Genre : Action
Developer: Intelligent Systems
Publisher: Nintendo
Players: 1
Retail Price: $50
Availability: Wii
To begin off-topic, I’m currently listening to the Digital Ensemble podcast that was just posted on Extra Guy… which means I’m not really going to start this review until I stop laughing my ass off.
Now, since I started with that bit, I’ll have to transition with a weak segue about how funny Super Paper Mario is. But this isn’t a segue for segue’s sake (I’m lying, but I like how that sounded so I wrote it) – this game has some of the wittiest, most hilarious dialogue I’ve seen come down the localization pipe. It’s a big reason why I think Super Paper Mario is such an enjoyable game. You don’t often hear people giving props to the localization teams, the folks who take games originally developed in other languages and transform them into something their own citizens will find intelligible, humorous, and appropriately cultured; that’s why it’s appropriate to shoot them some praise more than every once in a while to let them know they’re doing a good job. The localization team for Super Paper Mario did far better than merely a good job, though – they produced a hands-down bang-up piece of work. No doubt, this is one of those unusual instances you’ll see a team so deftly utilize the words at their disposal in such a playfully brilliant way. The only thing that’s disappointing about the script, really, is that there’s so much less talking near the end of the game.
Of course, there are other disappointments in the game, probably the biggest among them being the fact that the game loses its magic toward its conclusion, eschewing quirky, free-spirited gameplay for tedious, mind-numbing level design and sprawling levels that feel more like filler than features of full-bodied ingenuity. You’ll more than occasionally have to deal with obtuse puzzles expecting you to gather disjointed evidence for unsatisfying solutions, and you might sometimes find yourself completely at a loss for a logical proceeding for the situation at hand. But the great thing about this game’s shortcomings is how effectively they highlight the game’s strengths, and, strong segue or not, I can’t wait to talk about what makes this game shine.
Yes, the end of the game is a bit lacking in the department of magic, but it’d be hard for us to be disappointed about that if the game didn’t have any magic in the first place. Throughout most of the game said magic is unmistakably present, bringing along a flurry of imagination as well as that feel-good vibe that we’d expect from a Mario title. There’s an interesting game dynamic at play as well: This game is reminiscent of the classic 2D Mario titles, but the ”paper” part of the Super Paper Mario equation comes more prominently into play when you’re able to flip into a 3D version of any environment in which you’re romping around. It’s a cool mechanic that’s used in clever ways, giving you the ability to reveal things you couldn’t see while traipsing around in the flatter dimension. Maybe you’ll come to a chasm that would be impossible to pass by jumping across it. Game over, it seems, until you flip to 3D and see a narrow strip of land across a hill that’ll let you pass (take that, Gandalf). Or maybe there are giant spiky things rolling at you down a mountain – we all know how scary giant spiky things are – and right when one of them is about to crush your body you flip to 3D like a pro, keeping yourself handsomely shapely. And let’s forget about hypotheticals here: You will use your flipping ability for the ingenious puzzles you’ll be delighted to solve. Intriguing at some points and indispensible at many others, for the most part the 3D mechanic is integrated seamlessly into the gameplay. And that’s a really good 
thing considering the fact that it’s such a huge part of the experience.
“But what is the ‘experience’?” the curious reader asked, interrupting the suave, good-looking writer’s discussion of Super Paper Mario’s strengths.
I guess I haven’t really touched on that yet, have I? (Yeah, because of my backwards way of going about writing this review, no doubt.) Well, at first glance, Super Paper Mario is a platformer à la the classic Mario titles. It happens to make an enjoyable experience out of that alone, bringing you back to the days of bopping on the heads of baddies, hitting ? blocks for tasty surprises, and trying not to fail while jumping over and around tricksy obstacles (what, is this guy whoring Lord of the Rings vids or something?). But the game is also an RPG of sorts, allowing you to walk around towns and interact with the townspeople, buy items at the shop, or nonchalantly nap in an inn. It’s got a story – a fairly predictable one, true, but a story nevertheless. It lets you do lots of exploring – although that does also come with the reality of backtracking, aimless wandering in sprawling levels, and the possibility that you’ll wish some levels were more linear, if only for the sake of clarity.
One other thing that characterizes Super Paper Mario, though, is its readiness to employ a lot of do-whatever-the-hell-it-wants. Do-whatever-the-hell-it-wants means a lot of things, of course. It might mean that you’ll be doing your usual platforming when suddenly the soul of the level will change – you’ll go from hoppin’ and boppin’ to getting a dirty look from a puzzle that you will shortly proceed to punish. You might be going about your regular business when the game will throw you into one of the many rollicking boss battles that are fairly easy but always intriguing. Or maybe you’ll be running gung-ho into an anticipated mob of enemies when you’ll suddenly 
realize that you have to be smart 
and reveal the onward path using one of your Pixl buddies, little digitized floating companions that each help you in different ways, giving you portable bombs, allowing you to miniaturize yourself, letting you travel faster along the ground, and more. The best thing about do-whatever-the-hell-it-wants, however, is that we get some extremely fun moments when we least expect them. A factory in which you have to work under sweatshop conditions to pay off a massive debt. A sequence whereby a blithering nerd has a romantic chat with Princess Peach, aided by his trusty computer program. A truly random game show that’s supposed to help you discern which lady is the real deal. Not many games are ballsy enough to do whatever the hell they want, but Super Paper Mario is. The result is a collection of several truly memorable sequences that’ll make you wish such brilliance came standard in every game, Mario or otherwise.
It really is too bad, then, that the do-whatever-the-hell-it-wants attitude sometimes devolves into a forget-it-I’m-lazy outlook on life, churning out more than a few stinker levels. We can only imagine how amazing this game would have been if all of the fetch quests and mindless exploring were replaced by levels exuding the radiating creativity of the game’s best moments. Super Paper Mario is a great 20-hour game, for sure, but it could have been an amazing 20-hour game. It definitely had the potential.
Of course, it’s way too easy to bag on a Mario game if it isn’t amazing. No, Super Paper Mario isn’t amazing, but let’s not be total grouches: This is a damn good game with some colorfully smooth visuals and catchy tunes – I had to fit in the production values blurb somewhere along the line, right? – and it’s a solid platformer that’s got some devilishly clever puzzles and some of the best do-whatever-the-hell-it-wants moments we’ll see in a long while.
And what’s more, Super Paper Mario is a pretty good segue to the next game in the Paper Mario series. I like the sound of that.
