While fun to see another Paper Mario game, it feels oddly lacking.
Gameplay- The most important part of any game... Is it fun? Well, yea it is. The side scrolling action fits Paper Mario pretty well, seeing as thats where Mario started out. And this game pulls it off well. My major compliment about this is the new 3-D flipping mechanic. It's great, and adds a whole new dimension to puzzles. You'll find yourself flipping all the time just to discover secret locations and items. Now there are a couple problems. The first one is the item system, they give you the options to buy items but you will NEVER use non-healing items. I went through the ENTIRE game without using ONE non-healing item. Damaging items are just pointless when every enemy in the game is so easy. Every enemy dies in one to three bounces, and even the bosses aren't too difficult. Which leads to the question, why did they bother to put those items in the game? Well, they wanted to mix it up while still retaining some of the RPG elements. But those things don't really work UNLESS they are in an RPG! I mean if your playing Super Mario Brothers, are you going to bounce on a Goomba or are you going to go inside a menu and scroll down to a fire flower and press A and do some stupid mini-game to kill it? Now, I had fun with this game regardless of that stuff, but next time they should think about it. Graphics- Well, it's colorful,paper,and bright. There isn't much to say. Two points off because the graphics were Gamecube level but it still gets a good score because of the art direction. The whole style of the game is very charming and nice to look at. It's always cheerful even in dark moments.
Sound- Well, it's the usual cheery Mario music. One complaint is the fact that there is nothing memorable. ALL the Mario games usually have at least one tune that you get stuck in your head, and you like it. I do like the little clips of dialog that the characters have. Value- This is indefinably where the game suffers. The game does try its best to give replay value,but it just doesn't work. You can do not one but TWO pit of 100 trials, but it's just not WORTH it, I mean after you beat the game what are you going to use the new stuff for anyway? And all it is is going from floor to floor and killing enemies, and going through mazes. So while the game does try its best to give replay value, you just won't really want to do anything with it
Tilt- My tilt is for the storyline. This game did a wonderful job with the characters, the story, and the humor. There are a couple of laugh out loud moments in this game which I LOVED
( I won't spoil it for you but look forward to the end of chapter 3)
The story can get surprisingly dark at times for a Mario game, especially near the end. I would say the game doesn't 'even end on you're usual Mario type happy-note. It's more of a bitter-sweet type of ending. That was fine by me but I wonder how the kids who played this game would react.
All in All Super Paper Mario is a pretty good game. I would not pass it up, but I also would not throw down 50 dollars to buy it, I beat it in a rental period, and you can too.
Suggestion: RENT.