Paper Mario, what happened to your glory??
Graphics
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Ok so the Graphics are schweeeet. =) It's still the classic Paper Mario style so don't fret. The characters are fresh and crisp. Pixels look quite nice and the Towns and Areas you visit are visually nice in that Mario sort of way. Camera angles are all good... except sometimes. Whilst flipping sometimes you can sometimes be looking at the inside of a cliff face... nice.
Sound
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The music is nice and is suitably placed. There is plenty of soundtracks so don't think you'll need to be turning the TV to mute like with Harvest Moon =P. Sound effects are just positively oozing with that stuff that makes your ears feel nice. Some people complain that there is no audio dialogue but I don't see that as a problem. None of the other Paper Mario games have had audio dialogue and I don't believe in any games has Mario actually talked (apart from phrases like, "Its-a me, Mario!). Anyway the other characters have funny lines like when Bowser first encounters Dimentio.
Game play
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Yahoo! It's a totally radical design with ultra-cool flipping stuff! Yeah! Woo! Woo... yay... Ok so this new flipping to 3D LOOKED great on paper, but in the game it just doesn't stack up. Sorry. Flipping is just like a chore, you have to do it nearly everywhere to get all the items. Also, most puzzles require you to just flip and presto your through. Even when you don't have to just flip, it'll be something like flipping then placing a bomb and flipping again. It get's quite repetitive. Why can't games have puzzles like Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of time? Eh? Anyways onto the next failure in the game play department.
Ok so the designers of this game say it's an RPG Platformer. I say it's a platformer with just a sprinkle of RPG. Let's see... first of all there are no Badges, Flower Points or Turn-Based Combat Scenes. "WHAT!?" you cry. Aye, they be gone. GONE. Oh well you may say, at least they kept the useful and characterful partners....right? I'm sad to be the one to tell you, but partners have been replaced by Pixels. They talk to you when you first get them, but suddenly become mute....hmmm. Righto, what about their special abilities? Ok well there IS an extensive amount of special abilities which would be good if you used them more then 6 times in the whole game. (I'm looking at you, Thoreau)
Moving on to items. Ok so I just love the way you used some of the items, though they could have been used more. Anyway, so there seems to be 3 items of everything that do exactly the same thing. The only difference is in cooking. Which brings me to my next thing, cooking.
Ah cooking, my sister who is more of a casual gamer absolutely loved this in TTYD. She refused to look at a guide to get all the recipes. Ok so I suppose cooking hasn't changed that much this time but I don't see any improvements.
Another major problem with this game is that you'll be doing ALOT of backtracking so be prepared. What'll happen in most levels is you'll have to go all the way to the end of the level, get a key or something and go all the way back to the start to open some door. Boooooring. At least in TTYD there was something to distract you (uber cool story line).
Story
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Ok... a love story. In a mario game. Love. Mario. Hmm. Alright Nintendo have fun your fun. I suppose the story is OK. But it's not as good as the other ones. It did, however, make me play the game to the end just to find out what happened. So it does suck you in. Ok I'm getting quite bored of typing now so I'll end it now.
In conclusion, Super Paper Mario is a great game if you love platformers, but if you liked the old Paper Mario games or enjoy RPG's I'd suggest renting it first.