Jun 222016
Paper Mario: Color Splash…
…
Can we talk about The Witcher again instead? No? Fine…
When Paper Mario: Color Splash was announced, it filled me with dread because of its resemblance to Sticker Star.
Let’s get one thing out of the way. I don’t hate it just because it isn’t like the original Paper Mario games.
I’d be thrilled if Color Splash looked like The Thousand-Year Door 2. I’d be thrilled if it looked like Super Paper Mario 2. Unfortunately, it looks like Sticker Star 2, and I considered Sticker Star a bad game in general.
Color Splash was one of the games shown by Nintendo Treehouse at E3 this year.
First, I’ll give it some credit. Visually, it’s great. I like Color Splash’s aesthetic.
It also doesn’t look like it has limited inventory space for cards. If you can carry as many cards as you want, that is a major improvement over Sticker Star.
However, the basic Sticker Star elements appear to be in full force: cards & paint work together to take the place of stickers, battles don’t award you experience, there are a lot of Toads instead of original characters, and Thing Cards are the equivalent of Thing Stickers to be used in puzzles and against puzzle bosses.
This doesn’t have to be terrible. Again, if the inventory isn’t limited, it’ll take away a lot of the frustration those puzzles caused. As long as the solutions are intuitive (see, the fire extinguisher makes sense) or at least hinted at, Color Splash could sidestep one of my major issues with Sticker Star.
But what about the others? It is not an RPG. Worse, GameXplain conducted an interview with the assistant producer that suggests Paper Mario will never be an RPG series again.
I don’t understand what’s wrong with having two Mario RPG series. Paper Mario and Mario & Luigi, while similar, have very distinct feels. And since Mario & Luigi has also been handheld, this doesn’t do much for console players who want a Mario RPG…
Now let’s consider the matter of Color Splash’s story. In that interview, she was concerned about giving spoilers. That’s a good sign! …Assuming it’s a legitimate concern, that is. Paper Mario: Color Splash claims to be a mystery, so I’d like to see actual mystery elements in it, along with interesting characters.
(The paint bucket needs to be more than Color Splash’s Kersti, and he can’t be the only character.)
If Color Splash has a decent story and fixes Sticker Star’s gameplay issues, maybe I’ll give it a chance. Maybe. For now, I’m not convinced. Either way, I’ll lament the loss of the Paper Mario series as it once was.
As for a Thousand-Year Door HD remaster, great. Sure. It wouldn’t be the same as a new Paper Mario RPG, which is what I really want, but at least it would be something. And if it sold well, it just might convince Nintendo that there’s room for two Mario RPGs on the market after all.
Based on what we’ve seen so far of Paper Mario: Color Splash, what do you think about the game and the series’ future?
Well, now I get to know what points to rebut for whenever KoopaTV weighs in on a post-E3 Color Splash.
Let me say this, however. Your reporting of the facts is inaccurate right around: “battles don’t award you experience”.
Not true. Battles award you many things, it seems like: Coins, paint to refill your paint metre, paint-metre-extending globs, and temporary-NPC-partner cards.
Consider that in this game, the amount of paint you draw onto a card when selecting it determines its power.
If you can increase the amount of points you can expend to increase your power, is that not a forme of experience points?
No. And Bowser’s already confirmed the villain in this game due to the Koopalings appearing as bosses!
That’s not a good sigh of things to come. And there’s already rant videos about this game and people are tearing Nintendo a new asshole. (pardon my language, but it’s true.) It’s not a good when they explain how the game got made and it’s even worse that this is the edited version of the original interview.
Here’s the pre-edit version to give you an idea of what the guys at GameXplain had to change.
https://youtu.be/-eXtK8oRcgM?list=PLLjYGJDZ2GqL9qcw4yhiCOjgBZmoFZq6P
Is it mostly gameplay for some reason? But it’s the same crap either way. Did I want to like this game? But it’s becoming more and more clear that it’s gonna suck donkey balls. 🙁
…Is that supposed to be a reply to what I said?
Hmm, the comments say the only thing edited out is gameplay footage.
Okay, when I wrote that, I didn’t think about raising your maximum paint meter. I still don’t consider that equivalent to experience, but it does sound like battling at least won’t feel as worthless as it did in Sticker Star.
How come it’s not equivalent?
It feels more like a weapon upgrade, I guess… plus in an RPG, you wouldn’t be able to deplete your experience and have weaker attacks. Once you level up, that’s how strong you are.
But I would like to see more details on how it works. For example, what’s the limit? Could you grind for paint? Can you increase any other stats?
We know you can increase HP in some way.
Weapon EXP is a thing in some RPGs, too.
Treat the Paint Metre like Mana, and I guess the only Mana spell you have is amplifying your weapons (buff-casting).
I believe you need to grind for enough paint globs for your metre cap to increase. So it’s not “deplete your experience”, it’s going from 50/50 Mana to 40/50 Mana after using it, and after enough grinding, have the Mana cap rise to 52.
When I said “depleting your experience,” I meant it in a mana sense, where you could go into battle without enough paint to use your powerful attacks–which is a clear difference from becoming stronger because you’ve leveled up.
Maybe you’re right and Color Splash will be a significant improvement over Sticker Star’s gameplay. (Especially if the limited inventory really is gone.)
Now let’s see something about the story.
If they’re afraid of spoilers, then that’s a good sign. ♪
I doubt you’ll hear much else until the game comes out.
Then I just hope they have legitimate cause to fear spoilers. I remember when Destiny was coming out, and Bungie refused to give story details because it would ruin the mystery. Then Destiny came out with a scant, vague story.
Just saying.
And if they don’t say or show anything more about the story until it comes out, then I’m definitely waiting for reviews.
It’ll probably be Bowser as the main villain again because the Koopalings. XD
They could have a twist and someone else be behind it. Then they’d have reason to worry about spoilers. ^_^;;
You’ve waited for it. Here’s our defence of the game. We’re kinda the only site in the world defending it, so yeah:
http://www.koopatv.org/2016/06/defending-paper-mario-color-splash.html
I’ll go take a look. 🙂
I shouldn’t need to prompt you. ♫