Paper Mario 2: The Thousand Year Door

[Dracos]

Nintendo.  A name synonymous with quality.  An elitist organization that muscled it's way onto the globe and has continued to survive in a hard ball environment.  Its forerunner?  The mighty Jumpman, a simple mustached plumber who's legendary games still are among the best in the world.

   Paper Mario 2: The Thousand Year Door is his most recent foray into the RPG world.  I, unfortunately, have never gotten around to playing the original Paper Mario, but, having never been done wrong by a Mario RPG, gleefully got this one, looking forward to it.  Starting it up, it presented a skillfully conveyed thematic of an old style children's pop-up book.  The paper-thin character of Mario hopping off a windup ship onto a pier in the port of Roguesport.  Simple descriptive name and it really goes along well.  From such humble begins arises a real treat of an RPG.

   Paper Mario 2 is beautifully design driven.  So much so, that each little flaw the game has in it seems almost amplified by contrast, a shocking tear in what is practically a video game equivilent of the mona lisa.  Well, were the mona lisa a story book made with childish drawings.  Despite a few rough spots, it goes as one of the best gameplay designed RPGs I've played all year.  The levels beautifully hand crafted.  The last one in particular goes down now among my favorite final levels, long, yet loving hand crafted.  The atmosphere of a sealed crypt skillfully developed through puzzles and entertaining level design instead of at its expense or vice versa.  Certain areas, the twilight woods, were sadly not so well built, but the overall game has a superb level of polish on the level design that really shines through and provides the star of the game.  The game has a hidden dungeon which sadly had no effort put into it save for a nifty boss fight at the end.  It is hard to believe that it was actually put in the same game as the last level, because of such a difference in the design.

   In fact, it should be noted, that Paper Mario shone brightest when it wasn't trying to be an RPG.  You could sense it at points, various parts that were solely in there because they were trying to be an RPG.  To be 'RPG-like'.  These felt rough, unorganic.  They didn't belong in the beautiful paper origami that the game proper was.  This is a game that you play for the gameplay.  Not for an epic story.  Not for the characters or the music.  This an RPG that shows solidly that RPGs are not just garbage systems tossed together as an engine for a tale but are instead a way of experiencing all to their own.

   To touch upon one last notably gameplay feature before moving on, battles in this game are done before an audience on a stage.  Every ten levels, your audience and stage improves, as you get more and more nifty props around.  The end result of this is really that the game's battles revolve around performing.  It is enough to beat the game to just hit the enemy, but the game doesn't stop there.  It doesn't even stop at hit the enemy perfectly.  Hammer blows, for example, can be followed by a series of spinning flips and acrobatics on your way back to the start spot, dazzling the crowd and getting 'star power' built up quickly for special attacks and, more importantly, healing.  Healing, by the way, is rare and valuable in this game.  Kind of an oddity there, but pretty nifty in effect.

   Anyhow, enough about how they succeeded on the gameplay issue.  We all know game play does not entirely a game make.  The music was usual mario fare.  Good bordering on excellent, but not quite as 'I'm keeping this' as the original Mario OST.  I will though have to take a look around for the OST anyway.  Can't go wrong with more mario music.

   The visuals in this game are stunning.  Truly a dedication to proper display and thematics.  Simple, elegant, effective.  I don't want to know what tricks they had to pull to get such smooth paper effects in 3d for some of the stuff.  It isn't mindbogglingly beautiful, but it doesn't have to be.  It's efficient.

   The characters of the game well.  Folks who heard me talking about it early on always heard one complaint.  It lacked the Mario charisma, the Italian punch!  From game one, Mario's Italian charisma has been a powerful force that could carry games when all else failed.  This mario, did not have it.  Why didn't he have it?  Because not only did he not talk, he didn't cheorograph.  He just sort of stood there and occassionally lifted his hand in salute.  The sidekicks explained everything.  Really, not their best choice and it really made them feel totally interchangable with the way that the same exact perspective would get tossed out by whoever was there, give or take dialect.  The characters of the game, in other words, kinda fell flat.  Some were nice, some were not so, but the general delivery wasn't there.

   Save for the ruskes.  No one can doubt the ruske bom-bombs, da?

   The game also rightfully gets complaints about the amount of text it has.  It really does have ridiculous amounts at points that really didn't need to be done.  The say I love you one hundred times scene with the player having to press the confirm button each time was one of those.  There were a few others where them removing the 'press button' bit and fast streaming it would've been very appreciated.

   Overall though, a remarkably satisfying game.  A real keeper.

[metroid composite]

Just started this myself, and I can comment on some of the differences between PM1 and PM2 so far.

PM1 has an auto-confirm button, which lets you skip through something like 10-20 lines of text per second (it's basically a scene-skip).  I'm really not sure why they removed it, in fact.  On the flip side, PM2 does have dramatically better text and characterization (as much as Dracos is complaining about it, it's a definite step up).

There's also differences with the battle system.  PM1 partners (in addition to sharing BP and FP) share HP with Mario.  There's also no  audience, no super-blocking B-button, and no ultra-reels for making action commands.  The end result is battles with little to no randomness, but a fair bit of strategy.

Overall, my general impression (based only on the first chapter and a half, mind) is that PM2 generally trades some replayability for quite a bit of flair, though I probably shouldn't be commenting on replayability before finishing #2 the first time....

[Dracos]

I'd play Paper Mario 2 again.

Because when it shines, it really does shine.

Dracos