Apr 062020
While I sit here pretending to avoid Final Fantasy VII Remake spoilers, it’s time we talked about the rumors regarding a new Paper Mario game.
Fans have been hoping for a new traditional Paper Mario game (or a remaster of the original and/or The Thousand-Year Door) for a while now, and this year rumors began to support the idea.
Early this year, leakers claimed to have sources that said a traditional Paper Mario game will be released this year, and the recent Mario rumors from VGC and Eurogamer also mentioned a new Paper Mario game being in development. VentureBeat also reported that the new Paper Mario will be “closer to the Nintendo 64 and Gamecube games.”
It’s been four years since the release of Paper Mario: Color Splash, and since the Nintendo 64, GameCube, Wii, 3DS, and Wii U all got an entry in the series, a Switch Paper Mario game seems likely. But will it really be traditional?
Interviews about Color Splash supported the belief that Paper Mario had changed so drastically because of the Mario & Luigi series. With two Mario RPG spin-off series co-existing, Nintendo decided that Paper Mario would focus more on puzzle-solving to keep the series feeling distinct.
Unfortunately, things don’t look great for the Mario & Luigi series these days either. The developer for the series, AlphaDream, filed for bankruptcy last year.
If Mario & Luigi is effectively dead, that might clear the way for Paper Mario to return to its RPG roots again. On the other hand, if AlphaDream went bankrupt because the series did poorly, Nintendo might decide to double down on the decision to focus on other elements with Paper Mario.
I want to believe the Paper Mario rumors. I’d love to see Paper Mario return to the style of any of the original three; I’d take a Super Paper Mario 2 in a heartbeat if it had as much story content as the original. And yes, I’m still going to give Color Splash an honest chance, preferably before this theoretical new Paper Mario game is announced.
What do you think about the Paper Mario rumors? Is a new Paper Mario game on the horizon? And if so, will it play like the originals, or will it follow the new path Nintendo set the series on?
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“And yes, I’m still going to give Color Splash an honest chance, preferably before this theoretical new Paper Mario game is announced.”
Hmph.
So, here’s the thing. And you know I love you, and I love (most of) the Paper Plumber series.
But I hate these kinds of articles.
Either the media has a source that feels like losing their job and getting fired, or it’s a coordinated effort to drum up hype over something that may or may not already exist. (I mean, someone at Nintendo probably has a draft document over new games in all kinds of series. They may or may not go anywhere. Though the draft document for Sticker Star, as you may remember, was a traditional game ala TTYD.)
But asking people if they believe the rumours? No one knows if they’re true or not, though the media outlets sure like the attention. It’s not asking if they believe them… it’s asking if you want them to be true. What, in an ideal world, would you like to have happen? That’s the question.
The truth can be very different, and in this case, there’s no evidence of what the truth is.
Yeah, but I needed to blog about something.I do think there’s a distinction between asking if you believe the rumors and asking if you’d like them to be true, though. (I would like to believe we’ll someday get a Silent Hill game that feels truly like Silent Hill again, but I had no faith in the recent rumors about that.) In this case, it seems like there are enough different people making Paper Mario claims that it feels plausible.
Well in that case you’re just figuring out who is a hopeful optimist versus who is a pessimist. >.>