Paper Mario is a difficult thing to talk about

Nintendo has been making paper Mario games for over two decades now the first Paper Mario was released in the year 2000 on the Nintendo 64 system and every console since has gotten a new one the series brought the Mario Universe into the RPG genre and has gained itself a huge fan base this video is going to be a retrospective of the entire series an overview of each game but most importantly as a deep analysis into why the fan base is so divided over the Paper Mario games what has this series done to make people have such split opinions people aren't this divided over the Mario Kart games so why is Paper Mario this way what has this series done to cause people to be so divided and what could it have done to prevent that what changes could they make to improve the way they've handled Paper Mario for a while I thought the argument was really only two-sided one side of people who think the story is the most important thing that the World building and characters were Superior in the older games and that the series has been ruined by Nintendo trying to make the games more of an action adventure while the other side of people believe that the gameplay matters the most and that the newer games are actually really fun and they wish Nintendo would just remove the RPG elements altogether if they're not going to flush them out and give them purpose and the only reason people dislike the new games is because they're not the Thousand Year Door both arguments have a point Nintendo needs to stop treading the water and choose between a full RPG or an action adventure game personally I wish we could get both kinds of Paper Mario one based very heavily on story and worn an action adventure and if you're like me that's where you thought the argument begins and ends that it's a fight between Old Paper Mario and new Paper Mario but there is a problem with this argument it really only describes the differences between the Thousand Year Door and the origami King those games are the most often compared I thought that was fair enough both games are the best to come out of their perspective era at least in my opinion however comparing just two games out of the franchise with six is not going to determine why fans are this divided for starters where does the line between old and new Paper Mario begin is it sticker star is a Super Paper Mario is it origami King but what really made me start looking into this were the comments on my most recent video I made a video where I explained why fans including myself were going so crazy over the reveal that the Thousand Year Door was getting a remake slash remaster I did a quick history of the series up to that game's reveal in that video I talked a little bit about the opinions of the fan base I didn't go into too much detail because that wasn't the topic of the video however the comments were full of people sharing their opinions on the series and I was surprised to see how varied they all were they weren't as one-sided as I first thought I saw people defending Super Paper Mario Color Splash even sticker Star as the best Paper Mario game after seeing how many different opinions there were I thought it would be interesting to really take a closer look at them so I asked for more opinions in a community post and a short and after going through all of them and going back through the comments in my previous video I've come to a conclusion a very interesting conclusion I sound like Kermit the Frog huh [Music] but for real I actually did notice something very interesting I think your opinions on Paper Mario depend on what game you played first and in what order you play the rest if any not what game is necessarily the best so instead of just comparing the games I want to look at how the opinions of new and old fans would have changed after each entry starting with Paper Mario 64. this game has kind of a spin-off kind of sequel to Mario RPG so this wasn't the first time Mario had received a story heavy game however I think it definitely is the starting place to pay for Mario I did not start with Paper Mario 64. so I don't know what it was like to play this game when it first released but I tried to summarize the experience for the responses of those who have so if I get some details wrong let me know and for the sake of clarity I'm going to be referring to it as Paper Mario 64 instead of just paper Mario if you were one of the people that played Paper Mario 64 when it first released you more than likely rented it from Blockbuster or borrowed it from a friend who already owned it but you enjoyed the game so much that you wanted to get it for yourself the game was really an evolution to the Mario series it made the Mushroom Kingdom feel so alive it gave personality to enemies that had been lifeless up to this point like Goombas and Koopas and gave them a purpose in this world other than just being Bowser's Minions it also established a few principal things that every game since would follow the game would be divided into eight chapters each with its own unique world and in each of those chapters would be wacky and unique NPC that Mario can interact and talk with another thing that it started that I feel like doesn't get talked about nearly enough is giving Mario a hammer when you really think about it it is a weird thing whose idea was to give Mario a character who's based upon jumping a hammer as a weapon but whoever was knew what they were doing because I feel like it has worked fantastic for the games it widened Mario's moveset and made it feel more unique to Paper Mario and just as a side note out of everything I see people arguing about with Paper Mario I never see anybody mention the hammer this entry also established possibly the most controversial thing about Paper Mario the papery art style I'm going to go more in depth on it later so we'll leave it there for right now this game also established the turn-based battle system that most Paper Mario games would have and finally it gave Mario Partners we're going to touch on those last two elements a bit more as we go through this but it is worth noting that they weren't original to Paper Mario Mario RPG already had a turn-based battle system and partners so it's extremely likely that's where the idea for it came from [Music] the next game in the series was Paper Mario the Thousand Year Door you might recognize that name this game does everything the first game does but it improves on several things it added a lot to the badge and battle system it deepens some mechanics but most importantly it did one thing in particular it made Bowser not a bad guy instead this story's antagonist are the ex-dots I don't want to spoil any things I'm not going to go into too much detail but it is really cool having Bowser not be the villain for once and actually have him as a playable character overall fans of the original Paper Mario and newcomers saw the Thousand Year Door as a great game we are now on to Super Paper Mario this game is viewed very differently whether or not you were a fan from the first two or a newcomer to the series this game kept a lot of the formula from the first two games it had eight chapters it had a partner system it had badges it had cooking it had a villain who wasn't Bowser had a playable Bowser a playable Peach it even added Luigi to the roster but this game did make some major changes from the first two for starters its gameplay is much more of a platformer than an RPG each chapter is much more linear than the previous games but the biggest and most important detail is its 2D this game was based upon the idea that you could change between a 2d perspective and a 3D perspective however you spend so little time in the 3D perspective that it's basically just a 2d game the idea for this actually came from the Thousand-Year dwarf in that game it's a small moment where you place Bowser in a 2d level and they took that idea and expanded upon it and turned it into Super Paper Mario the game was originally planned for the GameCube and if it had been released on it there's a chance fans would have seen the game as a spin-off other than the next title another thing this game did was it removed the turn-based combat this game's combat is just like a traditional 2D Mario especially since they removed the one thing that made paper Mario's combat unique the hammer but that wasn't the only thing that they removed well kind of they did have a partner system in this game but it is very different from the way it was in the Thousand Year Door instead of finding Koopas and Goombas that join your party this game's partners are all pixels very uniquely designed little Sprites that follow you around they also Grant you a unique ability one of them is even a substitute for the hammer this game's art style is also very unique it looks very Mosaic like to me everything looks like it's been made out of geometric shapes but with all of those changes this game still managed to have one of the best stories Paper Mario has to offer so as an older fan of the series you probably saw Super Paper Mario as a very experimental game you didn't hate the game but you would have enjoyed it much more if they had made it more like The Originals you thought the story was very good though but you were still hoping that the next game would be more like the Thousand Year Door as a newcomer to the series you probably saw Super Paper Mario as a very fun game but it was more of a platformer to you than an RPG this game is very fun and very different from normal Paper Mario which has led me to the conclusion that it should have been its own spin-off series I would love to see where the series could have been taken if it was allowed to become its own thing the next game in the series is sticker star this game is the most controversial out of the bunch and is often considered the start of modern Paper Mario this game is much more similar to the first two than it is Super Paper Mario but it is still very different I cannot go into too much detail on this game because I have not played it myself but I do have some information for people who've played it firsthand the game removed a lot of the story elements the first two had Bowser is a silent antagonist and you only have one partner in this game there are no unique worlds of this game and every character comes from the Mushroom Kingdom the game is also the first one to have a story based around the paper theme in the previous games the paper theme had very little to do with the story but sticker star used that to its advantage in the sticker mechanic and we will continue to talk about how the paper theme affected the story in Color Splash and the origami King whether you were a fan coming from the Thousand Year Door or Super Paper Mario you saw sticker Star as a pretty poor sequel to the series you disliked how little story there was the sticker mechanic and how the world was populated by a bunch of generic toads I don't have a ton of responses from people who played this game first but the few that I do say that they love the game and that it was the best of all paper Marios I'm not sure if that's based upon Nostalgia or opinions but there's no denying it there are people that love sticker star so we've reached a crucial point in the timeline of Paper Mario fans of the original were so disappointed by sticker star that they gave up hope that the series would ever return to the style of the Thousand-Year Door but fans who started with sticker star would continue to want more Paper Mario and would be surprised at how different every other game was the next game in the series was Color Splash and although it wasn't the most hated out of all the games it is definitely the most unfortunate most people boycotted this game because it was so similar to sticker star and people who did try this game found out that it was actually a good time it is definitely more like sticker star than the Thousand Year Door but it improved upon that formula so much the world is very interactive there's tons of things to find and do and although the world is still populated by generic toads they all still have very fun personalities this game was also similar to sticker star in the fact that you only had one partner however it does appear that Huey is a fan favorite Bowser is the villain in this one as well it disappointed some fans that it wasn't a unique villain however they did put a Twist on it this game has a turn-based battle system but it's very different from the others this game uses cards to determine your moves I'm not going to explain much more about it because it's not really important to this discussion however just remember that it is very different from the previous games and like I mentioned before one of the problems people have with modern Paper Mario is the fact that their stories are often based upon that paperwork Color Splash uses the paper theme to its advantage and having you repaint the landscape which is a unique idea it's really fun to come into an area with a bunch of blank spots and slowly fill it up bringing the world to life however it was still criticized for how heavily it focuses on it so as a fan of older Paper Mario you probably didn't play Color Splash you just saw it as a slightly better looking version of sticker star which meant you wanted nothing to do with it as a fan of Super Paper Mario you were more likely to have tried Color Splash however it still fell flat in your eyes compared to your first game especially the story the people who did play Color Splash were more likely fans of sticker star or brand new fans to the series sticker star fans probably saw Color Splash as a good sequel that improved upon the sticker star formula as a new fan of the series you probably saw Color Splash as the game it is a really good time and although there's nothing super special about it it's a decent game and if you enjoyed Color Splash enough to go back and play some of the older games you probably enjoyed them quite a bit however your favorites with a Thousand Year Door or sticker star for being the most similar to color splash and so we finally reached the game that I've been waiting for Paper Mario the origami King this was my first Paper Mario game so I could finally share my first hand experience I went into a completely blind and had no idea what to expect or what a paper Mario game even was I thought it would be like Yoshi's crafted world I couldn't have been more wrong this game blew me away I had never played a Mario game with such an incredible story amazing characters amazing world and level design and just overall everything after completing it I immediately wanted more Paper Mario I did some research and found out the same as everyone that people said the best game was a game that I couldn't play because I didn't own a GameCube so I did the next best thing and got Super Paper Mario I enjoyed it a lot but I did miss the way the origami King handled its story and some parts of Super Paper Mario are impossible without a guide and that's never fun I do appreciate the game for what it is and being experimental and I wish it had become its own franchise when I finally got an emulator to play the Thousand Year Door I couldn't believe that was a Nintendo game it was everything I loved about the origami King but without as much platforming and a different turn-based battle system there are some things I disliked about the Thousand Year Door backtracking can be extremely tedious and the battle system does get a little repetitive but just the same I dislike the way the origami King handled its battle system after a certain point in the game I'm ready to just skip all minor encounters and I go out of my way to avoid them but here I am comparing the Thousand Year Door to the origami King the thing I said we shouldn't do so let's get to what older fans thought of the origami King as a fan of the Thousand Year Door coming away from sticker star and color splash meant that you did not want to play the origami King however when you saw other people saying that it was the return to Paper Mario you decided to give it a try from this point two things could happen either you saw it as a decent game but it would never compare to the ones you played when you were younger or you thought the game was a pitiful attempt at trying to appease new and old fans and the restrictions put over characters in World building meant the game could never live up to its full potential as a fan of Super Paper Mario the origami King was the best of the modern paper Mario's you had played but it still wasn't quite what you wanted as a fan of sticker star or color splash you probably loved the origami King for expanding upon those games formulas Paper Mario the origami King is the closest to games have been to the Thousand Year Door yet the game had multiple partners Bowser wasn't the villain and the game wasn't divided into a level layout this game also has a turn-based battle system but it's quite different from the Thousand Year Door it is much more puzzle based the last thing I'll mention is the game did theme its story around paper like I mentioned before in the older games the paper theme had nothing to do with the story it was just for looks but in the newer games the story often relates to something with paper whether it be origami or color or stickers the argument for that is the games are called Paper Mario but then again we do have a game called Luigi's Mansion 3 that takes place in a hotel my opinion on that is really split I don't know whether I prefer a story based around paper or if I wish it had nothing to do with the story personally I don't think it matters that much but that's just my opinion one of my biggest takeaways from all of this comes from one of the comments if Nintendo hadn't experimented with Paper Mario starting with Super Paper Mario and going to the origami King how long would it have taken before it started to get Bland receiving the same type of game over and over again with just a slightly altered story and different Side characters I think it's important for them to try something new imagine if they hadn't done that with the Zelda series we would never have gotten breath of the wild with tears of the Kingdom those games are very different from the traditional Zelda game but are still amazing however I don't think Nintendo has experimented with Paper Mario in the right way over time they've simply made the games more safe I do think a game like Super Paper Mario might have taken the wacky characters and Designs a little too far while modern Paper Mario has stayed a little too close to traditional Mario like it was said in this comment imagine seeing what they could do with the luma-based partner a shy guy partner or any partner based on the Odyssey characters so many possibilities with personality and moveset the Mario World is huge however since Nintendo went in a different direction for the series it felt like it never had a chance to truly shine my opinion on that is that Nintendo is still experimenting with the franchise they may not be doing anything as crazy as Super Paper Mario anymore but there is a big difference from sticker star to Color Splash to the origami game and there will be a big difference between the origami King and whatever game comes next like I've said in the past Nintendo is very unpredictable you never know what they might do next and then there are things that at least in my opinion I feel haven't changed and have even gotten better over the years I love music especially video game soundtracks and Paper Mario games have some of the best music of all time very few other games have soundtracks that can rival Paper Mario go and listen to the Thousand Year Door Battle Theme the ultimate show from Super Paper Mario or any of the music from the auto Mountain area in the origami King especially Shogun Studios you will not be disappointed it is fantastic I've talked a good bit about how the paper theme has affected the story but let's actually talk about how the games look there is an argument as always that the game shouldn't look this heavily crafted after paper or cardboard but I think that was the plan all along as nice as Paper Mario 64 looks it was a 64 game so they did make some sacrifices to make it run smooth but you can still see the paper elements in its design the Thousand Year Door definitely has a higher resolution but I feel like it lost a lot of the papery charm the first game had that chair does not look papery to me and those pigs really look like a 3D model Super Paper Mario as it always is is by far the most unique looking one it has a very Mosaic feel to it sticker star was the first game that wanted to make the game look crafted and had the graphical capabilities to do so Color Splash improved upon even more and the origami King improved it to another level this next statement is going to be my most controversial yet but I think people dislike the crafter World design because they associate it with the newer games however I think you need to remember that making a paper Mario in the first place came from the idea of using the advanced graphical capabilities of the 64 to make an extremely 2D game and the pop-up storybook idea just followed and now we've come full circle to the Thousand Year Door remake that chair looks like paper now and that pig looks like paper too it's unbelievable how good it looks they could have just given a support of the game and told us to be quiet but the fact that they spent so much time on this remake shows me at least that they're not trying to hide Old Paper Mario anymore they even treated it like the big announcement that it was finally I know I didn't get to talk about everything and I'm sure I didn't get everyone's opinion correct it would be impossible too however I've at least gotten a better understanding of what makes a paper Mario game a paper Mario game I think these arguments are really going to be put to the test when the Thousand Year Door remake comes out it will be really interesting to revisit this with that game added and see what other people like me who started with the origami King think about the Thousand Year Door well they think the hype surrounding the game was worth it or while they seem like people have been overblowing this game for years I guess we'll find out also I think it's important to remember these are just video games they're not that important I certainly do think they've had their influence on society the same as sports or Harry Potter or Toy Story has but at the end of the day we remember that it's all just about having fun video games should be made for two reasons for us to enjoy and for the developers to make money and I think I will continue to enjoy Paper Mario regardless if it's the Thousand Year Door or the origami King come with the Frog here huh I couldn't resist foreign [Music]

Channel: The Renaissance

Views: 8,693

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Id: R3bRD66Rg64

Length: 19min 18sec (1158 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 23 2023