What’s With Paper Mario Now?

Over the years, we’ve seen many iterations of the classic Super Mario Bros. From heroic plumber, to doctor, to professional kart racer, to sports star, and even a pie factory worker, Mario’s got a massive grab-bag variety of games under his belt. Perhaps my absolute favorite genre involving Mario is the RPG side of things. Two series come to mind when I think of Mario RPG’s: the first is the witty Mario and Luigi series on the many different handheld devices throughout Nintendo history, but more pertinent to today’s article is the titular Paper Mario franchise.

One day in 2005 for Christmas, I was given a copy of Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, an innocent-looking GameCube title that I had passively seen demoed at a local Wal-Mart a couple weeks before but didn't remember much of. It looked kinda fun, but I had no idea what I was getting into. After a couple hours of playing on Christmas day, I was immersed in the story and combat mechanics. Within the first couple hours, something had drawn me into the game like never before. Having just finished ravaging through Metroid Prime’s lonely (albeit beautiful) landscapes, I was ready to explore an environment teeming with approachable life signs. And boy was I not disappointed. The game took me a long time to complete my first time through. I remember struggling to master the combat mechanics, and allowing my mind to completely escape into this colorful and fun world as I basked in the game’s clever writing, fun art style, and challenging gameplay. I have recently played through the game again after many years, and I admit that the game isn’t nearly as challenging as I remember—in fact, I beat the final boss without any real problems, being slightly disappointed in how anti-climactic the ending was for me now that I had mastered the game’s RPG elements. Nevertheless, I still rate Thousand-Year Door as one of my Top 5 all-time favorite games, ever.

Alright, I have gushed about this game enough. Long story short, the game was amazing and I was dying for more. I eventually played through the original Paper Mario, and I enjoyed that title as well. I could definitely see how TTYD improved upon the original in all the right places. My excitement could not be contained when I heard that Paper Mario was coming to the Wii. I remember watching a YouTube video showing the new gameplay of the anticipated Super Paper Mario title, and I have to say, I was… confused. I remember thinking, “Huh. They didn’t show the RPG mechanics of the game; maybe they’re saving it for later to surprise us.” 

Nope. There were none, and I could not have been more let down. Being the stubborn teenager I was, I chose to ignore this title because it was so drastically-different from the title that I had come to love in recent years. My brother, however, was not afraid to touch it. He bought the game with his own money (with me groaning “Whyyyyyyy” in the background at GameStop), and after he had finished his playthrough of it, I decided to give it a shot. The story was… better than I originally gave it credit for, but I felt like I had to force myself to finish the game because the gameplay mechanics were so insufferably boring and just plain unengaging. "Look, I changed the perspective of the camera and it changes the way I interact with the game. Wheeeee. Glad they performed a fun-ectomy of the infinitely more-entertaining battle system so they could cram this winner in."

A few years had passed, and I caught wind of a promising 3DS title called Paper Mario: Sticker Star. Seeing that they had brought back the signature combat mechanics of the first two Paper Mario games, I felt a little more hopeful for the series, and that developers had learned their lesson from the last title. 

I could not have been more wrong. It turns out that Sticker Star suffered from the opposite problem as Super Paper Mario: where Super had at least a decent storyline, Sticker Star was completely bland, mute, and virtually without story (story was a staple in the series for 3 previous iterations of Paper Mario). It was as if they took Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door and performed an extensive lobotomy on it, then sold it as Paper Mario: Sticker Star. I strongly consider the castration of storytelling elements to be a cardinal sin in gaming; I mean, if a game series originally has no story, then fine. But cutting story out in favor of other aspects is a very large no-no in my book. And what they put onto the forefront of their game wasn’t even worth the cut! The combat mechanics they revived in this title were stripped down to the bare minimum—another egregious error they made with this game. Health bars in the game were collective if there was more than one enemy, so unless you were paying attention you had no idea when one enemy was going to drop and screw up your carefully-laid out plans. To make things worse, combat was specifically designed so that you had to collect stickers in order to even fight your enemies; no stickers, no basic jumping on uninspired goomba heads (or... bodies. Both, I guess?). Sticker Star took the “jump” out of “Jump-Man Mario”. That’s like forcing Sonic the Hedgehog to collect stickers in order for him to run fast! No thank you. If Sticker Star were made with the development standards Nintendo has today in the Switch/New 3DS era, you and I both know those extra stickers would be stuck behind microtransactions: the pungent, mildewy armpit of gaming.

After Sticker Star, I must admit that I have not had the heart to play any more Paper Mario games. That Mario and Luigi/Paper Mario hybrid looked okay, I guess… Not worth my time, in my humble opinion. But I will never, ever play the abomination that is Color Splash or whatever the heck that game is called. I just don’t have another bad Paper Mario title in me. But with bad title after bad title, I had to wonder: What is it that makes Paper Mario games so bad? A better question: what would make them good again? My brain immediately calls upon “RPG mechanics!” as the answer to all this series’ problems, but I think it’s much more than that. My answer is three-fold.

1.) RPG Elements.

Let’s get this one out of the way. Many longtime fans of the series will agree with me that stripping the game of its grassroots turn-based combat and character development was an egregious error. Where Super Paper Mario introduced jumping on enemies into the series (wow, that’s never been done in a Mario game before…), previous iterations forced players to think about their actions, choosing party members for specific circumstances, and required at least a little bit of deeper knowledge of the game’s meta to really do well. Combat was a fresh take on the Mario series, and while the Mario and Luigi RPG series eventually reproduced that fresh perspective in its own way, Paper Mario’s combat system for the first two games could only be described as unique and engaging. It was dynamic. 

There were a lot of elements and tools for you to use, and many factors for you to consider. Flower Power, squad abilities, a large variety of attacks, Crystal Star powers, stage hazards, badges that altered you and your party, audience participation (that whole system was inspired in of itself), enemy strengths and weaknesses—there was so much involved in the game it made each playthrough a unique, dynamic, and fun experience despite linear storytelling. Leveling up felt like it had a significant impact, even late into the game. Imagine what kinds of fun Super Paper Mario could have been if it had incorporated the same mechanics! Imagine how much more improved Sticker Star would have been if they had worked harder on their combat system to make it more like the tried and true formula! I know virtually nothing about Color Splash, but I know for a fact that it would be infinitely better with the combat system and not their wishy-washy color/sticker badness combined with the Dry-Bones minimum into the battle portions of the game. Here’s the thing: even if they planted the same exact story of Sticker Star into the game, but brought back virtually all of the RPG elements of Paper Mario or Thousand-Year Door, then I would have at least played through it again instead of letting the dust collect on it as it currently sits in my 3DS game-holder along with Mario Party and Pokemon Y (I just can’t get into Pokemon, okay?). I have to want to progress in this game, and if story isn’t the reason (which we’ll talk about in a moment), then it needs to be through character progression. If you don’t have either, then you just have spent 3 years and millions of dollars designing a pretty cartridge that I won’t ever touch again after my minimal effort in finishing it.

I love playing a game that challenges me. Admittedly, I’m a huge XCOM nut. I loved the reintroduction to the series with XCOM: Enemy Unknown, and the Enemy Within expansion was literally the best expansion ever, worthy of every last penny I threw at this game twice over (Steam is unforgiving about region-locking your games when it comes to moving to a new country). The game was fun, engaging, challenging, and forced me to think. Every step of the way, the game gave me 5 options and all 5 of them were the correct paths, but if I didn’t choose carefully it could very easily end up being the wrong one that punishes me severely down the road. The story in of itself was actually pretty subpar, and it’s something I think people gloss over when praising Enemy Unknown/Within. But despite that, the game has such high replayability value. Why? 

Because it’s so amazingly fun! Outfitting your characters with the best possible gear, leveling them up over the course of the entire game, managing your base and putting out proverbial alien fires all over the world… it was so cohesively done that no two playthroughs are ever the same and provide endless enjoyment. And XCOM 2 was no exception! With the War of the Chosen expansion just days away, I am nearly shivering with excitement to see what amazing and massive amounts of content they bring to the game! The story sucks, but I still love it. That speaks volumes as to the power of an RPG system. It allows us to tell our own story, especially in the absence of a decent one. Paper Mario games as of late are missing that RPG flair, and it’s probably the biggest reason this beloved franchise is currently in the toilet.

2.) Story.

No, seriously, story is a must for me. I cannot get into a game that doesn’t have at least some kind of storytelling mechanic that binds me to it in some way. Many RPG’s are nothing without some kind of story to tell. Sure, it’s fun to play and increase your character’s skills through some kind of progression system. But giving your characters reasons to improve their skills… that’s something that does serious wonders for a game. Knights of the Old Republic, Mass Effect, Deus Ex—even games like Metroid Prime and Legend of Zelda are good examples of good systems in tandem with effective storytelling. We have to have a reason for being there, or else it’s just us running around defeatinng things. I just recently finished Shadow of Mordor for the first time; the story was intriguing at first, but then it sort of fell flat when I realized half of the missions I was sent on were basically just tutorials for a game I wasn’t going to play after the story was over. But that tutorial thing is a whole other can of worms for another article. My point is that when I did finish the game, I could move onto another game mode that was basically the same game but without the campaign mode; I wandered around for a few minutes and then realized there was no real story anchoring me to the several hours I would spend playing a House of Cards-style game that’s really just an excuse to lop Uruk heads off (which is by no means boring, but isn't entirely sustaining in of itself, either). I admit, the Nemesis System was inspiring and lots of fun, but without some sort of plot to anchor me, it’s just a to-behead list of randomly-generated bad guys.

But bringing it back to Paper Mario, 1-3 had really engaging stories. I didn’t just want to battle enemies, I wanted to find the Crystal Stars! I wanted to defeat Bowser in Paper Mario. I wanted to stop Count Bleck from finishing his quest! The story focused my gameplay in a way that was not produced in 4 and (presumably) 5. What was there was an empty shell where I was running around and hitting things for virtually no reason other than the same age-old hook of “Bowser kidnapped the princess, with a new cheap gimmick tacked onto the premise. Mama-Mia...”. 

I didn’t really care at that point. And then they had the gall of trying to cover their lack of content onto a world map to try and make it look like there was a lot of it when there really wasn’t. Sure, it looked nice, and it was good so that they didn’t have to do as much work developing a much larger world—but there again, if you have a dumbed down story, dumbed down RPG system, and a dumbed down cast of characters (that’s the next one), what work have you really done to deserve making level design that makes it easier on yourselves? You’re trying to get each fragmented “mission” to tell a much larger story, and because of that you’re communicating to your players exactly what your story is: fragmented. Broken. Unengaging. The story of Paper Mario is so good, I don’t have a problem feeling motivated to collect all the Crystal Stars and opening the Thousand-Year Door. And when I do, I don’t mind following the side quests that not only get me cool stuff, but also immerses me more fully into the game’s rich lore that was so painstakingly written into the game. That’s a great game, one that has such a good story it makes me want to do side quests when I’ve finished the main campaign. And I HATE side quests!

3.) Characters.

Lastly, in Paper Marios 1 and 2, we had a huge cast of colorful and unique characters, each with their own take on their species. Oh, the laughs I had to see all the shady Shyguys in Rogueport, the Russian Bob-Ombs, and the delightfully diverse personalities of virtually everyone in the game. Heck, I’ll even throw a bone to Super Paper Mario. Flavio stands as one of my favorite minor villains in the series. He was hilarious! Mr. L (mind-controlled Luigi) was a really fun character as well that sort of fleshed out his normal character in the Paper Mario series. Virtually every last character in the first 3 games had a unique look and personality that complimented the mood and very adorable art style. So nicely done! An RPG system is nothing without a story, and a story is nothing without a good cast of characters. The huge list of people you get to meet and fight are the real backbone of the Paper Mario series. And what’s better is the writers that give voice to these characters, who at every turn are able to say something funny, interesting, or important to the plot. It makes sense. Everything about these first two games just screams personality (and about half of the things in the third one), and it’s an absolute shame that formula did not follow suit in Sticker Star or Color Splash, because there were so many characters that were awesome and fun to talk to. The virtual entirety of chapter 6 in The Thousand-Year Door was engaging with these characters, and it stands as one of the best chapters in the game as you become a detective on a train, partnering with a penguin who hilariously uses his sleuth skills to deduce that you are Luigi and spends the entire game calling you that. Even Luigi telling his stories about his adventure was fun to listen to (and would have also made an extremely-entertaining side campaign or short spinoff of its own, Nintendo!). The characters in Paper Marios 1-3 breathed life into the world and made you want to explore every last nook and cranny of these games. What’s more, these characters actually got to cheer you on as combat took place on a stage as if it were a play—an amazing concept! People were able to throw you items if they liked you, or throw trash if they didn’t. Enemies you fought literally eat the audience in some instances! There was so much character in every step of the game, even in combat! Sticker Star… had Toads. Literally all of the characters were generic Toads with generic names, and 1 generic color scheme. Here’s a scary thought: Toad.exe may have had more Toad stuff, but at least that was entertaining and added a new pizazz to the world of Super Mario 64 than the Toad community had in Sticker Star. Toad.exe, the nightmare that was a Mario 64 mod, was more entertaining than Sticker Star!

Mario’s partners were also very diverse in character and combat (at least in 1 and 2). They were fresh takes on old enemy types, and even some new ones to boot! It was fun to switch them out and use each one according to the needs of the game. They had their own reasons for joining Mario on his adventure, and added a fun dynamic to the party in their own way. They each had their own comments on different situations based on their personalities and relationships to the discussion. Super Paper Mario fell flat with this. In this one, your partners were… polygon fairy things, whose shapes defined their function. “Ooh look. This one is a hand. How imaginative.” They had no personality to them. They were boring, lifeless blobs that just added powers to Mario and friends’ miniscule arsenal of tools, and quite honestly, I don't remember a single one of them. Not fun at all. Sticker Star and Color Splash each suffered from an even worse problem: one partner, whose personalities and character development were about as deep as the shallow end of the kiddie pool. They existed merely to provide information to the characters/player and literally that is it. I want to write more about them but there’s literally nothing more to add, either good or bad. And that’s not a good thing.

Here’s the bottom line: Paper Mario games on this side of 2010 suck because they lack RPG elements, story, and unique characters. They suck because virtually everything about it screams “I have done the minimal amount of work; buy my game anyway because it’s Paper Mario! PAY MEEEE!!!” Nope. I refuse to play something that was once great and now isn’t. I will never play a Paper Mario game again until I see something like Paper Mario and Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door. Both of those games were fun, inspiring, and gave me an experience that will surpass games of even the highest standards today. I don’t want a Paper Mario game with a new paper gimmick because paper. I want a title that some kid 20 years from now will want to pick up and play to see what all the hype is about with such an old game. It’s amazing to look back at these titles and see what gems they had offered, and it’s devastating to look at what it had turned into in subsequent titles. I get that they didn't want to step on the toes of Mario and Luigi, and that Miyamoto didn't want to see the purity of his series die with a detailed adventure that takes from the spirit of the franchise. But frankly, the franchise could use some more spirit, and Paper Mario was absolutely it! My answer for Nintendo is that they need to start "Why not both"ing it with Paper Mario and Mario and Luigi, because both games scream fresh originality that gives Mario games so much flair. I hope Nintendo learns from their mistake and realizes that 2 Mario RPG series is actually a good thing! Thank you for choosing Luma’s Blog and Grill!