Four hours in, and Super Paper Mario is shaping up quite nicely. Combining straight-up platforming action with the witty, daring dialogue of the Paper Mario RPGs was a great idea -- I'm surprised they didn't think of this sooner.
Not to mention the fact that the game's central mechanic -- switching back and forth between 2D and 3D to find hidden paths and solve puzzles -- works really well. The designers have gleefully taken the opportunity to hide secrets all over the place for the careful explorer. What a unique way of blending more easy-to-understand 2D platforming with all the hidden rewards for exploration offered in a 3D Mario game.
Top Five (Spoilery) Things You Didn't Know About Super Paper Mario, after the jump.
- The score? That's your Experience stat. You get the usual 100 points for stomping on Goombas or kicking Koopa shells. But as those add up, you gain levels. And it happens often enough -- and fighting enemies is so fast-paced and fun enough -- that seeing lots of bad guys is a joy, not a chore. You'll want to hunt down every single evil little bastard you can and stomp its face in. Not only that, you soon find out that much like in the original game you can rack up points by bouncing a Koopa shell against a wall again and again. You can get about 1000 extra points before the shell breaks, and considering that level-ups are only 30,000 points apart in the early going, it's worth it to just sit there and bounce a shell around a while. If you shake the Wiimote while you're in the air, you'll get a few bonus points as you perform acrobatic moves mid-jump.
- There's a hidden arcade in town. Once you clear the second world, a lot of the hub village opens up to you if you're willing to go find it. There's a Pit Of 100 Trials, much like the long, perilous multi-floor bonus dungeons in Paper Mario and Twilight Princess. There's a store that will sell you special cards that you can use to trap an enemy's soul. And hidden in there is an arcade in which you can play three mini-games for prizes. The best is Tilt Island. Imagine the boss fights from Super Mario World, except tilting the controller makes the island tilt back and forth with Mario on it. Now imagine enemies and food dropping from above, and you have to tilt Mario so he picks up the good stuff while avoiding the bad. I sunk a lot of time into this, plus a game where you use the pointer to shoot ghosts and one where you flip over cards and try to make pairs.
- Nintendo's writers have outdone themselves. It's still funny to watch Nintendo characters from the 80's be completely dysfunctional. Whether it's the constant Luigi-bashing (enemy characters shudder in fear when Mario's around, but they mock Luigi behind his back) or under-the-radar allusions to past Nintendo games (find the Punch-Out reference!), Super Paper Mario's script isn't just filler, it's there to be savored.
- Once again, the Wiimote is "tacked on" to a GameCube game -- and once again, it's a huge improvement. Super Paper Mario was 100% done and ready for release on GameCube in August, then moved to Wii. Holding the Wiimote sideways as if it were an old-school game controller adds to the retro feel. But even better is the ability to simply point it at the screen, which pauses the action and lets you "click" on anything you can see to get a text description of it -- or reveal hidden items and locations. I'd love to see a game built from the ground up with this in mind; for now, SPM feels like it was always a Wii game.
- I can't stand writing this anymore. I've got to go back.
