Super Paper Mario

It is Princess Peach\'s wedding! And Mario is not invited. Everybody else from the Mushroom Kingdom, however is: Luigi, Toad, Goomba and Koopa Troopa. Bowser\'s there, too - but as the groom. They have all been assembled by Count Bleck, a being from another dimension, to participate in a sham marriage that would fulfill a dark prophecy. It states: \"A fair and lovely princess. A furious monster king. The union of these two will call forth the Chaos Heart, destroyer of world.\" But just as there is a dark prognostic, there too is a light one forecalling the rise of a hero who will prevent this outcome - Mario. For that purpose, he must travel to eight different worlds and clear a total of 32 levels (1-1 to 8-4) of hop-and-bop platforming action. Just like his older adventures.

Super Paper Mario is the near perfect marriage between two distinctive styles of Mario games. It combines the tongue-in-cheek story and character-building elements of the Super Paper Mario role-playing game (RPG) series with the action-oriented style of the Super Mario Bros platforming games to offer the best of both worlds. Almost perfect. But read on. Most aspects of Super Paper Mario\'s RPG grounding translate well to its improved emphasis on action and exploration. For starters, to level up, you will need to reach certain score milestones, which you can slowly work towards by either attacking your enemies or exploring levels for coins. Throughout the adventure, Mario gradually obtains a wide range of abilities including tmeporarily flipping Super Mario Paper\'s 2D world into 3D and setting down bombs. While these abilities are primarily implemented to solve puzzles necessary for progression, they are also excellent combat options and set your mind reeling with exploration possibilities.

Items found in levels or bought in shops can also, once again, be used either for combat purposes or to gain entry to previously unaccessible areas. However, having so many options at Mario\'s disposal in every single situation may, for the experienced players, be a turn-off. I like the idea of losing only one Hit Point (HP) whenever I accidentally fall into a pit, as opposed to dying immediately like in Super Mario Bros But when I have 30HP, several healing mushrooms, and a temporary shield of invulnerability, things get ridiculously easy at times. Then, there is the matter of having to access a menu to switch characters and abilities. Who wants to pause the game and bring up a menu, albeit briefly, during a heated boss encounter? Although these sound more like areas where Super Paper Mario lacks refinement in then genuine problems, they do detract from what could have been the best Mario game ever made.