luigi’s chance to shine in mario & luigi: superstar saga

i had been less than impressed with the last two mario RPGs i’d played (the “grandaddy” of them all, super mario RPG, and the wii snoozefest super paper mario), but i was still optimistic about the mario & luigi series which i hadn’t gotten to try yet. i started with the first entry, mario & luigi: superstar saga for GBA, which came out a couple of years after the first paper mario game (on N64). although from the bare description the game sounds like it would be very similar to the other mario RPGs, the dual-brothers mechanics really make the game feel fresh as in battle one bro is controlled by the A button and the other by the B button, making timing attacks and counterattacks much more active. even aside from that, the action in battles feels quicker in general and battles feel less drawn out that in the other mario RPGs i’ve played, although boss battles tend to drag on. learning the counterattacks for all the enemies you encounter is pretty straightforward and reasonably worthwhile, although every once in a while an enemy’s attack will be unusually fussy. although the bros’ super attacks are generally repetitive and boring, otherwise battles work well and almost kept my interest to the end.

the reason i say “almost”, is because the whole last third of the game really feels drawn out. by then the battle mechanics are really not offering anything new, and the last two dungeons are a chore. the last dungeon in particular reprises almost every mechanic seen in the whole game, which bored me almost to tears, particularly since the last battle (esp. the beginning of the second half) and what follows is incredibly cheap. the puzzles are generally entertaining and there are enough genuinely clever ones to keep the momentum going, and although the game follows the mold of padding RPGs with pointless mini-games, in general they aren’t too tedious and they’re staggered throughout the adventure. also, for the first time in a mario RPG i’ve played, the platforming segments, minimal though they may be, actually work, since they’re limited to very short horizontal areas.

but all of this is ignoring the game’s biggest strength, which is the story and presentation. although other mario RPGs have been called “funny”, this is the first one that i felt was genuinely funny. there were so many memorable and fun, chuckle-worthy moments, and even when i wasn’t laughing out loud i was often surprised and amused by the story’s situations. the graphics are good (although the pseudo-3D effects can make judging enemies’ attacks in battle overly difficult), but it’s the characterizations that really make the world of the game come alive. prince peasley made me laugh pretty much every time i saw him, and fawful is a fun new villain. the game uses similar slapstick-like mimed reactions from its two main characters as in other mario RPGs, but here they’re even more pronounced, and to greater effect. i was especially surprised and gratified that my man luigi gets some special attention, even beyond his elevated status as a main character in this game. and due to its similarities to the mushroom kingdom, the beanbean kingdom feels somewhat less unnaturally foreign than some of the other lands the mario RPG games have visited.

despite, frankly, disliking the last third of the game (which unfortunately prevents this game from achieving “legendary” status in my book), i’m really looking forward to trying out its two sequels. i should go back to the first paper mario game before then, though, although the next RPG i’m going to pick up will probably be a more traditional one. after a whole game’s worth of battles the battle mechanics of these mario RPGs feel too active, and for the next RPG i play i want to just be able to input the commands and sit back and watch them play out, haha.

some shiny superstar links:
- nice entry at mariowiki.com
- guide at IGN
- entry at wikipedia
- review at nintendolife.com
- the game is apparently actually heavily based on a japanese-only release by the same developer, alpha dream, called tomato adventure. interesting.
- here’s an entertaining retrospective on luigi gamesradar published a while back

paper-thin super paper mario

i finally finished playing through super mario RPG recently so i finally felt i could tackle some of the other mario RPGs at long last. i’ve had a copy of super paper mario ever since i’d first gotten my wii but had only played through the first chapter. i’d already played its immediate predecessor, the thousand-year door, and at that time i’d been intrigued by super paper mario‘s increased emphasis on platforming, so even though i wasn’t all that into the thousand-year door i decided to find out how the two games compared.

i think my tolerance for slow games has steadily decreased. i still find it extremely hard to understand how SPM got such rapturous reviews because there was very, very little i found i could like about it. although there is an increase in the platforming elements, the game really doesn’t work as a platformer. the characters’ movements are all slow and the challenges are minimal, especially since you can pretty much always just flip into 3D and completely avoid enemies. speaking of which, the flipping mechanic, in which you go from 2D to 3D and back, gets boring fast. the hold-overs from the RPG days, such as hit points and items, also serve to make the game mind-numbingly easy, and the reams and reams of text, while admirably translated by NOA, get to be incredibly tedious. the three characters that accompany mario are only occasionally useful (and since only mario can flip you’ll end up using him the vast majority of the time anyway), and his completely personality-less pixl companions similarly only provide added skills in the most obvious and basic ways. the art style is stylized and well done in general, but they also get to feel very same-y, with the main exception of the whole last section which is completely and utterly drab and lifeless. having to wander around the town hub after every chapter is annoying, especially since instead of platforming challenges the game’s main levels are full of endless mazes you’ll have to slog through with way too much backtracking. the town itself is rife with one of my biggest pet peeves in RPGs, namely completely useless NPCs who have a seemingly endless supply of gab but serve absolutely no purpose other than to provide a smidge of increased atmosphere. the sidequests, particularly cooking, are even more painfully pointless than the average, and the motion controls are just an added chore. on top of all this, even within the main quest there are way too many sections that are just flat out obnoxious, like having to jump and hit the same block 100 times.

ugh! i really had to force myself to finish this, and in the end this was one of the few games that i was eager to sell, even if it meant having a gap in my mario collection. i find myself hard-pressed to think of anything i really loved about this game. the only thing that comes to mind is francis, the otaku chameleon, and the usual small pleasure that comes from getting to play as other characters of the mario universe even in a dull game. disappointing, but i’m still hoping that paper mario and the mario and luigi games will prove that there are mario RPGs that i can actually like.

a paper chain of super paper mario links:
- entry at wikipedia
- a lot of good info at mariowiki.com including official art and the complete list of sammer guys
- official site, which doesn’t contain much other than a few videos
- funny comic at 2pstart.com (and oh so true)

the grandaddy of mario RPGs

i’d mentioned earlier this year that i had been stuck on pokemon gold for ages because all the copies of the game i had had dead batteries. similarly, i was prevented from playing the original mario RPG, super mario RPG: legend of the seven stars for the SNES until i finally took matters into my own hands and replaced the battery myself.

i’d played the paper mario game for gamecube, so playing mario RPG was a definite step back. the game originated the subsequent spin-off series’ action commands during battle, but despite getting to play as certain members of the mario universe for the first time (although there is one painful omission), the rest of the game played out with very few surprises. as i’ve found with the other mario RPGs, it always feels a bit weird and unnatural to have characters other than the familiar ones we know and love from the classic platformers, although for this game square did a pretty good job of coming up with a host of new enemies and side characters that integrate well enough. i’m not a fan of mini-games and sidequests, but the game made them tolerable by keeping them in the background for the most part. and the general level of easiness of the game (with the exception of the beginning, which is actually a bit harder than you’d expect) ensures that level grinding is never an issue. as with other RPGs although you do get 5 characters to play with, there’s really never any motivation to use the two you don’t want to, although it is nice that the characters you don’t use level up the same as if they had participated in battle.

the biggest drawback for me was the annoyance of having platformer-type stages thrown in every once in a while. while i thoroughly enjoy platformers in general, the isometric view more often than not makes it frustratingly difficult to tell where ledges, etc. actually are supposed to be or how far you should jump, and there’s way too much “try and die” gameplay involved. ugh.

not much more to say. i’ve already checked out some of the other mario RPGs, and although i’m finding them on the whole to be only marginally more interesting than the average RPG, they do tend to be packed with charm and that special brand of nintendo whimsy. i’m really looking forward to seeing my main man ‘uigi team up with his older bro and delving more into the paper mario series as well, so perhaps i’ll be pleasantly surprised.

mario’s RPG links:
- themushroomkingdom.net has a good section on the game, including details on the nintendo cameos and a comparison of the japanese version.
- speaking of the nintendo cameos, here’s a link to a video of the link cameo and the samus cameo.
- PDF of the manual at replacementdocs.com
- random site with a nice compendium of secrets in the game
- entry at mariowiki.com including a list of all the psychopath skill quotes
- entry at wikipedia.org