Mario and Luigi: Paper Jam

[sedron]

The only M+L game I played so far was PiT, and I just started SS. I super enjoyed Partners though. Why would you rank it lower?

[Bean]

In the American version, the HP totals of bosses were inflated which made some of the later ones a chore. I also didn't get what I was expecting with the time travel thing. I wanted it to be a past effects the present dealio. Instead, you spend most of your time just visiting areas in the past with your hub in the present. It was still solid, but it didn't click with me like the other games in the series did. Also, the Shroobs were pretty weak main antagonists coming off of the ones you'll get to face in Superstar Saga.

[Ivy]

gah. sticker star above paper mario 64.

[TheFinalSentinel]

SSS
TTYD
RPG
BiS
64
>= SPM
PiT
DT (I haven't played it so just ignore this but holy crap screw SS)
...
...
...
...
Metroid Hunters
...
Sonic 06
...
...
SS

[underFlo]

I mean I dislike SS as much as the next guy but is it really worse than Sonic 06? At least Sticker Star works and isn't a glitched mess.

[TheFinalSentinel]

I mean I dislike SS as much as the next guy but is it really worse than Sonic 06? At least Sticker Star works and isn't a glitched mess.

Ok, maybe I'm being a bit hyperbolic.

Though, 06 was fun to screw around with because of how broken it was.

[sedron]

Oh, we're using SSS for Superstar Saga and SS for Sticker Star. That makes sense. So I meant that I started Superstar Saga.

PiT's time travel did seem super odd, but I think I justified it in my head as "this stuff can't affect the future because the future is the way it is already because you did this stuff in the past." I dunno if that actually makes sense or anything but whatevs.

Regarding the HP, the final boss is the only place where I remember having a huge grind of a fight, and it actually stands out to me as a super-fun battle. I like really long RPG battles. I tend to go into bosses purposely underleveled for exactly that reason. I dunno, maybe I'm weird in that regard.

[Ashan]

Holy cow you guys have no idea how pissed I was getting reading these and hearing "SS sucks" before realizing you mean Sticker Star and not Superstar Saga.
I guess it makes sense to use SSS instead but Superstar is 1 word. God damn, Sticker Star, you ruin everything, even acronyms.

So yeah, all past mentions of SS in my posts were referring to Superstar Saga.

[Ashan]

Also I placed an order for PiT today so that should be coming in the mail soon and I'll finally be able to play that one all the way through (hopefully).

There seems to be a pretty black and white divide with it, either loving it or hating it. I also assume a lot of people might have the nostalgia lenses I have from Superstar Saga with it being a lot of people's first in the series and it was early in the DS's life cycle, where there wasn't any really good games yet.

[pholtos]

Oh man I want to give an overarching opinion on the Mario and Luigi series.

There are too many tutorials.

Ok bye now.

I actually enjoy the games by the way. :P

[TheFinalSentinel]

Holy cow you guys have no idea how pissed I was getting reading these and hearing "SS sucks" before realizing you mean Sticker Star and not Superstar Saga.

I like really long RPG battles. I tend to go into bosses purposely underleveled for exactly that reason. I dunno, maybe I'm weird in that regard.

Could I take a minute to talk with you about my lord and savior, Persona 3?

[Learning-Timebuster]

1. super paper mario
2. partners in time
3. superstar saga
4. the thousand year door
5. paper mario
6. bowser's inside story
7. dream team
8. sticker star

[sedron]

I like really long RPG battles. I tend to go into bosses purposely underleveled for exactly that reason. I dunno, maybe I'm weird in that regard.

Could I take a minute to talk with you about my lord and savior, Persona 3?

I'll probably get to Persona 3 at some point. I did play Persona 4 a while ago, and I was definitely underleveled for the entire game. Some boss fights were half-hour long affairs, and it made them feel really tense and fun.

Also, I'd love to give a personal ranking of the RPG Marios I played, but it doesn't feel fair to do so. Mainly SPM is the issue, since the gameplay isn't anything like the rest of the series, so it's incomparable. Still, SPM does have fantastic writing and some of my favorite characters ever.

[underFlo]

People are doing rankings? Better join in and share my bad opinions.

1. TTYD
2. BiS
3. DT
4. SSS
5. SPM
6. PiT
7. PM64
8. SS
9. PJ

The gap between PM64 and SS is pretty big.

Also I didn't really play SMRPG so no ranking for that one.

[TheFinalSentinel]

I like really long RPG battles. I tend to go into bosses purposely underleveled for exactly that reason. I dunno, maybe I'm weird in that regard.

Could I take a minute to talk with you about my lord and savior, Persona 3?

I'll probably get to Persona 3 at some point.
...
half-hour long affairs ... really tense

Heh...

Still, SPM does have fantastic writing and some of my favorite characters ever.

This right here.
The gameplay is good. The writing is great.
...It's just not Paper Mario though, but it didn't need to be.

[Lunikyuu]

eh, guess I'll jump on the ranking bandwagon

(no more spoiler because they borked)
S Tier:
Paper Mario TTYD

A+ Tier:
Paper Mario 64
Superstar Saga

A Tier
Super Paper Mario

B+ Tier
Partners In Time
Bowser's Inside Story
Dream Team

(^ I tried to separate these 3, but my opinion of which one I like more keeps changing too much)

B Tier (or the still pretty good tier)
Super Mario RPG

...

D+ Tier
Sticker Star

Pretty hard list to make since Sticker Star was the only one I was feeling meh on, though I feel like I like Sticker Star more than most people despite overall being disappointed in it. I thought the sticker mechanic was somewhat interesting, though my main problem with the battle mechanics overall was that there was no unique reward for fighting regular battles, meaning that I felt there was no net gain from battling because I was essentially using stickers to get stickers or coins to pay for stickers. Also the little bit of writing it had was pretty good imo, it's just that the other 90% of the game didn't feel like it had enough flavor to make up for it. I almost liked the bosses for being challenging until I saw a youtube video of them and learned that I could've destroyed them with little effort if I got one sticker that I never knew did anything (or didn't do anything in the case of the

baseball bat

for the

Pokey

boss because the game seemed to hint to me using it way before I was actually supposed to). Overall it kept my interest for the first playthrough, but after that I just got bored with it.

Oh right, we were talking about Paper Jam, whoops. I still don't really know how to feel about that game. On the one hand, I kind of want to try it at least once to experience it, but on the other hand, I don't really know if it'll be as enjoyable as most of the other Mario RPGs. I saw a bit of the game from a stream and that seemed to basically enforce those feelings in my head. The streamer seemed to be enjoying it though. The no new characters part kind of worries me though since I feel like Sticker Star lost a lot of its charm due to that. The environments also don't feel as interesting from what I've seen which is another problem I had with Sticker Star. On the other hand, some of the writing that I saw amused me, and I saw a few interesting gameplay bits too. Paper Mario looks kind of broken as a character though what with being able to replenish clones a seemingly unlimited amount of times, but I don't think that would end up bothering me too much.

[Chaoxys]

You know, I don't care for the themes of the locations in this game, but the actual design and layouts are a lot more fun than I've had with recent games. The only thing I don't like is an issue I've had with... well, pretty much all of the M&L games. Locations are often too long compared to the variety of enemies in the area. I mean, enemies in M&L usually take a little while to beat due to the length of the attacks and how strong enemies are when you first encounter them, so by the time I'm fighting my 20th shy guy, I'm pretty sick of it.

[CM30]

So yeah, I've been playing this game a lot. And to be honest? I'm not sure how I feel about it.

On the one hand, it's a lot better than Sticker Star, cause the characters have a personality and the RPG elements are intact. And on a technical level, the battle system is as good as it's ever been.

But it's also pretty clear the game was rushed, what with the recycled elements, copious amounts of padding (how many enemy/boss rushes does this game have again?), sometimes unbalanced difficulty and over reliance on mini games, especially towards the endgame. It's pretty glitchy too, especially if you go just slightly out of your way (the record for beating the game stands at about 3 hours and 40 minutes).

P.S. You do know you can turn off assist mode, right? Seriously, it's called pressing start when in a battle. Not sure why people are still complaining about that.

As for rankings for RPGs? Well, good question. For Mario & Luigi, I'd say it's:

Bowser's Inside Story
Superstar Saga
Dream Team
Paper Jam
Partners in Time

Simply because the first two seemed to have the best humour and personality, and Partners in Time at the bottom simply had the least to do in it (few to no mini games or sidequest, few collectables, etc). Paper Jam is a bit better than Partners in Time in my opinion, cause it at least gives you a reason to keep playing after the final boss, and has an actual world to explore rather than Skyward Sword esque segmented 'levels'.

Can't judge much for Paper Mario. Never got round to the first game, and don't ever plan to buy Sticker Star. Thousand Year Door is awesome though.

[SL the Pyro]

So long as we're comparing the Mario RPGs to each other, I suppose I'll throw in my two cents.

Regarding Paper Jam itself, I'm not really sold on it. I like that Nintendo tried to bring back some of their older characters, but the trouble with it is that there's only so much you can do with source material. A large part of what made the Mario RPGs unique and fun was mixing their existing concepts with new settings. It adds depth to the characters, the story and the gameplay where there would otherwise be none. I admit to Dream Team being my favourite of the RPGs, and that was partly because it took that depth and ran with it, showing its characters in a new light that hadn't been shone in nearly 30 years while still being fun. Paper Jam feels like it throws all of that out the window, and everything just comes across as bland because of it: the basic storyline is painfully predictable even by crossover standards, the characters feel like they've regressed to the point where they're almost flat

(special mention goes to King Boo who once again isn't using his Luigi's Mansion redesign)

, and most of the humour is just references to past Mario games rather than anything new. All it has going for it is the combat system, which... just can't give the same level of immersion, and by extension motivation, to play through to the end.

It just baffles me how Nintendo can manage to get the formula of a game just right and then proceed to hack it to bits in later titles. Paper Mario felt like Nintendo was dabbling with a new direction, and they learned from their successes and mistakes with it and worked their newfound knowledge into The Thousand Year Door which ended up one of their best RPGs ever. Logically you think they'd keep going with that, but bizarrely they seem to be avoiding it. Super Paper Mario, while a good game in its own right, was basically a regular Mario platforming game wearing the skin of the Paper series that was nothing like its predecessor. Sticker Star was an interesting attempt to being the Paper series back to its RPG roots, but somehow managed to omit all of the things that made TTYD great while all of the new things just plain failed to impress.

The Mario & Luigi series had a similar start, just a bit bumpier. Superstar Saga was plenty good on its own, though Nintendo's attempts to improve the formula in Partners in Time came up short. They learned from their mistakes in Bowser's Inside Story though, and Dream Team has proven that Nintendo can make great gameplay and story and character development with little change over their previous entries in the series, they just... don't.

In my eyes, Nintendo just can't stay out of its comfort zone long enough. They'll occasionally reach out to make something new and innovative, and after a couple of tries they'll get something amazing out of it, but in later entries they'll force it back into what they think is fun, and it just... doesn't work.

[Ashan]

I think I'm nearing the end of the game now, and I have to say there's a lot of things I really like about this game. The writing for example, is super clever in a few places. But then there's stuff that really annoys me, like how long some trio/bros attacks take for example. You have access to decently powerful attacks that you can learn to pretty consistently pull off, but some of them take like, a whole minute to go through, so you'd rather just put yourself at a bit of a disadvantage and avoid using them.

[CM30]

I think I'm nearing the end of the game now, and I have to say there's a lot of things I really like about this game. The writing for example, is super clever in a few places. But then there's stuff that really annoys me, like how long some trio/bros attacks take for example. You have access to decently powerful attacks that you can learn to pretty consistently pull off, but some of them take like, a whole minute to go through, so you'd rather just put yourself at a bit of a disadvantage and avoid using them.

Like Trio Meteor? That takes forever...

Then again, Racket is probably the only Trio Attack you can count as 'quick' in this game.

[Klaty]

Starlow is still a thing? (sorry if I don't understand anything, I know nothing of DT)
Also, it's not out here yet. (EU)

[CM30]

Starlow is still a thing? (sorry if I don't understand anything, I know nothing of DT)
Also, it's not out here yet. (EU)

Wait what? It's been out in the UK since last year.

And yeah, Starlow is still a thing. She was in Dream Team before this game, and Bowser's Inside Story before that.

I still prefer the suitcase.

[TheFinalSentinel]

Starlow is still a thing? (sorry if I don't understand anything, I know nothing of DT)
Also, it's not out here yet. (EU)

Wait what? It's been out in the UK since last year.

And yeah, Starlow is still a thing. She was in Dream Team before this game, and Bowser's Inside Story before that.

I still prefer the suitcase.

The suitcase suitcase, or the talking suitcase?

[Ashan]

I think I'm nearing the end of the game now, and I have to say there's a lot of things I really like about this game. The writing for example, is super clever in a few places. But then there's stuff that really annoys me, like how long some trio/bros attacks take for example. You have access to decently powerful attacks that you can learn to pretty consistently pull off, but some of them take like, a whole minute to go through, so you'd rather just put yourself at a bit of a disadvantage and avoid using them.

Like Trio Meteor? That takes forever...

Then again, Racket is probably the only Trio Attack you can count as 'quick' in this game.

Trio Meteor is exactly what I had in mind.