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Author Topic: Paper Mario 3DS images  (Read 48775 times)

ShadowBrain

  • Ridiculously relevant
« Reply #75 on: June 11, 2012, 08:34:48 AM »
The stickers'll probably be like Bro items in M&L2, where despite technically being limited, there's so many of them that it never becomes an issue (which is sort of good, because they're the only effective mode of attack).
"Mario is your oyster." ~The Chef

« Reply #76 on: June 11, 2012, 10:11:39 AM »
...Which is what made Partners in Time the worst Mario RPG to date.
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« Reply #77 on: June 11, 2012, 12:05:28 PM »
Of course I'll wait until it's released and likely give it a go then.
Kinopio is the ultimate video game character! Who else can drive a kart, host parties, play tennis, give good advice and items, and is almost always happy??

CrossEyed7

  • i can make this whatever i want; you're not my dad
« Reply #78 on: June 11, 2012, 02:24:19 PM »
Is it? They were more or less what set the first two Paper Mario games apart from anything else. Super Paper Mario did have the same quality writing and some nice stories contained within the chapters, but without characters tying the player's party to that, everything becomes less memorable...

And the thing is, Super Paper Mario could've had that if the writing had developed in a different direction. There's quite an extensive backstory, including about the twelve Pixls, but other than Tippi (and even she only really becomes an interesting character toward the end), it's all hidden away in the crazy drunk guy in the milk bar, never brought to the forefront, and it's never tied in coherently with the actual settings of the game. They could have developed that backstory more and made it frontstory and given the Pixls more character and humanity (...er... hnauity?) than just comic relief. I love the plot and settings and lore of Super Paper Mario, but as a game, the whole package doesn't hold together nearly as well as Thousand-Year Door did.

Okay, in Thousand-Year Door, there were those chests that "cursed" you and gave you the paper powers, right? And while they're obviously essential for gameplay purposes, the characters of the chests seem like they're just comic relief that have absolutely nothing to do with the real story when you're playing through. But if you play all the way to the end and go out of your way to read everything from the multiple backstory guys and start piecing everything together, you come to realize that it's very likely that the chests are actually the four legendary heroes who sealed away the Shadow Queen with the Crystal Stars 1,000 years ago, so that's cool. In Super Paper Mario, they pretty much did that for the Pixls. Thing is, once they made the Pixls seem like they were just comic relief characters with no real ties to anything until you read the backstory, there wasn't a good replacement for the partners. Peach, Bowser, and Luigi fill in for them a little bit, but like BP said, you always have to play as Mario so you can obsessively flip into 3D everywhere, so you don't get to hear Peach, Bowser, and Luigi's dialog most of the time, so there's just never good partner dialog. Which is rather ridiculous considering by the end of the game there are well over a dozen people in your party.
« Last Edit: June 11, 2012, 02:29:49 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

BP

  • Beside Pacific
« Reply #79 on: June 11, 2012, 02:47:18 PM »
I do agree with all that, though I wasn't necessarily referring to the Pixls' apparent lack of character. I was referring to their lack of relevance to the world around them. You find them like items in Zelda games: the only reason they are where they are because it is conveniently only possible to proceed with their help. Then they join Mario just because. The characters of PM and 2 join Mario often for personal reasons and have families and friends who stay behind to cheer them on from the sidelines. Which makes you care about the sidelines.
« Last Edit: June 11, 2012, 02:49:02 PM by BP »
All your dreeeeeeams begiiin to shatterrrrrr~
It's YOUR problem!

CrossEyed7

  • i can make this whatever i want; you're not my dad
« Reply #80 on: June 11, 2012, 04:57:55 PM »
That's pretty much what I was getting at with them being like the chests -- they're only there to fulfill arbitrarily necessary gameplay mechanics, and to be funny. You worded it better, though.

Paper Mario and Thousand-Year Door did a great job making a real coherent world, making characters feel like actual people with fears and aspirations, and being genuinely endearing while maintaining a great sense of humor. The Mario & Luigi games, probably by virtue of being a handheld series, tend to dispense with any seriousness and just be funny. There are no real characters in Superstar Saga -- pretty much everyone is just a one-off gag in the ongoing slapstick routine. Like when you get the S.S. Chuckola into the water and it floats for a few seconds, with the captain jumping for joy up on the deck, and then it hits a rock and sinks -- from that moment on, the doors into the ship are permanently shut and you never see any of the crew members ever again. All those people are trapped in there forever, and the game doesn't even pretend otherwise. I'm supposed to just laugh and move on, but I just felt really bad for all of them.

(Incidentally, SMRPG didn't do that. Almost every character shows up later somewhere or gets visited again -- Raz and Raini, Booster, Valentina, Johnny, Belome, Knife Guy and Grate Guy. Most of the characters that don't -- Monstermama, Hinopio, Ma and Pa Mole -- at least have the decency to stay in one accessible place so you know they're still alive. The bosses, being robotic weapons, show up again in a sense when we find out that they were prototypes for mass production. The only characters who are kinda like Mario & Luigi characters would be Punchinello and the random unexplained bosses in the rushed endgame -- Cloaker, Domino, Count Down, Gunyolk, Clerk, et. al.)

With Super Paper Mario, a little bit of the comedic sadism (or at least misanthropic detachment) of the Mario & Luigi series started creeping in. Not that there's anything wrong with Mario & Luigi, but there's a reason there are multiple serieses. I hope Sticker Star can keep the empathy of the Paper games. Having partners is a really good way to do that, but if they can do it another way, I'm up for it.

I really want a Paper Mario game on the Wii U, though.
« Last Edit: November 12, 2012, 03:11:15 AM by Sapphira »
"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 #81 on: June 11, 2012, 05:17:30 PM »
I specifically mean that you care more about the non-playable characters and their homelands in PM and TTYD because there are playable characters who do.

Maybe if I made posts as long as yours I could get my point across in one instead of three
All your dreeeeeeams begiiin to shatterrrrrr~
It's YOUR problem!

CrossEyed7

  • i can make this whatever i want; you're not my dad
« Reply #82 on: June 11, 2012, 08:26:31 PM »
Ah. That too.
"Oh man, I wish being a part of a Mario fan community was the most embarrassing thing about my life." - Super-Jesse

« Reply #83 on: June 11, 2012, 09:46:26 PM »
Just now heard about this. Yet another Paper Mario game? Doubt it will be anything new, in all reality. In the past, Paper Mario hasn't really evolved into much. Same story with most of Mario these days, sadly.

Ah well, I'll be hopeful for it.
Unwillingly, but successfully! Twice!

The Chef

  • Super
« Reply #84 on: June 11, 2012, 11:59:31 PM »
^ Clearly you didn't bother to look at anything in this thread, screens, videos, posts or otherwise.

« Reply #85 on: June 12, 2012, 12:41:51 AM »
Well, before you jump to conclusions, I have done a bit of reading on it.
I do like the new battle strategy. It's somewhat nice to step away from the traditional stage fighting (WWE?) method.
Paper Mario games only ever seem to change by replacing one gimmick with another, like the sticker idea.
But I suppose that they can only change so much, really.
Unwillingly, but successfully! Twice!

Trainman

  • Bob-Omg
« Reply #86 on: June 12, 2012, 08:35:36 AM »
Paper Mario games only ever seem to change by replacing one gimmick with another, like the sticker idea.

If you're referring to its gameplay concept, then you might have a point, but as far as literally any other aspect of it, I'd say they're different.
Formerly quite reasonable.

BP

  • Beside Pacific
« Reply #87 on: June 12, 2012, 12:20:58 PM »
I'm not seeing where TTYD replaced a gimmick PM1 had. For all intents and purposes the two play the same, but with more depth, expansion and polishing of nearly every aspect in TTYD. Which, despite making the game play more smoothly and giving the player more control, doesn't make it all that different and mostly just amounts to you having to do more action commands.

Maybe Intelligent Systems thinks they perfected what they were doing in Paper Mario with TTYD and won't do it again because they don't want to fix what isn't broken, but then everyone would complain that it's the same game.
All your dreeeeeeams begiiin to shatterrrrrr~
It's YOUR problem!

« Reply #88 on: June 12, 2012, 03:33:25 PM »
If you're referring to its gameplay concept, then you might have a point...

Yeah, I wasn't referring to every literal detail changing in each consecutive game.
Unwillingly, but successfully! Twice!

« Reply #89 on: June 12, 2012, 04:55:34 PM »
Are we in the minority for wanting actual partners with fleshed-out personalities, or is Nintendo just that out-of-touch with what the fans want?

Well put, CrossEyed. While I didn't care about the S.S. Chuckola's crew since that barrel-sorting minigame was bull[dukar], I was upset by the fact that Beanbean Castle Town is never restored. Are the residents dead, or forever locked inside their homes? If the programmers cared, couldn't the town at least show signs of improvement by the game's end?
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