Mario and Luigi: Paper Jam

[underFlo]

I don't even get why they had Starlow in PJ

Like, they could have chosen any M&L characters

And they made only Starlow return

Because she sure was a fan favorite

Tbh I would've preferred even Toadsworth or smth

[Ashan]

I don't think it's that they "could have chose anyone and they made Starlow return"
I'm pretty sure she's just been in the series since BiS and now they consider her the obligatory sidekick of the franchise.

Also I just finished the game. It was pretty good. I haven't played BiS in a while but it's either above or below that one which I considered 2nd best in the series.

[Ivy]

fuck starlow. fuck the briefcase. fuck toadsworth. bring Twink to Mario & Luigi.

[pholtos]

Screw all of them, bring back


(I'd say just put everything in a book or something when you unlock things and look at it if you don't know how to do it, but maybe I'm just old fashioned and the in-thing to do now is to explain how every aspect of a new move works.)

[Ashan]

I just want them to do something creative and new, really
This game didn't introduce any new characters at all. It was as Mario as a formula can be, down to the grassland, desert world, water world, jungle, ice world, fire world, boss format in that order.
It's weird, cause individual aspects in the game seem really creative. The papercraft battles were much better than the giant fights from BiS and DT but when you look at the game as a whole it's just so generic. I'll probably forget everything that happened in this game within a month or 2, but the stuff from Superstar Saga has stuck with me years later. And I don't think it's purely nostalgia, ether, cause even parts of the older Mario RPGs that I never owned but played on a few occasions like Thousand Year Door have super memorable stuff in them, like I remember fighting a guy in a giant mech suit inside of a tree. And working my way up the ladder in a wrestling tournament.

Now it's just like... You fight goombas and koopas and Kemek and Bowser and then everyone forget's Luigi's name.
The first gameplay in Superstar Saga was as a Toad, walking into Mario & Luigi's house, and walking into Mario in the shower. At a couple points in the game, Mario & Luigi get separated and have to explore and do battles on their own. You go to different areas, like a university, and a deserted ice tower, and a pirate ship run by skeletons. It seems like that's stuff they wouldn't do any more cause they want to keep the game as much as a formula as possible, but I want so bad for them to do that stuff again.

SIIIIIGGGHHH
I guess we'll see what Mario & Luigi game we get in 2019.

Anyway I just got this in the mail so I can finally play through it since it's the only one I never owned/completed

[Ivy]

it also helps that superstar saga took place in an entirely different region/country

hooray for beanfolks

[Bean]

hooray for beanfolks

You're welcome.

[underFlo]

The papercraft battles were much better than the giant fights from BiS and DT

Really? I didn't really enjoy those that much because of the finicky camera and the repetitiveness. I found the giant battles in BiS and DT a lot more creative (even though DT recycled some concepts from BiS, like "punch/hammer tall guy into the water so you can hurt him") and just more fun. Every boss was vastly different and memorable in the context of the game, and you just felt super powerful. In PJ, it's just your papercraft against another papercraft all the time and you don't really feel that strong (aside from that one point at the end where you genocide like all the bosses w/ Fire Mario)

[CM30]

I preferred the giant battles as well, though it's at least partly because the atmosphere of the former is just much 'cooler' than that of the Papercraft battles. I mean, what sounds more 'badass', this:







Or this?







The giant battle songs sound like a fight to the death, whereas the papercraft battle songs (bottom two) sound like a mini game.

The implementation of both has serious problems though. For giant battles, it feels like they were TOO gimmicky. It would have been better if they just scrapped the touch and microphone and gyro controls altogether and made them more similar to the normal battles in terms of style. Or maybe something a bit like a game of Rampage or something, where you can run around and beat the hell out of the enemies while dodging a flurry of attacks.

The Papercraft battles on the other hand had the basic movement thing down right, but they just completely lacked in difficulty. You pretty much couldn't die in one unless you were godawful at the game, since the Mushrooms restored most of your health, the enemy attacks did very little and the attacks were so obviously telegraphed that you'd have to be blind not to notice it. Then again, it's almost a good job they're not very hard, since the way you restore your 'charge' meter is just painfully annoying; having to dance around for about two minutes a piece in a bland rhythm game. If you had hard bosses, you would be practically murdered the minute you ran out of steam.

Ideally, the best system here would be a cross between the two, with a bit more of an action feel thrown in to. You'd have real time battles you could move around in three dimensions, where the bosses attack with a rapid fire flurry of attacks, where your attacks are equally quick and precise and where healing or recharging is about pressing a single button. So in other words, like a Zelda style boss battle, except with everyone being massive and the controls feeling responsive.

On a non papercraft battle note, I've always thought this game wasn't really that well tested. Okay, nor was Dream Team to be honest (the gyro controls in that were so bad the QA team must have literally been asleep while testing), but come on, this is just ridiculous in how easy it is to break stuff:
















Seriously, the list of bugs in the game is insane, and it's only those found within the first few weeks or so of the game being released:

http://www.mariowiki.com/List_of_glitch ... _Paper_Jam

[Ashan]

The giant battles were always set like turn-based RPGs with set stats, but they basically exist as a completely separate thing outside of the game, so making it out to be like an RPG makes no sense. You spend your whole game leveling up and customizing your party, only for that to be all thrown out for the giant battles. I recall Yahtzee described it "like spending all your money on a fancy car and then picking up your date with a piggy back ride."
I prefer the papercraft battles, cause they're actually like minigames with completely separate mechanics that don't need to be built up like they are in RPGs, so it's fine that they exist in a vacuum, separated from the rest of the game. The disconnect of mechanics fits with the fact that they've thrown out your stats.

[CM30]

The giant battles were always set like turn-based RPGs with set stats, but they basically exist as a completely separate thing outside of the game, so making it out to be like an RPG makes no sense. You spend your whole game leveling up and customizing your party, only for that to be all thrown out for the giant battles. I recall Yahtzee described it "like spending all your money on a fancy car and then picking up your date with a piggy back ride."
I prefer the papercraft battles, cause they're actually like minigames with completely separate mechanics that don't need to be built up like they are in RPGs, so it's fine that they exist in a vacuum, separated from the rest of the game. The disconnect of mechanics fits with the fact that they've thrown out your stats.

True, though I sometimes wished these battles would also take your gear, items and stats into account. Maybe badge effects or battle cards too.

That'd be pretty neat.

[Ashan]

I'm 2 hours into Partners in Time and already I'm remembering how creative these games used to be.

I mean, I'm not as much of a fan of the format of PiT where you've got a hub world and then basically missions rather than a full-on overworld to explore, but it's better than grassland, desert world, water world, jungle, ice world, fire world, boss like every other Mario title lately (including Paper Jam)

[Klaty]

Also, it's not out here yet. (EU)

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

Yeah... Finland (or at least the part where we are) is pretty late on things. X & Y got released a couple months ago, same with Dream Team. I think it was October or November.
Well, no worry. I don't even have a 3DS. Maybe I'll get a N3DSXL (the only 3DS available in here) if I get a Summer job. It currently costs 220 euros.
Sorry for the late response.

[warpio]

Alphadream did an interview recently where they talked about their reasons for not doing anything creative with the story in Paper Jam. They tried to come up with some crazy plot ideas at first, but it lead to such a convoluted mess of a story that they just scrapped it and decided to go for a more simple plot focusing entirely on the interactions between mainline Mario characters and their Paper counterparts. You can see the whole interview here: https://imgur.com/a/gd670

What this means is that the next M&L game will likely go back to having original characters and a unique setting. Paper Jam was just a unique exception because it was a crossover game, and making a creative but good crossover story with bunch of original characters with Paper counterparts would've been an enormous challenge and would've likely took far more development time than Nintendo was willing to give them.

I think Sticker Star was also an exception, because that game didn't actually have the usual Paper Mario team working on it, instead it was outsourced to a smaller developer, who took Miyamoto's advice too far and gutted the game's plot more than they had to. I'm still confident that the next Paper Mario could be as good as the first 2.

[Bean]

I didn't think that one was outsourced at all because the decision to not do much with the story was made by Intelligent Systems themselves and not Miyamoto.

[Ashan]

Alphadream did an interview recently where they talked about their reasons for not doing anything creative with the story in Paper Jam. They tried to come up with some crazy plot ideas at first, but it lead to such a convoluted mess of a story that they just scrapped it and decided to go for a more simple plot focusing entirely on the interactions between mainline Mario characters and their Paper counterparts. You can see the whole interview here: https://imgur.com/a/gd670

What this means is that the next M&L game will likely go back to having original characters and a unique setting. Paper Jam was just a unique exception because it was a crossover game, and making a creative but good crossover story with bunch of original characters with Paper counterparts would've been an enormous challenge and would've likely took far more development time than Nintendo was willing to give them.

I think Sticker Star was also an exception, because that game didn't actually have the usual Paper Mario team working on it, instead it was outsourced to a smaller developer, who took Miyamoto's advice too far and gutted the game's plot more than they had to. I'm still confident that the next Paper Mario could be as good as the first 2.

I'm too lazy to read all that right now but if what you said is true, that's SUPER comforting to know they're aware of the issue.

[blue_kirby]

So I just beat Paper Jam last night and I thought it was fun ... however, it's REALLY REALLY REALLY easy to break the game and become extremely overpowered by exploiting

the Paper Boomerang Bros at Bowser's Castle on the ground, with the combination of amiibo and/or Battle Cards

. Alongside that, I do like that you can skip tutorials. I also thought the soundtrack was really good for what it was, especially the final boss battle, Mt. Brr, Bowser's Castle, and the normal battle theme.

I do miss the Giant Battles, but I felt like if they were used again, they would just feel forced. I wonder what M&L 6 will bring to the table in terms of those kinds of battles ... maybe we'll find out for the Nintendo NX or whatever that secret Console/Portable project Nintendo is planning.

I was disappointed that they were VERY limited on the amount of content that they put. Sure, I read why they didn't include that many characters (something that has to due with not making the characters feel forced) ... but come on, we could've at least had Monseur Broque, Broggy, or maybe something with the Elite Trio (although I'm 100% okay with the Koopalings being in this game. They all had pretty interesting boss battles, especially Larry/Ludwig). And from the Paper Mario side? Mt. Brr would've been a good place for Ruff Puff to hang out ... or Bowser's Castle having Paper Koopatrols fighting alongside Broozers and Shy Guys. I am glad that they incorporated some of the enemies that had more recent appearances ... it was fun seeing Bullies (I prefer their SM64 design to be honest), Chargin' Chucks (despite the fact they were a boss), and Ant Troopers. Also, if you include King Bob-Omb and King Boo, including King Goomba (I'm not too upset about this one, as the "Megacrinkle Goomba" is pretty much a shoutout to that one Sticker Star boss, who looks similar to him) would've been a neat addition, as he appears in Super Mario 64 DS AND Paper Mario.

My list of favorite M&L games are ...

1. Bowser's Inside Story (VERY fun playing as Bowser)

2. Superstar Saga (I really liked how you could separate Mario and Luigi at points of the game. Plus, their "Bros" attacks were pretty fun)

3. Dream Team (Lots of neat callbacks and references. Soundtrack was great as well.)

4. Paper Jam (VERY limited in characters)

5. Partners in Time (Although I did enjoy this one, I thought it was bland compared to the rest of the series)

[Ashan]

it's REALLY REALLY REALLY easy to break the game and become extremely overpowered by exploiting

the Paper Boomerang Bros at Bowser's Castle on the ground, with the combination of amiibo and/or Battle Cards

.

Mind explaining this in more detail?
I don't own any Amiibo other than Mega Man which isn't compatible, so I don't know how those work, and I haven't figure out how battle cards could make you OP either.

Also your list is factually wrong because Superstar Saga isn't at the top like it should be because it is perfect in every way.

[blue_kirby]

Mind explaining this in more detail?
I don't own any Amiibo other than Mega Man which isn't compatible, so I don't know how those work, and I haven't figure out how battle cards could make you OP either.

Alright, this is what I discovered

The Paper Boomerang Bros in Bowser's Castle (first visit, before fighting Bowser Jr) will either carry a standard boomerang or a folded up Boomerang Bro. If they're carrying a normal boomerang, their attacks will proceed normally. However, if they're carrying a Boomerang Bro, they'll spawn one right after they attack you. I had to make them attack me (I'm not sure what happens if you dodge/counter them, but getting attacked is a sure way to spawn more), but I stocked up on healing items and Boo Biscuits so getting hurt wasn't an issue. This part is time consuming, as it could take about 10 or so minutes for the Boomerang Bros to spawn. I've gotten about 10 or so Boomerang Bros to come up against me (waiting until all of the Boomerang Bros are carrying a standard boomerang). Afterwards, I used a powerful Bro/Trio attack to take out the rest of the group, and get a ton of EXP (around 1,000ish or so, even without EXP boosting cards).

As for amiibo cards, lots of them are similar to Battle Cards. For instance, you can scan Mario and get an effect like increasing your power and such or getting slightly more coins after a battle. If you have all 6 of the Super Mario series characters, you can use 6 amiibo per battle.

Battle Cards take some time, but if you get certain cards like EXP and such, they are a good aid in battle.

[CM30]

Huh, didn't know about that Boomerang Bros thing. Well, I knew they brought in extra bros as the battle went on, but not the idea that you could grind for exp against them.

That said, the best enemy to fight for exp still has to be the Chain Chomps. They take a lot of beating, but if they go down, and you use enough exp up cards, you can easily hit 9999 exp in a single battle. That's gonna do a lot for you, especially if you're below Rainbow Rank.

In other news about this game... well, I've currently played through the game again with a ton of glitches, and have managed to get to the Final Smash mini game at about level 14 after four hours or so. It's surprisingly fun to do this, since you have to fight some bosses way under leveled if you want to proceed. For example, thought King Bob-omb was a pain? Try beating him at about level 10. Takes a good half hour or so, but it's certainly doable, and quite fun too.

Also, someone found a bug to play as Paper Mario on his own. Pretty cool:







Sticker Star? Nah, this is the real 3DS Paper Mario game.

[warpio]

Also your list is factually wrong because Superstar Saga isn't at the top like it should be because it is perfect in every way.

nah, this is probably just nostalgia talking. Superstar Saga is great in its own way, but the newer M&L games definitely have a more complex and engaging combat system with a higher difficulty curve. Superstar Saga is the easiest of the M&L games, with all of its special moves being nothing more than stylish QTEs and the enemy tells being very obvious even late in the game. Enemy attacks in DT and PJ are way more tricky, plus the newer games have a huge variety of unique special attacks compared to Superstar.

[Ashan]

Also your list is factually wrong because Superstar Saga isn't at the top like it should be because it is perfect in every way.

nah, this is probably just nostalgia talking. Superstar Saga is great in its own way, but the newer M&L games definitely have a more complex and engaging combat system with a higher difficulty curve. Superstar Saga is the easiest of the M&L games, with all of its special moves being nothing more than stylish QTEs and the enemy tells being very obvious even late in the game. Enemy attacks in DT and PJ are way more tricky, plus the newer games have a huge variety of unique special attacks compared to Superstar.

I actually just went back and played through Superstar Saga for the first time in years, and finished it a few hours ago, and uh... Yeah, it's WAY easier than I remembered it. I didn't even game over once, and most of the late-game bosses I took out in like 2 bros attacks.

That said, I still think it has the most memorable locations, and unique scenarios, and actually encouraged exploration more than any of the other games. At the very least, Paper Jam felt much closer to a hallway simulator than Superstar Saga, where locations actually felt unique and memorable. And Superstar Saga had stuff like the solo sections, where you could separate for a bit so you didn't have to feel quite like your party is tied together with an unsnipped umbilical cord.

When you have to go to Guffawha Ruins with just Luigi to get an antidote for Mario, or when Luigi dresses up as the Princess so they can swap her out and he can get the Beanstar back.

Seems to me they stopped doing stuff like that later on. It became much more of a formula. The closest you got to that in Paper Jam was the little ghost forest section that was more of a minigame than anything else. There was no new characters, or interesting locations. It was just grassland, desert, forest, jungle, ice world, fire world, boss as is the formula. There was some clever writing, I thought

the Paper Toads transferring a message up their stairway and it turning into a game of telephone was clever

, but so much of the game is forgettable. You fight Petey Pirahna again. You fight pokey again. You fight Wiggler again. There's a bunch of Toads again. You fight Bowser again.
You don't fight a giant congealed soda monster that was brewed for the past 1000 years, or board an ancient ship with an old skeleton crew still on it despite years passing by, or get an important item back from a giant hermit crab that wants to use it to dress up like a Christmas tree. You don't have an interesting antagonist with a sidekick who speaks in sandwich metaphors, or explore an abandoned university where the researchers have been turned into alien robot things. You don't have a tea party with an ice girl and her giant snowman golem in a blonde wig.
That creativity isn't there in Paper Jam. It just felt so generic.

[CM30]

To be fair, this is the only Mario & Luigi game where a lack of original characters is an issue, and it does seem like it's only a temporary thing for this game. Remember, Dream Team introduced the nightmare king Antasma, the russian beef obssessed Massif Bros, the Zeekeeper and the Pi'illo people, along with such bosses as an out of control gardening robot, a rock mammoth matroska doll, a living volcano, a robot made of buildings and whatever the hell Torkscrew was supposed to be.

As for overworlds... well, I know your point, and the world themes are terrible even for a generic Mario style game (I mean, King Boo so should have had a ghost house or something in Gloomy Woods, right?), but it's kind of been an issue ever since Partners in Time. Okay, Partners in Time was extra bad in this respect, because it reduced the structure to a Skyward Sword/Mario 64 style hub and areas accessed through portals... but the later games weren't a lot better.

Take Bowser's Inside Story for example. Some cool themes and characters, but damn that overworld was just pretty boring in general. Blocky, connected with obvious paths and boundaries between areas and so, so empty in terms of things to do. It's like every so often, you found a shop or mini game areas, and then a huge amount of just... space and trees and things between them. Dream Team's was best, though it was more a case of 'looked amazing' than 'had as much to find as Superstar Saga'. Paper Jam's is just somewhat average.

[cheez8]

I finally got around to getting this game recently and... boy, it's hard to figure out how I feel about it. It's so obviously kid-oriented, what with two or three options for making things easier, that giant "Go Here!" arrow that's on the map 24/7, and even the cutscenes and writing being... uh, "pandering" most of the time. A little too cartoony, I guess, even if a good number of the jokes they shoved in there were genuinely funny. Not to mention all the minigame quests. Those really feel like they were shoehorned in, and I wouldn't have so much of a problem with that if they didn't happen so dang frequently. I can understand "find the Paper Toads, they're freaking out and they can't think straight." That's fine, and I was actually looking forward to more of those. But to make every little thing a "minigame" with a big fanfare for succeeding? That bothers me. I didn't need special minigame music for chasing down some rabbit, the stealth minigames don't make a lick of sense, and then there's the Quiz Toads... No, I'm sorry, that sort of thing really doesn't need an extensive fanfare and I'd much prefer just receiving my reward and getting on my merry way.

But on the plus side, the meat of the game is actually really fun. Not just the battles (which are surprisingly tough, by the way) but even the story, in spite of all the child-pandering moments, is pretty nice. I was a bit disappointed with it at first, but it's actually really interesting how they're kind of taking a "This sort of thing has happened time and time again, how would the characters react to that?" sort of approach. Like, there's no sense of urgency whatsoever at the start of the game, and it took a while to realize that it's because they're really just treating this whole paper-world thing as idle curiosity. The princesses get kidnapped and they hardly bat an eye. It's... actually kind of interesting, in a way, and I'm glad to see that interview saying that's more or less what they were going for.

I think I'm nearing the end of the game, seeing as I've pretty much gone everywhere once already (including Bowser's Castle), and I'm definitely looking forward to playing through the rest of it. For all its faults and irritating quirks, this is a solid game.

[Lostsoldier20]

Full disclosure, I haven't played it yet, but as I explain, I might never.

The list of glitches has already been posted but here's the Son of a Glitch episode.

I have no intention of comparing this game to Sticker Star or any other Paper Mario game. Because this isn't a Paper Mario game. It is a Mario and Luigi game. That's the thing that annoys me most with this game. I remember there being talks about a new Paper Mario, and then they talked about it like this was a new Paper Mario game. The last Paper Mario we got was the trash that is SS, so taunting us with this is just a really bad move.

After what I've seen of it too, I don't even wanna play it. I was still morbidly curious, but then I saw how easy it was to break, like there was no QA in this game to begin with. Rub up against any rock to go OoB in a second with minimal effort? That's something you catch in an Alpha build. And is Bowser anything but a brute in this game? What makes Bowser good in the RPGs of both series is that he's more than just a brute. He has the greatest dialog when they actually try with him, and at this point it is the only thing I could look forward to in Paper Jam.

How I'll rank the games:
Paper Mario Series:
1. TTYD
2. Super
3. Paper Mario
4. Sticker Star

M&L Series
1. SSS
2. BiS
3. DT
4. PiT

TTYD is just overall just amazing in almost every way (a third "just" for good measure). The most unique set pieces, the Paper Mario formula nearly perfected, amazing writing (cough Bowser cough) and overall just a joy of a time. Also, Flavio % runs. Super vs. Paper Mario is a close race, but I say Super is just barely better. It has a slow start, but for what it does, it does amazingly. It is the best story, and has the best characterization of all of the games. It has the most impact too, especially Chapter 6. Paper Mario is great too, but is a bit simple and doesn't have the great story to back it up. Lastly, SS just doesn't exist...

M&L is a bit harder to decide, mostly for 1st and 2nd. SSS just barely edges out for having some very funny moments, great gameplay sections, and Cackletta (also maybe a bit of Fawful). Plus it has admitted nostalgia on its side too. That final boss section is one of the most memorable fights I've had in any game, mostly for the scary/threatening factor, second only to Skeith of .hack. BiS is just an absolutely amazing game in all aspects, except some of the Giant Bowser sections are just meh. It too has a great final section, and probably the best final boss of all of the RPGs.

Down to DT and PiT, I just found DT mostly boring. Had some great moments, but otherwise the game is merely solidly "good" rather than great or amazing. PiT... I just don't even remember it. I remember enjoying the game, but it was apparently really forgettable.