post any random Mario thought on your mind

I feel that fans treat the first three Paper Mario games as this high caliber bar that the other games in the series must be held up to. I also feel it's very unfair to the people who enjoy Sticker Star, Color Splash, and Origami King that the majority of the series' fanbase deems those games as bad and not what THEY wanted.

You wanna know something about the first three Paper Mario games? They barely feature anything paper at all. Yeah, the characters are 2D and Mario can transform into three "paper" forms in TTYD, but that's the extent of what they did (I believe).

Then when Sticker Star came out, now that's a true "Paper Mario" game. Everything feels like it's made with craft materials, it puts you into a world of creativity and new ideas that the series hadn't done yet. Paperization? Stickers? Real world objects turned into battle weapons? That's fun and exciting! Color Splash lets you paint cards for battling and the enviornment around you and builds off what Sticker Star did. Origami King goes even further; it actually involves PAPER! How is that not considered Paper Mario?! It's literally the first word in the title! I don't understand why "fans" are so against something so interesting and new, instead wanting to back to dark plots about worlds ending and nothing paper in sight.

tl;dr: first three paper marios are not paper to me, the other three are much more creative and I don't understand why people don't like that style.
 
Starfy said:
It always felt odd to me that Peach's, Daisy's, Rosalina's, Pauline's, and Toadette's toys have never went into fashion doll territory. I'm sure there are plenty of children in the world who would love a Peach, Daisy, or Rosalina doll with hair that you can brush and style, as well as removable dresses. Wouldn't that be refreshing after so many plastic figurines and plushies of them?
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id imagine they'd be as successful as the disney princess line, though toadette would be a bit harder since she doesn't have hair.

make a peach's castle playset like a doll house. that would be so cool.

MightyMario said:
I feel that fans treat the first three Paper Mario games as this high caliber bar that the other games in the series must be held up to. I also feel it's very unfair to the people who enjoy Sticker Star, Color Splash, and Origami King that the majority of the series' fanbase deems those games as bad and not what THEY wanted.

You wanna know something about the first three Paper Mario games? They barely feature anything paper at all. Yeah, the characters are 2D and Mario can transform into three "paper" forms in TTYD, but that's the extent of what they did (I believe).

Then when Sticker Star came out, now that's a true "Paper Mario" game. Everything feels like it's made with craft materials, it puts you into a world of creativity and new ideas that the series hadn't done yet. Paperization? Stickers? Real world objects turned into battle weapons? That's fun and exciting! Color Splash lets you paint cards for battling and the enviornment around you and builds off what Sticker Star did. Origami King goes even further; it actually involves PAPER! How is that not considered Paper Mario?! It's literally the first word in the title! I don't understand why "fans" are so against something so interesting and new, instead wanting to back to dark plots about worlds ending and nothing paper in sight.

tl;dr: first three paper marios are not paper to me, the other three are much more creative and I don't understand why people don't like that style.
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to be fair, some of sticker star, color splash, and origami king's gameplay isn't really up to par with the first two titles. i'd like to have a more traditional jrpg with partners, though let me also fight scissors and staplers.
 
MightyMario said:
You wanna know something about the first three Paper Mario games? They barely feature anything paper at all. Yeah, the characters are 2D and Mario can transform into three "paper" forms in TTYD, but that's the extent of what they did (I believe).
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Actually the first 2 are full of paper things, it's just that graphics got better.

SPM is the only one that is not paper in anyway, instead going for some kind of digital aesthetic.
 
Mcmadness said:
Actually the first 2 are full of paper things, it's just that graphics got better.
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There's a hint of paper here and there but I think it's worth noting that there was an art director Naohiko Aoyama for the first game, was absent in both Thousand-Year Door (barring a special thanks) and Super Paper Mario, and he returned for Sticker Star and Color Splash as a director and also was involved in Origami King

I'd like to think the guy had a vision for the original Paper Mario and had more creative control on Sticker Star while Thousand-Year Door and Super Paper Mario deviated, and I don't think it's an accident they seem less obviously papery (even though paper references were certainly prevalent, see the curses in Thousand-Year Door).
 
Ray Trace said:
to be fair, some of sticker star, color splash, and origami king's gameplay isn't really up to par with the first two titles. i'd like to have a more traditional jrpg with partners, though let me also fight scissors and staplers.
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How? Those are three completely different battle systems. Why must they be "up to par" with the first two?
 
I haven't played those games but the boss fights in Sticker Star being "you can't win unless you use this one item against the boss" doesn't sound like fun boss design.
 
Ray Trace said:
to be fair, some of sticker star, color splash, and origami king's gameplay isn't really up to par with the first two titles
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sticker star may not have been up to par, but i think there's merit in treating and accepting it as a smaller-scale adventure fit for a handheld like the 3ds. the "pick-up and play" outlook is what dictated the design of other games on that system, like 3d land and luigi's mansion 2, and that worked pretty well for those games imho, so i think sticker star is given a bit too much of a hard time in comparison. (the extremely poorly-designed bosses and the copious amount of backtracking involved in 100% completion notwithstanding)

there certainly was zero need or demand to attempt this sort of philosophy again with colour splash, though
 
Koopa con Carne said:
there certainly was zero need or demand to attempt this sort of philosophy again with colour splash, though
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iirc the rationale at the time was that Mario & Luigi already adhered to the traditional JRPG formula so Paper Mario tried to set itself apart from Mario & Luigi. The studio responsible for Mario & Luigi is dead, though, but Origami King still happened.... I still think Paper Mario is going to continue on that route though, since Origami King smashed sales records in spite of the vocal fanbase and nearly beat out Super Paper Mario.
 
Super Paper Mario is still the best-selling Paper Mario game, but you can attribute its success to being in the right place at the right time:
  1. It was released early on Wii's life, which means that as far as choices for Mario games go, there's not much to pick from.
  2. The game is billed as a platformer, at a time when Mario did not have any other platformer (not even Super Mario Galaxy was released yet). This gave it less competition in that department.
Paper Mario: The Origami King may not have the luck that Super Paper Mario has, so its success is really amazing, since it was released in the middle of the Switch's life, and it already had a lot going against it for the departure of what Paper Mario fans would enjoy about it. Even the fans of older Paper Mario games are recommending Bug Fables because that game represents what they want out of a newer Paper Mario game (one bait Tweet pretends to celebrate Sticker Star but it's actually a post about recommending playing Bug Fables instead).

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Personally, I want Mario to have a Donkey Kong style platformer again. I feel like the Mini focus is due to the similar reason for Mario & Luigi to be the RPG game: since the Super Mario platformers are the main Mario platformer, Mario forgone the DK style to differentiate it. Of course, unlike Paper Mario, the Super Mario series is going strong so there's no chance for Mario go back to his DK roots, but I would love for him to do that again.

Thank you for reading.
 
everything nintendo publishes on switch breaks records saleswise within its series (most salient example i could give is metroid dread). i don't see why origami king would be an exception. but high sales don't always speak for the game's quality, especially on a system with this kind of attach rate.
 
Koopa con Carne said:
everything nintendo publishes on switch breaks records saleswise within its series (most salient example i could give is metroid dread). i don't see why origami king would be an exception. but high sales don't always speak for the game's quality, especially on a system with this kind of attach rate.
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That is pretty much the case for Nintendo Switch, with few exceptions. So far Paper Mario's Switch game did not beat Super Paper Mario even though it's more than a year, but it's not too late for that to happen. Mario Strikers' Switch game hasn't yet beaten Mario Strikers Charged, but it most definitely will by the end of the year. And then there's 2D Mario, where a miracle has to happen for it to beat the first Super Mario Bros., for selling over 50 million.

Of course, I do not know if every series would set sales record on the Switch. For instance, would Dr. Mario's Switch game (if it were released) have the capacity to beat the best-selling Dr. Mario games?

Anyway, I suppose it does go without saying that a game's quality and the amount it sold is not inextricably linked, because for example Mario Golf's best game is cited to be World Tour, a game that did not reach a million sales.

Thank you for reading.
 
So I made a thing. This is Yoshi's horn from Super Circuit, my first Mario game and my first impression of him, when I first fell in love with him.

 
The main theme from Yoshi's New Island isn't that bad, or is the underground remix of it, but the theme in the intro really stinks.
 
Yoshi's New Island soundtrack is like a mixed bag, it has pretty decent songs but it has songs that are quite unlistenable. The underground bonus room and the Goonie level music are terrible because they use obnoxious instruments.
 
Yoshi's New Island certainly gets some flak for its music but the athletic theme, Bandit Valley, and Hotfoot Hustle are my favorites.
 
Remember that Stopwatch character that appeared in some Mario coloring books, greeting cards, and an issue of the Valiant Comics?
1670347728361.jpeg

Well according to this tweet, he was created because someone at Nintendo misinterpreted the Stopwatch item from Mario 2 (where Mario could hold the item above his head for a little, as it disappears soon after it is plucked from the ground.) as an actual character thanks to a blurry screenshot from the game's instruction manual.
https://twitter.com/x/status/1599801900462768128
 
Hint: It starts with an M
 
Ray Trace said:
Is that section really necessary to begin with

Like Mario Kart Double Dash doesn't have similarities to Mario Kart 64. Or Mario party 9 having similarities to prior Mario Party games.
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i see some usefulness in a centralised list of comparisons between games in the same series, kind of like how articles for reissues present differences from their original releases. for instance, it can help someone make an estimate on whether they'll like a game based on its semblance to an instalment they played prior to that; i.e. it's helpful if it informs even one person. it's also simply "good form", so to speak, for an encyclopedia to be comprehensive, and that includes, where possible, having an objective analysis between two subjects one may reasonably expect to be similar and/or be on some sort of continuum, like a game series.

obviously, the degree of said usefulness depends on the quality of those comparisons. i've seen MarioWiki(tm) crap the likes of "[character] makes a cameo in this game, just like they did in previous game!" on those pages, which bogs utility down.

(furthermore--and this isn't really an argument, moreso an observation, for perspective--for what it's worth, the Sticker Star page has a list of similarities and differences, and it's currently featured.)

the reason i'm putting those two fine folks on blast is because they were pretty much seeking outrage out of their posts, failing to realise that every paper mario article on the wiki sans the one for the original has a list of comparisons to prior instalments, simultaneously indicting the wiki for having a bias that only exists in their mind.
 
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