The Super Mario series doesn’t initially seem like the greatest fit for an RPG. Narratively, the series is uncomplicated at best and prosaic at worst; man rescues woman from evil lizard, world continues to turn until the next time evil lizard decides repeating the exact same plan with almost no alterations will pay dividends. That said, Squaresoft’s 1996 effort, imaginatively titled Super Mario RPG, turned out to be an unexpected triumph, and Intelligent Systems’ N64 followup Paper Mario was a worthy successor. 2004’s Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door is a bona fide classic, replete with excellent writing, memorable characters and intricately designed set pieces.
With all this in the background, then, when it came time for a further instalment on the phenomenally successful Wii, the pressure was on. Super Paper Mario released way back in the mists of 2007, so naturally now is a great and appropriate time for me to give it a once-over and see if it holds up. Narratively, it’s business as usual for the papercraft plumber. Supervillain extraordinaire Count Bleck has decided that all worlds must end, as many sane, rational people often do, so our moustachioed hero must step up and end this nefarious plot by gathering eight of something or other. Along the way, Mario will visit themed worlds, meet friends who will help him and enemies who will hinder him, yadda yadda. It’s immediately obvious that Super Paper Mario is a decidedly less imaginative outing than its forebears, featuring as it does a fairly standard suite of grassland, caves and other generic locales favoured by your average B-grade entry into the genre. Luckily, the series’ signature moment-to-moment strong writing is still present, so dialogue frequently raises a knowing smile, if not an outright chuckle. The story itself is breathtakingly unoriginal, with plot twists more predictable than a miserable British summer and characters given no significant development or personal hurdles to overcome. Make no mistake, we’re here for two things: dialogue and gameplay. The former is a pretty universal success, but what about the latter?
To its credit, Super Paper Mario does switch the standard formula up somewhat. In place of the turn-based battling system previously employed by the series, we have something with a decidedly more action-RPG bent, resembling the flagship Mario franchise’s platforming but with awkward RPG stat growth elements shoehorned in. The game’s unique selling point is the ability to switch instantly between 2D and 3D perspectives, which gives rise to some clever visual puzzles and forces the player to think a little more carefully about each area. Mario is also aided by Pixls, tiny sprites who occupy the same role as party members in previous Paper Mario games (although there are a few of those, too). The puzzling is generally pretty strong, and although the player’s mind is never significantly taxed (beyond a few patience-testing repetitive sections and inane fetch quests), there are some nice moments here which use the central mechanics well. Combat is fairly uninspired, but there is still fun to be had; it’s floatier than the core Mario series but not nearly as tactical as its paper brethren, so it does occupy a slightly awkward halfway house between two perfectly enjoyable systems, but some boss battles are well designed and imaginative.
That’s about all there is nice to say about the game. The problem with Super Paper Mario comes back to my earlier comment about the game being less imaginative than its predecessors. There’s a very distinct whiff of “can’t be bothered” about Super Paper Mario. Some sections are egregiously long and repetitive, so much so that I almost couldn’t believe the game was actually making me do them (the samurai-themed world is a particularly memorable offender). The visual design, far from the cutesy DIY style of Thousand-Year Door, is lifeless and flat, most likely to accommodate the two different perspectives on offer. Some levels literally involve walking from left to right for five minutes with very little in between to break up the monotony. Additionally, it can sometimes feel like the game wasn’t designed with its core mechanic in mind; the central hub, Flipside, is a confusing nightmare to navigate, with an absolute maze of flips, tunnels and elevators to remember and trudge through each time moving through it is required.
All in all, Super Paper Mario is, unfortunately, a pretty unremarkable game. It lacks the imagination of Thousand-Year Door, the tight design of Super Mario RPG and the innovative novelty of Paper Mario. It’s not terrible; the writing is strong, the perspective-shifting gameplay gives rise to some strong puzzles and the combat occasionally shines. Unfortunately, uneven design, a woeful third act and dull, uninspired plotting relegates this game to a curiosity rather than a must-play.
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