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It took a few years, but it
eventually came: the second
Mario RPG. This time, it's not
all about the rendered graphics,
or about being a straight up
RPG. Old school meets new school
with a twist in Paper Mario.
Paper Mario is a bit of a
gimmick with it's paper theme.
Mario starts out as his house
with Luigi, and they receive a
letter from Princess Peach.
There's a big party with
residents from all over the
world, and Mario & Luigi are
invited. While talking to Peach,
an earthquake hits, and daytime
suddenly changes to a scene with
stars.
And that can only mean one
thing: Bowser's caused some
trouble. Time to suit up again
and save the princess. Only one
problem: the legendary Star Rod
of Star Haven has been stolen,
and the 7 Star Spirits guarding
the Star Rod are left
imprisoned. With it, Bowser can
grant himself or anyone any
thing they wish.
Once the goal of the game is
established, a player will
notice the gameplay right away.
It doesn't real feel like a 3-D
game, but more like a platformer,
because it combines both. The
battle system is that of RPG's,
although it is kind of weak and
leaves something to be desired.
To make puzzles harder and
obstacles more challenging,
Mario's partners all have their
own special ability they can use
while walking around. Each
partner has his or her own way
of attacking and such in battle,
and Timed Hits also make their
return from Super Mario RPG in
the form of action commands.
With the 64-Bit power on the
Nintendo 64, Paper Mario looks
pretty good. After all, he's
supposed to be paper. The
contrast between the flat
characters and the 3-D world
around them is very nicely done.
There's a few glitches here and
there, but nothing major. I do
think that the characters and
such could've been outlined a
little better, and that the game
could have a little bit more
vividness to it.
Like the visuals, Paper Mario
also has nice sound and music.
It's not the greatest thing ever
heard, but it certainly is a
formidable soundtrack. There's a
lot of new tunes that are nice,
and some of the old tunes are
redone very well. The actual
soundtrack has 78 songs on it,
and they even missed a lot to
put on there. With so many
songs, there's bound to be a few
that stick out in a player's
mind. And of course, that many
songs also leads to a great
variety so that there isn't many
repeats found
Replaying the game is also fun.
The game is pretty long,
allowing for about 15-40 hours
of play time. It could be in
that range, although it's quite
wide. Some players will like to
collect everything, some won't.
In fact, 2 of my own files have
a play time maxed out at 99:59
(99 hours, 59 minutes).
Unfortunately, for most, it'll
be towards the 15-20 hour range,
because of the difficulty - it's
really not that hard.
Paper Mario can be described as
one thing: A nice game with room
for improvements. It really is a
great game, but it's just too
easy with such basic gameplay.
It's nice and all, but there are
some moments in the game
where it's just dull.
Overall Score: 9.2/10 |
