out in 2006, so that people in 2007 wouldn't be so desperate for a Mario sidescroller. Then the main problem would've been that it's not as fun to not have real party members.
But really, this demonstrates the apparent problem with 3D Land: They're using the trappings of the classic games to trick casual gamers into buying games that are not Mario sidescrollers. And for some reason they find that a better business strategy than just making some sidescrollers once in a while, which would take much less effort.
As for Paper Mario 3DS, Nintendo can't bring in an old crowd with a game like that...they wouldn't even TRY. Imagine one of those people who haven't played a video game since Super Mario World. If they saw one of the Paper Marios, they'd be MAD AS HELL at this wussy turn-based crap taking over their wholesome, traditional, manly head-stomping fun.
I'm not saying it has a chance of being successful, I'm just saying it's what they're going to try. And yes, it will fail, as evidenced by aforementioned SPM reviews (See also how they tried to market Bowser's Inside Story to casuals). But until I see evidence to the contrary (like screenshots of actual partners), I'm going to assume Nintendo hasn't learned their lesson.
Also, have you noticed that damage ratios are way higher in the screenshots and videos we've seen? Mario does like 5 HP damage with each jump, and in one video he jumps on a Koopa and kicks it into the other enemies, and does 9 damage to all of them. And these are all with just Goombas and Koopas in the battles, which means they're probably pretty early on in the game. You're not gonna get the kind of careful strategy that you had in the battles in the first two games, because casuals don't want to be doing little ***** jumps that only do 1 damage, they want to be doing lots of damage, so we have to give Goombas 10 HP and make you do 5 HP in each bounce.
WHAT IS THIS? Either they're showing screenshots of a Danger Mario run, or this is going to be more M&L than PM.
Alternatively, these could be from much later parts in the game, and it's just there's still lots of Goombas and Koopas in the midgame and endgame because those are the enemies that casuals know. In the
38 released screenshots, the enemies featured are Goombas (in 13 shots), Koopas (7 shots), Spinies (2 shots), Buzzy Beetles (2 shots), a Chain Chomp (3 shots), Pokeys, Wigglers, Dry Boneses, Paratroopas, Bob-ombs, Swoopers, and Whomps (1 shot each), and one shot of a purple Monty Mole wearing a crown, obviously an early boss fight. There are also 6 shots with Toads, 6 shots with just Mario, and 0 shots with Clefts, Puffs, Duplighosts, Koopas with sunglasses, Goombas with hats, pink Bob-ombs, Bob-ombs with mustaches, or Bob-ombs with different winding keys to reflect their personality and profession. Other than the Whomp and maybe the Swoopers, they're all things that the casuals will recognize. And I repeat again,
thirteen Goomba screenshots -- over one-third of all screenshots released.
There probably are Puffs and Clefts in the game, but the fact that we haven't seen a single one, along with the fact that we haven't seen a single screenshot of an actual partner character (one of the biggest complaints PM fans had about SPM), indicates that they are focused on selling this to the masses, not the niche of hardcore PM fans. And let's be clear: the masses will not take kindly to being hoodwinked again. Nintendo could care less right now, because they'll already have their $40, but in the long run, this will lead to horrible public reception of Mario RPGs, which may lead Nintendo to start thinking it's more trouble than it's worth to make a Mario RPG, even though it's their own stupid fault.
If you were playing games frequently in the 90s and you stopped, you are probably not part of the Wii's target demographic. I don't want to sound elitist or like a nostalgia freak, but the casual gaming library that the Wii's got can't scratch THAT kind of itch.
I don't mean the 80s and 90s equivalent of "hardcore gamers" who had a Power Glove and an NES Advantage and an NES Max and could beat Silver Surfer, I just mean the people like my parents that played a buttload of Mario games back then and then suddenly stopped when the pitchfork controller came out. Everyone played Mario. And now we're starting to get everyone playing Mario again, since we have a multiplayer console Mario sidescroller for the first time in 20 years. In between there, there was nothing for those people.
