Introduction
The
first two Paper Mario games are some of my favorites of all time. The first
game was a light-hearted storybook adventure with a colorful cast of characters
and locations. It created combat that was fairly simple, but in doing so
actually drilled down to the essentials for refreshingly minimalistic gameplay.
It offered the strategy of turn-based RPGs with none of the unneeded
complexity, and an added boost of tactile/timing based challenge.
The
second game, Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door was an improvement on the
already excellent original in several ways. The combat received a plethora of
small but notable tune-ups, the dialogue was funnier, the plots were more
varied, and the soundtrack was phenomenal. The series was an amazing one, and
eventually I’ll have to do them justice with their own write-ups here on the
blog. Especially since…well, it’d help to keep things positive. You’ll note I
said the series was an amazing one.
The
only game in said series that’s appeared here so far is Paper Mario: Sticker Star. I wasn’t quite as eloquent back then, but it gets the point
across. It was disappointing. Fine, by the standards of a normal game. But it
was notably flawed and had little in common with the treasured titles I spent
the last two paragraphs putting on a pedestal. Sadly, footage of the upcoming
entry in the series, Paper Mario: Color Splash, indicates it’s repeating all the
mistakes of its predecessor and doubling down on its bad decisions. It’s been
15 years since that first beloved entry hit shelves, and I’d bet that most of
the original development team has moved elsewhere by now. As sad as it is to
admit, it’s probably for the best to mentally compartmentalize “New Paper Mario”
as a different beast, and assume the series of yore is gone altogether until
proven otherwise.
The
above introduction is much like online discussions of this series in that it
completely skips a game. That game is called Super Paper Mario, and there’s a
good reason discussions skip it. That reason is as follows:
Super
Paper Mario is really weird.
Weird? What are
you talking about, everything looks completely normal here.
Weird
is the best word I can think of for it. In some ways, Super Paper Mario is a
bridge between the old Paper Mario and the Sticker Star sensibilities the
series has today. In some ways, Super Paper Mario is a strange evolutionary
offshoot with elements completely divorced from anything else in the series. In
some ways it’s good. In some ways it’s bad. But in all ways it’s unusual, and
that makes it fascinating. That’s why I recently pushed myself to finish this
game I’d left hanging years ago. And that’s why today, piece by piece, we’re
going to start picking apart this extremely bizarre video game.
Overview
The
Paper Mario series subverts the main series platforming gameplay for RPG
conventions like turn-based combat, dialogue-heavy exploration and puzzle-based
dungeons. Both series are excellent at what they do, but they’re fundamentally
different experiences. Exciting versus engrossing, tactile versus tactical. That
isn’t to say these two types of game design are incompatible, there are plenty
of good action-RPGs out there. But the fusion creates a genre all its own,
which requires careful balance and execution. Unfortunately, that wasn’t what
happened here. Super Paper Mario subverted the subversion and went back to
platforming gameplay. The result is…messy.
The
basic formula is as follows: You run and jump through linear stages until you
reach the goal, every four of these ends with a boss fight, then takes you back
to a hub world. Beyond your typical Mario shenanigans, you unlock several other
characters over the course of the game whom you can freely swap between. Each
character moves a bit differently and has an ability unique to them. For example,
one character can float for a short time after a jump. There are also extra
abilities through use of geometric companions called Pixls, things like
sprinting and smashing the ground with a hammer.
Fortunately,
there’s something that adds a bit of DEPTH to the game…
The
game has one appreciably unique gimmick. Most of the time, Super Paper Mario
plays as your standard 2D platformer. But at the press of a button, you have
the ability to turn the world 90 degrees and tack on an extra dimension, free
of charge. This allows you to weave around impassable obstacles, locate hidden
areas, and cleverly manipulate the environment in a number of ways. It’s a well
implemented feature, and that’s good, because other parts of the game don’t
fare as well. I’m going to put the RPG elements of the game aside for now,
because there’s enough there to fill an article all on its own. For now, let’s
return to that classic, run-and-jump gameplay. This is the core of the
experience, the stuff that will really make it or break it for a platformer.
Super Paper Mario…breaks it.
Jumping Falls Flat
Attaining
the perfect movement and jump arc for a given game is deceptively challenging.
Most of us have played games where moving around and navigating space is a
chore, and the reasons why vary wildly. Sometimes jumps are too short or
gravity too strong and play feels like navigating a sack of bricks through a
trapeze act. Other times leaps take too long or gravity is too low and the game
feels floaty, sluggish and less punchy. Sometimes your character accelerates
like massive steel boulder, alternating between molasses-shoed momentum and stupendous
speed. Other times your character simulates physics as well as punching in XY
coordinates on a graphing calculator. The tricky part of the equation isn’t
finding The One True Jumping Formula. No, the tricky part is this: None of these are necessarily wrong.
In
Mega Man games, you maneuver with a complete lack of physics. Your character
moves at a steady, consistent pace at all times, even in midair. These levels
are designed around careful navigation of hazards. Each room is a puzzle to be
precisely piloted past, from unravelling enemy attack patterns down to
pixel-perfect falls through instant death spikes.
In
(2D) Sonic the Hedgehog games, physics have an incredible effect on your
movement. A stationary jump can barely move you a few feet, but jumping full
speed off a ramp can send you barreling through the air like a blue, spikey
artillery strike. You can roll downhill to pick up crazy momentum, and the
angle of your jumps depends on the slope you’re standing on. These levels are
built around manipulating physics and finding the perfect sequence to navigate
through while slowing down as little as possible. Speed is not consistent or
expected, it’s an adrenaline-soaked reward for discovering the best path
through obstacles.
Imagine
navigating something slow and precise like Mega Man’s disappearing block sequences with the heavy physics of Sonic. It would be hell on earth! Or, y’know,
half of Sonic 1.
The
physics of Mega Man would be atrocious in Sonic, and vice versa. Every popular
platformer out there fits a specific movement niche. What matters is that the
way the character controls fits with the level design and overall goals of the
game. How the game rewards a player, the type of obstacles in their path, even
the mood, visuals and sound all tie into how the character controls. The famous
platformers of the ages all had fairly specific design goals. We can haggle
over how well each game met them, but that’s a separate conversation (looking
at you, person about to write an angry Sonic comment). The point is these games
were designed with clear intent, and controlled a certain way to evoke certain
feelings or reactions in the player.
Time
to bring things back to Super Paper Mario before this turns into a giant
rambling thesis on jumping physics. The controls in Super Paper Mario
feel…okay. They’re fine. I’ve definitely played worse, and the less said about
the awful platformers I made myself in high school the better. But here’s how
those controls came about: They took the basic movement in the Paper Mario
RPGs, and then they made the jump taller. Far as I can tell, that’s it. Movement
is very steady, with near complete absence of physics and not a lot of speed. This
works fine for wandering around town or non-combat areas. That was the main
purpose of the previous games, after all. But slapping the same thing onto a
linear action RPG doesn’t work, especially when the RPG elements don’t pick up
the slack.
The
enemy design doesn’t help either. There’s some effort at variety being made
here, but when the vast majority of foes boil down to “wait until an enemy is
done attacking and then jump on them”, it’s hard to get much tactical mileage.
This is especially true early in the game before you have access to faster
movement. That extra second to close the gap between you and the enemy feels
cumbersome, especially when every enemy stops moving towards you to attack. And
then there’s combat in 3D mode…
Y’know
those old arcade beat-em-ups where everything was handled with 2D sprites? Remember
how frustrating it was to line up your character on the same plane as your
enemy lest you pump your fist an inch past their face? Well imagine that
scenario, but now every enemy is smaller. Now imagine your foes’ primary
offense is touching you. Last but not least, imagine that instead of swiping at
them from a safe distance, your only method of attack is throwing yourself on
top of them. The result? Exactly as bad as it sounds. Fortunately none of the enemies
in 3D are required fights, far as I can tell. But that begs the question why
they bothered putting enemies there in the first place.
I mean who
imagined jumping on literally paper-thin hitboxes would go well?
Pixl Imperfect
To
Super Paper Mario’s credit, there’s more to do than run and jump. For example,
the four player characters switch up the gameplay here and there.
Unfortunately, their differences are disappointingly minor. Each of them has
only one or two changes in their abilities, and you need to use certain
characters at certain points, so there’s not a huge range of interesting
choices on display here. None of the other characters abilities feel
particularly satisfying to use either, often requiring you slow down the pace
or stop moving altogether.
In
the previous Paper Mario games, you discovered partners who would lend their
abilities and color commentary to your adventures. Super Paper Mario attempts
to replicate this with Pixls. These fall flat in just about every way. I’ll
discuss their place in the story another time, but even mechanically they’re
passable at best. Without the engaging RPG battles of old most of their
gimmicks are far less combat efficient than just hopping on heads. Even for
puzzle solving they have far less utility than before, each limited to just a
couple required uses in the entire game.
Here’s
a good example: Midway through the game you get a ground pound ability. In
previous games this was a standard jump upgrade. It increased damage, unlocked
a special move in combat, broke floor panels, broke boxes, knocked things off
of shelves, and revealed objects hidden underground. I still wouldn’t call it
an amazing ability. It was fairly
standard and didn’t feel all that exciting to use. However, here is the
equivalent in Super Paper Mario: You pound some specific pillars in the level
you acquire it to open a door. Then later, back in the hub town, you pound some
specific pillars to open one other door. That’s it. No other puzzles or
secondary uses. You could use the pound to deal some extra damage to enemies. But
most enemies already die in one hit, and you already have an alternate
character whose jumps do double damage by default.
Behold, one half
of every ground pound puzzle in the game.
I
didn’t even pick some extreme outlier there. The abilities all have a few
specific uses and are otherwise neglected. They have niche utility in combat
but are less efficient than just jumping the day away, which is also more
inherently satisfying. The one exception to this is a Pixl that’s completely
optional, which allows your characters to dash. This speeds up travel and adds
some physics to your movement. It’s harder to successfully land on enemies and
platforms when dashing, but doing so is faster and more engaging. You may
recognize this as how platforming should
work in the first place. Though there would still be plenty of issues, I
think merely having dashing be a default ability would’ve made this game feel a
lot better to play.
A
final note of…note is that this platforming doesn’t gel well with RPG elements.
I’ll get into the RPG elements themselves next post, but they aren’t used well
here. Even if they were, the gameplay isn’t altered enough to fit. Other action
RPGs tend to have larger movepools, extra movement options and forward striking
attacks that extend beyond your characters hurtbox (the area where enemy touch
harms them). There’s a good reason for this. When you go head hopping, the
impact should be immediate and the consequences quick. If enemies have heaping
helpings of health then throwing yourself on top of them leaves you awkwardly
vulnerable or poorly positioned after landing. Super Paper Mario tries to
compensate for this in how it handles difficulty, but…that’s a failure for
another time.
So
before we start the next leg of this negativity train to Whingeville, let’s
take a break, eh? I’d like to cap off this article with something positive and completely unexpected…
Music
I
absolutely loved the music from the first two Paper Mario games. Like, a lot. Listening
to Super’s soundtrack didn’t elicit quite the same response, and a quick google
search revealed why. The first two games share a common composer in Yuka
Tsujiyoko, mostly known for a crap ton of Fire Emblem gamed I haven’t played.
But Super was composed by Naoko Mitome and Chika Sekigawa, who between them
worked on Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn, Warioware: Smooth Moves and absolutely nothing
else.
So
no, the relative unknowns who stepped into the third game in an established
series with no experience did not usurp the music I love to death. But given
their miniscule discography, it’s quite surprising how good things turned out. Super
Paper Mario may not be one of my all-time favorite soundtracks, but there’s a
ton of good stuff in here. And what better way to show that then by digging in
and jamming out? Is that a thing the kids say these days? Am I hip to you
rapscallions and your lingo? Do you “jam out” when you play the groovy new
vinyl on the local soda parlor’s jukebox? Whatever, here’s some music.
Flipside is the best place to start, really. The theme for this hub world is one you’ll
hear more than any other song in the game. Fortunately, it’s the perfect tune
for that. It’s got a catchy central beat but the song as a whole gives off a
laidback groove that amicably fades into the background. Not too intrusive, not
too ambient or unmemorable. When the years pass onward and much of this game
fades from my memory, this is one of the tunes I’ll remember the most.
Gloam Valley is a good example of
the game’s many stage themes. This quick-paced, bouncy jingle is perfect for
the old jump-and-jog. Nothing about it is too remarkable, but it’ll stick in
your noggin and make a pleasantly head-bobbin background to an otherwise
standard stage of goomba stomping.
With
no random battles, there’s no standard combat theme in the game. The boss
battles are also disappointingly hit-and-miss in the audio department. Some of
them are quite nice, but I know every one of the 16-and-change boss themes from
Paper Mario and Thousand-Year Door by heart, and Super doesn’t quite hit that
mark. But it’s not completely without good songs to smash heads to. A Powerful Enemy Emerges is the song
for mini-bosses without their own theme, and I rather like it. It’s got a nice,
meaty underlying beat and the first part of the song has some real punch to it.
Floro Sapiens Caverns is another
stage theme, and one of my favorite songs in the game. There’s something about
every individual segment I enjoy. We’ve got solid percussion running throughout
and a lot of smooth background slides supporting the sharper strings that
strike out the main melody. That melody itself is quite catchy, and I found
myself humming it in my head days after I crept out of the caverns themselves.
There
are a lot of other quality songs I could show you. But if I had to choose one,
I would choose the unofficial main theme of the game: Memory.
The song is played throughout the course of the game in brief segments that
build and add pieces the further you get. It’s not the catchiest song, and it
strikes a sharp contrast to the bouncier, upbeat melodies that make up most of
the score. But it does well what any game soundtrack should: Support the game
it’s in. I love it when songs build over time, and I love having a musical through-line
take me along a story. I also really like the sound of some of these more
subdued loops. That brief, distorted main theme backed by slowly rising synths
and the echoing ticking of a clock are a calm and peaceful feast for the ears.
Much like the theme of Flipside, it’s a song that will long live on in my…
…well,
you get the idea.
There’s
plenty more Super Paper Mario where this comes from! Join me next week when we
take a dive into the game’s RPG mechanics. Fair warning: I really loved the RPG
elements in the first two games. Always darkest before the dawn and all that.
See
ya next time!
…
…
…
…Memory.
I meant the song will live on in my Memory. Because the name of the song is
Memory. That was the connection I was making there. Just so we’re absolutely
clear on the OKAY YOU DON’T HAVE TO ROLL YOUR EYES AT ME SHEESH.
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