Difficulty:

Easy

Time Spent:

10 to 20 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Overrated"

Hey, everyone, I'm here to review Super Paper Mario.

Graphics: The charming paper graphics from the previous installments make a triumphant return and look better than ever. The only problem I have with them is the art design. Everything looks weird and blocky. But, aside from that, this is still a great looking game that makes excellent use of the Wii hardware. 8/ 10

Sound: Many of the familiar sounds from the previous Mario games make a return. There are also many new ones, but they are somewhat dull. Also, the music is forgettable. 7/ 10

Story: Let me get this out there. This story is a repainting of Stephen King's Dark Tower series. Yeah, many of the details were changed, but the overall story arc remains the same. It involves a mysterious figure in a dark tower trying to destroy all of the connected worlds. And if that weren't enough, there a 4 destined heroes who need to stop him. If you're familiar with the series, then you'll be able to predict a ton of it, even though it does end on a happier note than the series did. With that being said, the writing is fantastic and is laugh out loud at many moments. There is even a 4th wall breaking stage that is borderline writing brilliance. The characters are all interesting, and usually have some tragedy injected into their backstories, which makes this a much more interesting cast. So, plagirism aside, the story is still entertaining enough to see it through to the end. 7/ 10

Gameplay: This is probably the weakest part of the game, which isn't good. There is a hub world from which you can access the many levels of the game. After the first world, you must find a Star Pillar to place the newly found Pure Heart into. This isn't to big of a deal, until the flipped version of the hub opens and it just becomes a pain to find the pillars.
As far as the levels go, they involve alot of running around. Almost every level has some sort of fetch quest for you to do and it's very time consuming. As far as the new combat system goes, it's like old school Mario meets the Paper series. You jump on guys, but it usually takes more than one hit to take an enemy down. And you level up. And every stage you'll get a partner that's supposed to aid you in combat, even though only a few are actually useful. Needless to say, the battle system is far less satisfying than the RPG's. And the platforming feels very loose and it gets fairly difficult near the end of the game to make the precise jumps you need.
The puzzles are all the game has left going for it, but, unfortunatley, they are usually fairly easy or tedious.
So, what does that leave us with? The game has it's moments, but it ultimatley becomes very repetitive and many of the tasks needed for you to complete the game are just dull 6/ 10

And that's what I thought of Super Paper Mario. It's overrated and dull. However, there's a ton of clever writing that does help ease the pain that this game brings.
Thanks for reading.