Paper Mario Sticker Star

[Aaronrules380]

WIth all the impressions that have been coming out today for this game, I got the urge to talk about it. Paper Mario Sticker Star is the 3DS Paper Mario game. It uses a unique battle system where you have to use stickers you collect or buy to perform any attacks. The thing is, you only have a limited amount of sticker space and once you've used a sticker, it disappears.

I'm really looking forward to this game. THe sticker mechanic sounds really cool to me since it adds an extra strategic element to battles. It also seems like this will have the same sense of humor and writing that made past paper mario games such a blast. Overall, I'm really looking forward to it

more details here:http://gonintendo.com/?mode=viewstory&id=187088 and http://gonintendo.com/?mode=viewstory&id=187109

[Dom64]

Looking forward to it, I hope it's gonna have a good story and partner members, Super Paper Mario didn't have the latter and it was quite disappointing.

[Aaronrules380]

There are no partners appearently. Makes sense when you consider that they'd be harder to work in with the sticker mechanics. I liked partners, but this might be an opportunity to develop characters who are important throughout rather thn a partner who stops being relevant storywise pretty much right after they join

[KaizokuJinbei]

I can't wait for this. I like the sticker system.

[Noqanky]

Ok, I love the Paper Mario series, especially the first two that are actually RPGs. That said, I'm very very skeptical about this game for two reasons, and what was a must-buy when announced has now become a game I'll only get based on reviews.

1. Partners. Color me old-fashioned, but partners were easily the main thing that got me really into these games. It makes the game fresh when you have traveling partners who constantly react to things especially considering Mario is silent. Also, they sometimes added an incredible amount to the chapters. TTYD would not have been anywhere close to being as fun for me if it wasn't for characters like Goombella or Vivian, among others. Even the tiny Yoshi who didn't do much story-wise was a fun character. And most bothersome of all is that this element in the series begged to be expanded on. It had lots of room to grow and become even more captivating … but instead it seems as if it has been ditched, which to me is a tremendous shame.

2. The sticker system. At first I was intrigued by how they would use stickers, and upon seeing it and how it affects the battling system I was not pleased. I realize it is good to have innovation so the series doesn't grow stale, but in this case it's doing completely away with stuff from the series like badges and FP that made for solid gameplay. True, I haven't played it, but my fear now is that instead of simply having to train and go through levels now it's also a matter of collecting crap everywhere in order to even be able to fight. And personally, I'm not a huge fan of the idea of scavenger hunts in games, it gets tiresome, and I'm really hoping that's not what the game devolves into.

Also, it kind of bothers me a lot that even though this game is extremely close to being released, the info on it has been so scarce, the screenshots and videos so limited, and that we barely even have a hint of a story, which is something we had to look forward to with the other games, even Super Paper Mario. Frankly, I feel like they really are dropping the ball on this one in terms of both gimmicks and marketing. I really hope I'm wrong in both those counts.

[Supa64]

@Noqanky:

Ok, I love the Paper Mario series, especially the first two that are actually RPGs. That said, I'm very very skeptical about this game for two reasons, and what was a must-buy when announced has now become a game I'll only get based on reviews.

1. Partners. Color me old-fashioned, but partners were easily the main thing that got me really into these games. It makes the game fresh when you have traveling partners who constantly react to things especially considering Mario is silent. Also, they sometimes added an incredible amount to the chapters. TTYD would not have been anywhere close to being as fun for me if it wasn't for characters like Goombella or Vivian, among others. Even the tiny Yoshi who didn't do much story-wise was a fun character. And most bothersome of all is that this element in the series begged to be expanded on. It had lots of room to grow and become even more captivating … but instead it seems as if it has been ditched, which to me is a tremendous shame.

2. The sticker system. At first I was intrigued by how they would use stickers, and upon seeing it and how it affects the battling system I was not pleased. I realize it is good to have innovation so the series doesn't grow stale, but in this case it's doing completely away with stuff from the series like badges and FP that made for solid gameplay. True, I haven't played it, but my fear now is that instead of simply having to train and go through levels now it's also a matter of collecting crap everywhere in order to even be able to fight. And personally, I'm not a huge fan of the idea of scavenger hunts in games, it gets tiresome, and I'm really hoping that's not what the game devolves into.

Also, it kind of bothers me a lot that even though this game is extremely close to being released, the info on it has been so scarce, the screenshots and videos so limited, and that we barely even have a hint of a story, which is something we had to look forward to with the other games, even Super Paper Mario. Frankly, I feel like they really are dropping the ball on this one in terms of both gimmicks and marketing. I really hope I'm wrong in both those counts.

To deal with the first part, I'm glad they're at least not butchering partners like they did in SPM. The pixels never speaked after you got them excluding Tippi obviously. But I do agree that the fact we don't get our Chain Chomp partner saddens me.

With the sticker system, I believed when the system was first talked about, they said that they're stickers in every place and won't so much turn into a blown up scavenger hunt but I do have the same fear that suddenly, I'll run out of stickers and have to go across the land to get a decent amount to replace the ones I had used. Hopefully, they'll stay away from giving you too little stickers and essentially, screwing over the player.

Apparently, the story is just Paper Mario but instead of a star rod, it's a crown that fell from the Sticker Comet. There isn't much story releasing but I think somewhere near the end of the month, pictures and videos from reviewers will start flooding out.
I just hope the game does justice to the series as gameplay wise, Super Paper Mario did not do any justice to the series. But the story and the dialogue was top notch in Super Paper Mario so hopefully, we can get that in Sticker Star and good gameplay.

[Aaronrules380]

I've heard that a lot of the stickers you can buy in stores will be more powerful than ones from the field. That plus the battle spinner makes me feel that do as well as you can, you'll still have to battle a lot so that you can get coins. It's about resource management, and given Nintendo, I doubt it'll be too hard to find a few more stickers if you're really stuck. I get the feeling it'll be about balancing when to use stickers, fight battles, and the like to get things like coins and maximize results, and when to save stuff for the boss fights. For example, you could use low powered stickers from the field to defeat enemies, gain coins, and use them to help beat higher powered enemies with store stickers and the coin spinner

[Noqanky]

See, but that to me is not as fun. I don't enjoy collecting or stocking or chance in my rpgs as much as I love the idea of developing characters. I like the idea that the goombario you started with could barely do damage and by the endgame you can charge him to the point he can kill bowser with two hits. I like the idea that with work, and leveling up and managing badges you make your Mario a beast and he remains a beast. The whole sticker thing means that sure, we probably get more space and better stickers with time, but in the end it feels like it's the same Mario doing the fighting, not a Mario that started getting his ass handed to him and moved up to being a beast.

I guess I just get the impression that they took something that gave paper Mario its spirit. Paper Mario is not about him being paper, there's more to it … But the gimmick is focusing on the paper aspect, not on refining the things that made us love the other two. All I can hope for is a good story, but at this point I'm so disappointed I'm doubting even that.

[Aaronrules380]

The impressions have made it sound like the dialogue is as good as ever. And honestly, just because its diferent doesn't make it worse. I think having a battle system driven by strategy and making good choices is a lot more awesome than a grind levels to win one anyways. And its not like Mario can't gain hp anyways, you just do it through other means

[WiggyDee]

I'm the kind of Fire Emblem player that will only use iron weapons so that the better weapons never break. I don't see myself enjoying the sticker system as I know I'll always just use whatever attack is most abundant and "save" (never use) any of the rarer ones.

Lack of partners also greatly disappoints me, I swear I saw some gameplay of a chain chomp parter and I was pretty hyped, I also loved that these games had a separate script for every partner you have out for in game conversations, but they're dropping that in favour of an inventory management based combat system instead? Hmm…

[Gaiyae]

RPGfan did an article about their Hands-on impressions.

And they seem to really like it.

I'm just glad they went back to Turn-Based battles again.
I just couldn't get myself to sit completely through Super Paper Mario.

[Noqanky]

I had forgotten to ask before, but I really want to know. Those of you still interested in this game … what is your take on the fact that instead of an overworld with chapters now the game is divided in levels like other mario games?

[KaizokuJinbei]

I picked up my copy. It's pretty awesome so far.

[starshock12]

I've decided to buy this game on a total whim. I'm a huge fan of "The Thousand Year Door". Super Paper Mario was alright, but I never really beat it because I lost interest of it after a few chapters. My first impressions for Sticker Star are pretty good! I get really nervous when I don't have enough of one type of attack stickers in the sticker book though. (I tend to run out of jump stickers fairly quickly because I know how to time them better than hammers, so I use them almost all of the time. I still haven't figured out how to do max hits with hammer stickers…)

I'm only at chapter 1-4 but so far, I'd say that this is a nice game to play when you've got nothing else to do.

[Big_Bad_Lith]

Man, I hope you guys who buy it and complete it, can tell me if it's worth it or not.

Because while I trust intelligent systems, and like Paper Mario, this game doesn't look very good.

1. no partners, making battle strategy much more shallow

2. no exp, all you get from battles is stickers and coins (to buy stickers). everything comes back to stickers. So you spend stickers to gain stickers, it all seems like a waste of time. especially since enemies you run away from are defeated in the overworld, meaning you can just skip every single battle if you want, and save stickers for bosses.

3. all NPCs are toads? generic world progression? few original enemies? lack of story? What made paper mario good was that it invented new shit. this doesn't look like it does that.

4. I don't like how it's stage-based. feels casualized to me, like the game feels I need a reward every 5 minutes to make me feel good. Or like I can't be expected to manage health points and healing items well enough to last a long trek in hostile territory.

5. reviewers have been saying the "puzzles" often boil down to point-n-click-level guessing what item to use. random guessing doesn't sound like fun to me.

It's like they somehow took out every single thing that made paper mario good, and added in MORE lolitspapergetthejoke.jpg moments, as well as making the game piss-easy and not rewarding to thoughtful play. and just kept a turn-based action-command battle system, which is fairly generic. What made Paper Mario great, and all the Mario RPGs, is that it's Mario in an unfamiliar world. That's where the charm comes from, seeing mario interact with strange things, or seeing familiar faces (like enemy types) cast in entirely new roles. Again, this game doesn't seem to do either.

[taboo]

is the overall story at least decent? that was like the only good thing about SPM

[Aaronrules380]

I'm loving it so far, and there's actually a lot more battle strategy with the stickers. Also, coins are important because of the battle spinner, and because the only way to reobtain thing stickers (which are really useful against bosses as well as being used for puzzles) is to buy them for a large amount of coins

[Hiroy]

The last Paper Mario and pretty much the first Paper Mario I played was the one that had sidescroling and flipping from 2D to 3D. I thought the idea was really awesome, and I really wanted to try it out. But when I did, I became really bored of it quickly. And I'm not sure if it was because the game throws you into this tutorial heacy crunch for the first several hours, the fact that you had to backtrack a whole lot when you come accorss something the prevents you from proceeding(the design does not work for me in a sidescroller),or because it didn't present the 2D to 3D thing cleverly enough to make me think it wasn't just a gimmick. The cut-scenes were funny tho… But I could not imagine myself playing a game for something I can play on YouTube. So yeah... That game was a bust. I regret not making the N64 game my first Paper Mario.

[Noqanky]

@Big_Bad_Lith:

Man, I hope you guys who buy it and complete it, can tell me if it's worth it or not.

Because while I trust intelligent systems, and like Paper Mario, this game doesn't look very good.

1. no partners, making battle strategy much more shallow

2. no exp, all you get from battles is stickers and coins (to buy stickers). everything comes back to stickers. So you spend stickers to gain stickers, it all seems like a waste of time. especially since enemies you run away from are defeated in the overworld, meaning you can just skip every single battle if you want, and save stickers for bosses.

3. all NPCs are toads? generic world progression? few original enemies? lack of story? What made paper mario good was that it invented new shit. this doesn't look like it does that.

4. I don't like how it's stage-based. feels casualized to me, like the game feels I need a reward every 5 minutes to make me feel good. Or like I can't be expected to manage health points and healing items well enough to last a long trek in hostile territory.

5. reviewers have been saying the "puzzles" often boil down to point-n-click-level guessing what item to use. random guessing doesn't sound like fun to me.

It's like they somehow took out every single thing that made paper mario good, and added in MORE lolitspapergetthejoke.jpg moments, as well as making the game piss-easy and not rewarding to thoughtful play. and just kept a turn-based action-command battle system, which is fairly generic. What made Paper Mario great, and all the Mario RPGs, is that it's Mario in an unfamiliar world. That's where the charm comes from, seeing mario interact with strange things, or seeing familiar faces (like enemy types) cast in entirely new roles. Again, this game doesn't seem to do either.

Exactly how I feel. Waited for reviews to change my mind, and frankly they just convinced me this isn't the game for me.

[Big_Bad_Lith]

@Hiroy:

The last Paper Mario and pretty much the first Paper Mario I played was the one that had sidescroling and flipping from 2D to 3D. I thought the idea was really awesome, and I really wanted to try it out. But when I did, I became really bored of it quickly. And I'm not sure if it was because the game throws you into this tutorial heacy crunch for the first several hours, the fact that you had to backtrack a whole lot when you come accorss something the prevents you from proceeding(the design does not work for me in a sidescroller),or because it didn't present the 2D to 3D thing cleverly enough to make me think it wasn't just a gimmick. The cut-scenes were funny tho… But I could not imagine myself playing a game for something I can play on YouTube. So yeah... That game was a bust. I regret not making the N64 game my first Paper Mario.

well, I really liked SPM. It's still the best (mostly) 2D mario platformer since SMW, and I never got tired of backtracking. In fact, I don't even remember ever having to do it, that's how little of an impression it made on me.

I'll agree that the flipping was a gimmick, but it was cool in some parts. Like when the floor in from of you fills the fuck up with rolling thwomps, and you panic, then realize you can just flip it, and they're all in like a single plane. Again, not much more than a gimmick, but it was funny.

The story and characters was also really great. Aside from the writing, playing as Bowser, Peach, and luigi in addition to Mario made the game for me.

It isn't a Mario RPG, but I think it's a fine game in its own right. massively underrated by people who expected paper mario 3, and got something else. (not saying you did, Hiroy, but that's the general complaint one hears)

[carlynbeatrix]

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[Monkey King]

@Noqanky:

I had forgotten to ask before, but I really want to know. Those of you still interested in this game … what is your take on the fact that instead of an overworld with chapters now the game is divided in levels like other mario games?

At least they're being honest, Paper Mario 2 bullshitted us largely with it's linear level design. Still my main problem with that game (aside from Chapter 3, the best Chapter ever).

[CCC]

Soooo… yeah. This game is fucking terrible. I wrote a little rant on gamefaqs about it.

! So I got really bored while grinding for the flag achievements (before having beaten Bowser) and did the worst possible thing I could have at that point: I went and replayed TTYD for the first time in years. 30 gameplay hours later, after completing a perfect TTYD save file, I found it incredibly difficult to go back and finish SS's achievements and even the final boss. I resented the fact that I felt obligated to do so, but I've never left a game unfinished…
! There are plenty of reasons why SS is the worst Paper Mario game, but going back to TTYD revealed to me the main reason. Not the awful gameplay (can't select target, no partners, no healing outside of battle, etc.), which is a close second, but the complete and utter lack of world-building. Yes, every [Paper] Mario game throws you into a new section of the Mario universe with 5 to 8 areas and their respective magical macguffins to find, but SS's is by far the most lackluster.
! PM 64 got away with generic castle/desert/ice/jungle because the whole paper concept was new and exciting and the terrific gameplay could stand on its own. Even there though, you felt like it was a world worth saving. Each area was populated with tons of npcs (toads, yoshis, penguins, bub-ulbs, boos, etc.) who seemed to be living actual lives in their own corners of the world. The connectedness of the world also helped (as opposed to a world map).
! TTYD brought this to an even higher level. More than ever, the hub felt like a genuine, living place. The population was comprised of a smattering of Mario enemies (and completely new characters) dressed up in people clothes and accessories, talking about credit card fraud, marriage, feeding one's family, etc., as if they're all just a bunch of normal folk trying to live their lives. They hold jobs, have everyday problems for you to help them with, and so many of them are good for more than just a single line of unchanging dialogue. The areas also felt new and refreshing… after the generic fields/Koopa town/castle, which were clearly just setting you up to be blown away by the others after their relative dullness. A monochrome forest, a wrestling arena with gambling and corruption, gloomyville, Poirot on the Orient Express- hell, even the space fortress and tropical pirate's cove are not nearly so common (in Mario games anyway) as to be trite. It was a world that made you want to explore and fish out every little side quest and bit of npc dialogue, and boy was there a ton of it. The story, although not something to be heralded as great literature, was perfect for a Mario game, with a large number of players, competing interests, and plot "twists."
! I personally loved SPM as well. Great story, fun characters, and the originality of the worlds somehow ramped up even more, almost into cloud-cuckooland territory (samurai, cavemen, space dimension, bit-world, hell, heaven, etc.). The "aliveness" of the hub took a step back with the weird, fairly homogeneous flip/flopside people (and the fact that worlds were accessed via doors didn't help), but it still felt like world worth saving, with all these different cultures with their own concerns and quirks. There was a ton of characterization for the main characters and even some of the side ones, which made it a complete and fulfilling RPG experience.
! Then we have this pile. Story- gone. Creative worlds- ripped away in favor of the as-generic-as-you-can-possibly-get fields/desert/forest/ice/volcano jungle. NPCs- reduced to a single species (Toads) all named "Toad" and a Wiggler named Wiggler. All those classic Mario enemies have abandoned the goal of assimilating into normal society and the progress made to that end in TTYD, threw away their people clothes, and have gone back to living in the wild as mostly-mute evil entities with nothing but the we-work-for-Bowser motivation. They needed to shoehorn in a recurring boss, but couldn't decide between Kamek and Bowser Jr., so they half-assed both. Of the main bosses, only one is something we haven't really seen before. Characterization- gone (A 1-dimensional feisty female sidekick hasn't been original since Navi. At least SPM's version of the character was actually really important to the story and its twists).
! It's regression in every way, and I don't for a second buy the excuse that it's because it's a handheld. Zelda has been doing more interesting things with vibrant, living worlds on handhelds since the original Gameboy. I don't care about the world of PM:SS. There is zero immersion factor and no emotional motivation to do anything. I've never had such an urge to NOT finish a game before, which is really sad, considering how every other entry in the PM series (hell, even including every Mario RPG) was stellar.
! I don't always agree with Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw, but he's dead-on here. Especially because any similarities between our rants are coincidental. I wrote that ^ before seeing this.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/6695-Paper-Mario-Sticker-Star

[Darkstorm]

I got a nintendo survey about this today. I panned it as much as humanly possible, especially storywise.

Hopefully nintendo don't repeat this mistake again.

[Unrequited]

@Darkstorm:

I got a nintendo survey about this today. I panned it as much as humanly possible, especially storywise.

Hopefully nintendo don't repeat this mistake again.

Good job, but do they actually read most of those things?

Also a shame. Never tried SPM though. Apparently CCC said it was good. I'll pick that up instead I guess.

[CCC]

@Unrequited:

Good job, but do they actually read most of those things?

Also a shame. Never tried SPM though. Apparently CCC said it was good. I'll pick that up instead I guess.

I think they must. I mean they send us free presents with free shipping just for slogging through a few of them. The demographic info is probably the most important to them, though.

And yeah. I love SPM. It seems to be (surprisingly?) polarizing, given that many people pan it for abandoning turn-based battles in favor of traditional "platforming combat" (aka jump on the enemy in real-time). But the other RPG elements remain (HP, restorative items, partners, multiple characters, multiple methods of attack [via partners and the other characters]), with the big "flip" gimmick taking center stage, which never felt boring or forced, to me anyway. It's a fairly long game with many side quests (and TWO Pits of 100 Trials: easy version and hard version) and a story that at least matches TTYD's in quality. I daresay the original characters in SPM are even more inspired than those in the other Paper Mario games, though the partners are a bit lacking in personality.

[Strongbad456]

You guys are making TTYD sound so good to right now. I got Sticker Star for Christmas and was loving it and then I got decided to play Paper Mario 64 for the first time. Everything about 64 is incredible. Now I can't even play Sticker Star because I'm comparing it to PM 64. I honestly haven't been this interested in a game in years. A lot of the time I have to force myself to play games but with this one, I find myself playing the game whenever I can and averaging a chapter a day now. The partners are very useful(I can't find any use for Goombario though after I got the badge that lets me see enemies HP). I really want to play TTYD next but it's really tough to find a copy.

[The Namekian Clown]

SPM is one of a small few games that I truly hate. The only thing that's remotely good is the story. Sure it's disappointing that SS lacks story, but it's worlds above SPM in every conceivable way.

[Monkey King]

@Strongbad456:

You guys are making TTYD sound so good to right now. I got Sticker Star for Christmas and was loving it and then I got decided to play Paper Mario 64 for the first time. Everything about 64 is incredible. Now I can't even play Sticker Star because I'm comparing it to PM 64. I honestly haven't been this interested in a game in years. A lot of the time I have to force myself to play games but with this one, I find myself playing the game whenever I can and averaging a chapter a day now. The partners are very useful(I can't find any use for Goombario though after I got the badge that lets me see enemies HP). I really want to play TTYD next but it's really tough to find a copy.

Paper Mario 1 is better than 2. I think people overrate 2 a heck of a lot because it's prettier and Rogueport is tantalizing.

2 has some really brilliant sections though when it breaks from "walk down a line in a direction of a dungeon with cool backgrounds" (Chapters,1, 2, 4, 5), The 3rd and 6th Chapters really switched it up with awesome gameplay stuff.

[Big_Bad_Lith]

I think people are being too hard on this game.

I'm nearing the end of the 3rd world, and I'm having fun. the dialogue is still good, and the music is top-notch. Also the level design is great, which is something the first two didn't really have that often.

also, if you don't use the certain sticker that's super effective against them and does like 80% damage, the bosses are pretty hard. the trick is thinking of the Thing Stickers not as a crutch (except for those certain super-effective ones), but as summons. they take up a lot of room in your album (a lot of SP from your mana pool) but do massive damage with a small cinematic.

and despite the game being stage-based, I'm finding it much more non-linear. For example, world 2 was giving me trouble so I went into world 3 and advanced that a bit. I've been going back and forth, and having just finished off the world 2 boss I'm going to tackle the world 3 boss. Also, a lot of the individual stages have multiple exits, and I think every one has a hidden door you might want to go back and find. and then the stages themselves, like I said, are interesting to navigate through.

now, there's a lot that's gone wrong and I really really don't want paper mario to continue down this road. Everything CCC said about the game's world-building and story is true. and the idea that you spend stickers to beat enemies to get coins to get stickers is a cyclical design idea that kinda doesn't work very well, because it encourages skipping every enemy and saving your stickers for the challenging boss fights. and without the ability to select targets or have a two-member party, the battles themselves don't seem to allow much strategy.

but like I said at the very beginning, I'm still having fun. you might be surprised at the range of attacks you can do, it isn't just normal hammer and normal jump. granted, it's nowhere near the variety that happens when you have dozens of badges and half-a-dozen partners, but it's still engaging. I'm honestly surprised that I'm enjoying it as much as I am, but whatever. It isn't like the other paper marios, but if you can just accept that you'll find a game that's still a 6.5/10.

[Cyber-Robin]

I think once I realised this wasn't meant to be an RPG like the previous ones were I enjoyed it a whole lot. Aint really had the time to play on it and got kinda annoyed when I spent 30 minutes on a level only to run out of stickers and get killed towards the end, thus having to repeat entire level. And I like how they have tried to change up the formula (instead of cookie cut LBP Vita and NSMB2 earlier in the year). That said it kinda felt like it shouldn't have been a paper mario game. I can't see it working if it was a new entry into the Mario franchise either.

On the plus side, we can hope that Nintendo port over 1 and 2 for the 3DS someday.

[Big_Bad_Lith]

@Cyber-Robin:

That said it kinda felt like it shouldn't have been a paper mario game. I can't see it working if it was a new entry into the Mario franchise either.

say, instead of being about paper and stickers and mario, it was about magic and djinn and some arabian dude.

so, there are Djinn (or kami if you want to use a japanese theme) living in all things. you just see a shining rock, and you can call the djinn out of it. You can store these djinn in your lamp, and call them out to do attacks, after which they disperse, their contract over. there are many types of common djinn, so the jump equivalent would just be a fireball imp thing, and the hammer would be a dude with a sword. but in place of the Thing stickers, there are unique, named Djinn that are much more powerful and rare. Sometimes you call them out in the world to solve a puzzle, sometimes you use them in battle for a super attack.

anyway, you go along drawing the djinn out of hiding, and searching for the pieces of the macguffin. your home base is the main town of the area, but there are a few oasis and outposts scattered about. not many NPCs outside of those towns, because it's a dangerous fantasy world. you yourself don't even really get stronger or level up, beause in the end you're just a human. you can create extra space in your lamp (somehow) and upgrade your magical defensive talisman, though. but mainly you just find stronger djinn as the game throws stronger monsters at you. the focus of the game isn't on story, but on just exploring this crazy land and finding all these cool djinn.

there. it's the same gameplay mechanics and overall structure, but with a theme that actually supports it instead of distracts people into thinking about what could have been.

[Noqanky]

But then it wouldn't have sold half as well. That's a problem with the industry … people complain about rehashing of franchises but in the end it's mostly only familiar franchises that people buy.

And it's in that sense I feel this game is truly a shame, because it draws people by merit of being called a Paper Mario game, but then is so far below what makes a Paper Mario game that it is insulting. So maybe it's not an awful game, it's just insulting to people who bought it wanting to play a Paper Mario game. It's like I'd be pissed if I went and got one of the main pokemon games and instead of the detailed rpg elements and catching and growing of cool creatures I was told that I have to grab a variety of tackles and embers from the ground and throw them at people. So that I can get money to get more diverse tackles and embers.

[marketing3]

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