BLOG FOR VIDEOGAMES.COM

If you’re wondering what the hell we’re doing stamping a sub-90% score on a Mario game that looks like it should make the clouds part and a choir of harp-strumming Yoshis flutter down from heaven… well, think GameCube’s Super Mario Sunshine.

Just as that game left us with a sense of slight dissatisfaction we weren’t used to from Mazza’s usual ceiling-shattering spectaculars, so Super Paper Mario gives us the vague feeling that we’ve left the table having not eaten a big enough dinner.

Still. 88 points means a brilliant game, and Super Paper Mario is exactly that - brilliant. It’s shaped around a remarkable idea that we can barely believe no one’s thought of before. 2D worlds that aren’t actually 2D. With a press of the A Button, the camera swings round for a side-on 3D view - revealing all the platforms and staircases and enemies as the cardboard-thin bits of stand-up scenery they really are, and letting you run behind, around and under things that were previously hidden or in the way. The first ‘wow’ moment is a seemingly miles-away 2D background of rolling hills suddenly being exposed as a hump-backed 3D bridge across the back of the level - but there are 100 moments like this to give you the same stomach-lurch you get when you spot the dalmatian in the seemingly random pattern of dots.

Caught in the action
The game itself is more of an action-RPG than the platformer you might be expecting: you’ll mostly be puzzling and searching for items rather than hauling Mario’s ‘mushroom belly’ safely across platforms. It’s a consistently superb adventure - turned into something approaching Zelda or Metroid by your ever-growing collection of item-chucking, ladder-revealing, info-providing, wall-bombing Pixl helpers.

That’s not to say it’s as mind-reelingly imaginative as our old friend Twilight Princess: there are too many ‘open this door by running somewhere and coming back’ moments and there’s enough meandering room-mazes to make you eat your own trousers in befuddle-wandering frustration. But it’s the gratifying RPG-like adventure feel that makes this the perfect complement to New Super Mario Bros’ (and, hopefully, Super Mario Galaxy’s) purebred platforming: progress is often only by genuine brainwork; finally stepping through the door to the next chapter always feels like a job well done and worthy of a biscuit.

And, naturally, we have a few standout moments: the fluffy cloud world of Chapter 7-3 that’s the perfect antithesis of today’s waves of po-faced super-brown next-gen mud-worlds (and looks fantastic in 3D); the bit where Luigi is thrown so far up in the air by a bouncy platform that he briefly ends up in space; stumbling upon lady-loving geek-frog Francis’s huge treasure trove of videogame memorabilia - guarded by a robot in a French maid outfit, worryingly.

Full Article on This Link…

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 15th, 2007 at 5:41 pm and is filed under WII. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.