Paper Mario: Color Splash

The bone card probably trivializes the fight, but I got the impression that any decent-damaging card would do the trick. That doesn't necessarily make it better, but it's something.
 
I assumed that it wasn't required, but it was an easy way to take out multiple enemies, like a POW sticker would in the last game.

PE: And what Time Turned said.
 
yeah i guess it could just be a "use a powerful card" deal, but i'm skeptical mainly because the bone summons a chain chomp, which iggy is associated with a lot
could just be a coincidence that they decided to use that one card, but it's something i could see nintendo doing
 
They make it pretty obvious that you absolutely need the Bone... It seems to be the only way to get rid of the chariots. It attacking in a line and showing a Chomp (associating it with Iggy) only further confirms this. And it barely does any damage to Iggy, so it's only there to get past that one part really.
 
I swear if that's the case then the developers have retained in the one the main things that was wrong with Sticker Star, something I was hoping they could of at least get rid of.
 
4:33

The Yellow Squad Toads give Mario the bone item a few minutes before the Iggy battle starts.
 
The developers actually said that the mandatory items now cannot be missed, if you saw the commented gameplay, you surely heard that the whole idea behind Color Splash is "puzzle game": even the battles the battles are conceived as puzzles in which you have to understand the right item to win and when to use it. An obvious punch in the face for the fans of the first two Paper Mario games, but this game is blatantly not catered to them.

By the way, is Iggy the first paper character with irises?
 
Trial and error is not a "puzzle".

Rookie puzzle creators make this mistake, I expect IS to know better.
 
Baby Luigi said:
Trial and error is not a "puzzle".

Rookie puzzle creators make this mistake, I expect IS to know better.
The Sticker Star team is a development team made mainly of people not working on previous Paper Mario games, though.

In fact, I was surprised by this: once AlphaDream was formed, the new series they created was not called Super Mario RPG anymore, despite being made by the directors, composer and one of the producers of Super Mario RPG. Here, a new team was formed and they clearly introduced a totally different gameplay and design choices (e.g. gamepaly based on puzzles in all aspects, including battles, attacks based on consumables, real life things being a new trope of the series, only introducing a handful of original characters, possibly only one, using mainly Toads as NPCs, etc.). But the name remained the same, no new name was introduced to show that this was indeed a different subseries reusing the assets of Paper Mario.
 
Regardless they should the basic rule of creating a puzzle game: that pure trial and error is not a puzzle.

Trial and error is to be expected in puzzles, definitely, but thing cards are ONLY trial and error. Hell, most good RPG battle systems are using strategies you learned from trial and error to plan out your attacks to eventually gain the upper advantage.

Here, it's just "spam your powerful attacks, see which Thing card does the most damage, and watch enemies crumple up."
 
Baby Luigi said:
Regardless they should the basic rule of creating a puzzle game: that pure trial and error is not a puzzle.

Trial and error is to be expected in puzzles, definitely, but thing cards are ONLY trial and error. Hell, most good RPG battle systems are using strategies you learned from trial and error to plan out your attacks to eventually gain the upper advantage.

Here, it's just "spam your powerful attacks, see which Thing card does the most damage, and watch enemies crumple up."
I really don't know what to say either.

I still think this is a team of very young people that are being trained at the expense of the players who are used as guinea pigs.
But even experimentation should use common sense, so that the clues to win the battles are to be found before the battles themselves. Take Hooktail for example: you could find her weakness and the badge to exploit it in her castle, before the battle with her (by the way, is Hooktail female also in the English version? In the Japanese and Italian version she's a female dragon). This is also how typical point and click adventures are made: explore the surrounding and talk to people to find the clues so that you understand what to do where before you are going to do it most of the times.

In general, some design decisions are very hard to understand, and I wonder if they are just put there so that the developers become flexible with incredibly limited constraints and with very odd and unintuitive game design.

This being said, it has to be seen if even here the only clue will be "I found this Thing a few minutes ago, let's use it because the battle is stalled and because why not".
 
The thing is that in Sticker Star has blockades that if player missed the thing sticker then the player could be potentially be forced to backtrack the entire game just to find what they need. The puzzle involved in doing it is figuring what thing is needed to progress and is hinted by the the form blockade takes (ie skittles needs bowling ball to clear). However most of the puzzle is just finding that sticker so you can place it down and progress. Is having to backtrack the entire game for one object good puzzle design, no. It's basically the game punishing you for not looking hard enough.
 
In this game, it looks like something confirms what I think : Each Koopalings will keep the Big Paint Star matching the color of their magic wand.
- Morton (Red Magic Scepter) – Big Red Paint Star
- Iggy (Yellow Magic Scepter) – Big Yellow Paint Star

This would mean (it remains to be confirmed) :
- Larry (Orange Magic Scepter) – Big Orange Paint Star
- Lemmy (Green Magic Scepter) – Big Green Paint Star
- Ludwig (Blue Magic Scepter) – Big Blue Paint Star
- Wendy (Purple Magic Scepter) – Big Purple Paint Star

While in the main plaza of the game, where Mario find Huey, there are 6 pedestals. If we must find every Big Paint Stars in the rainbow order (red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple), that means that the Koopalings fighting order could be like this : Morton, Larry, Iggy, Lemmy, Ludwig and Wendy.

This leaves me a question: Where is Roy?
 
It could be like Hotel Mario, where each Koopaling has their own hotel, except for Iggy who you fight in Bowser's hotel.
 
I see, though the Yoshi in Thousand-Year Door has legs, so it can't be that.
 
LudwigVon said:
In this game, it looks like something confirms what I think : Each Koopalings will keep the Big Paint Star matching the color of their magic wand.
- Morton (Red Magic Scepter) – Big Red Paint Star
- Iggy (Yellow Magic Scepter) – Big Yellow Paint Star

This would mean (it remains to be confirmed) :
- Larry (Orange Magic Scepter) – Big Orange Paint Star
- Lemmy (Green Magic Scepter) – Big Green Paint Star
- Ludwig (Blue Magic Scepter) – Big Blue Paint Star
- Wendy (Purple Magic Scepter) – Big Purple Paint Star

While in the main plaza of the game, where Mario find Huey, there are 6 pedestals. If we must find every Big Paint Stars in the rainbow order (red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple), that means that the Koopalings fighting order could be like this : Morton, Larry, Iggy, Lemmy, Ludwig and Wendy.

This leaves me a question: Where is Roy?

Probably a SMW situation in which the final Koopaling is fought in the same world as the final boss.

Although I don't see why they wouldn't have 8 chapters instead of 7...
 
Koopalmier said:
LudwigVon said:
In this game, it looks like something confirms what I think : Each Koopalings will keep the Big Paint Star matching the color of their magic wand.
- Morton (Red Magic Scepter) – Big Red Paint Star
- Iggy (Yellow Magic Scepter) – Big Yellow Paint Star

This would mean (it remains to be confirmed) :
- Larry (Orange Magic Scepter) – Big Orange Paint Star
- Lemmy (Green Magic Scepter) – Big Green Paint Star
- Ludwig (Blue Magic Scepter) – Big Blue Paint Star
- Wendy (Purple Magic Scepter) – Big Purple Paint Star

While in the main plaza of the game, where Mario find Huey, there are 6 pedestals. If we must find every Big Paint Stars in the rainbow order (red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple), that means that the Koopalings fighting order could be like this : Morton, Larry, Iggy, Lemmy, Ludwig and Wendy.

This leaves me a question: Where is Roy?

Probably a SMW situation in which the final Koopaling is fought in the same world as the final boss.

Although I don't see why they wouldn't have 8 chapters instead of 7...
Paper_Mario-_Color_Splash_-_Screenshot_6.PNG


Port Prisma has 6 slots, corresponding to the colors of the wands of the Koopalings. Looking at the damage dealt, Morton (red wand) might be the 1st (8hp per attack) and Iggy (yellow wand) the 3rd (16 hp per attack), so this is where LudwigVon's reasoning comes from, and I definitely agree with him.
 
Mister Wu said:
Koopalmier said:
LudwigVon said:
In this game, it looks like something confirms what I think : Each Koopalings will keep the Big Paint Star matching the color of their magic wand.
- Morton (Red Magic Scepter) – Big Red Paint Star
- Iggy (Yellow Magic Scepter) – Big Yellow Paint Star

This would mean (it remains to be confirmed) :
- Larry (Orange Magic Scepter) – Big Orange Paint Star
- Lemmy (Green Magic Scepter) – Big Green Paint Star
- Ludwig (Blue Magic Scepter) – Big Blue Paint Star
- Wendy (Purple Magic Scepter) – Big Purple Paint Star

While in the main plaza of the game, where Mario find Huey, there are 6 pedestals. If we must find every Big Paint Stars in the rainbow order (red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple), that means that the Koopalings fighting order could be like this : Morton, Larry, Iggy, Lemmy, Ludwig and Wendy.

This leaves me a question: Where is Roy?

Probably a SMW situation in which the final Koopaling is fought in the same world as the final boss.

Although I don't see why they wouldn't have 8 chapters instead of 7...
Paper_Mario-_Color_Splash_-_Screenshot_6.PNG


Port Prisma has 6 slots, corresponding to the colors of the wands of the Koopalings. Looking at the damage dealt, Morton (red wand) might be the 1st (8hp per attack) and Iggy (yellow wand) the 3rd (16 hp per attack), so this is where LudwigVon's reasoning comes from, and I definitely agree with him.

I know, and we can assume there are 7 chapters, I just wonder why they wouldn't have 8 chapters instead - 7 Koopaling bosses + the final boss. Having 7 chapters even though they have 8 chapter bosses waiting to be used feels like they couldn't find ideas for one more chapter or something.
 
Because HD sequels have a tendency to be shorter than their SD counterparts due to the bigger expense brought on by the improved visuals.
 
since roy's wand is black it would make sense if he was in some sort of dark world with bowser
 
Mcmadness said:
Because HD sequels have a tendency to be shorter than their SD counterparts due to the bigger expense brought on by the improved visuals.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks that! Tabata already said that the main quest is going to be around 30 hours long, so they are not aiming at a particular lengthy game. Still, 7 chapters would be a chapter more than Sticker Star's 6 worlds.
 
Well it was something I had noticed years ago during the early days of HD games.
 
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