The instrumentation is nice, and I suppose the a-capella itself is at least actual voices rather than samples now. But damn if my knee didn't jerkslam into the desk around 0:07 while watching the direct
Sumez wrote:I don't know, if you remember deep and emotional writing with solid character arcs, I'm not sure which Paper Mario games you have been playing. "distinctly-bounded zones with a set theme" is exactly what the series has been doing since the first game, with TTYD probably being the biggest "offender", if you want to look at it that way. Personally I think it's a part of the charm.
Whenever people complain about the new Paper Mario games, it seems to me like there's some really rose tinted goggles going on. I like the older games as much as I like the newer ones (didn't play Sticker Star, because that's the universally hated one that I'm probably gonna get nothing out of, but Colour Splash is massively underrated), but it's really not the holy cow it's being made out to be. TTYD especially suffers from some massive issues, though it has a lot of appeal as well.
The most common criticism is giving up the stats and exp based combat system that "gives you a reason to fight the enemies at all". And while I get it to some extent, it's not like combat in any of the Paper Mario games was ever actually *good*. IMO the reason to fight enemies should be that the battles are actually fun, no? PM64 and TTYD is absolutely not a gold standard that should be aimed for. Bug Fables took that idea and used it to create actually super fun and tactical battles, so if you want Paper Mario to return to something to that extent, that's probably the direction to look.
But in terms of actually employing fun and creative setpieces, turning the Mario world on its head and relying on self depracating humor - the last two Paper Mario games have been doing that better than ever. The creativity on display in these games is mind boggling.
I wouldn't put TTYD up there with Planescape for character writing, but I definitely found its cast and events more memorable.
Take Doopliss as an example - that whole sequence works because the party is still a party when you take Mario out of the picture, so is able to support the new perspective it's framed in.
By design I don't think Origami King could pull off something comparable, since Olivia is too chipper and inoffensive to be much more than a Navi, Peach and Bowser are largely indisposed, and everyone else is temporary.
It's true that the older games were also made of distinct zones, but I found their worlds more cohesive - a patchwork of odd subcultures that would occasionally cross-pollenate, with interstitial areas like Rougeport and the Excess Express providing a connective DMZ to play with that idea, whereas Origami King is way more segmented.
Combat-wise, I thought it was a fun core since sets of puzzle encounters that each have a most-efficient-solve to derive are a nice way to keep fights interesting, but in practical terms ended up skipping fights once i'd seen a few encounters in each area due to the zero-sum setup.
It's a classic RPG design problem; battles being intrinsically fun is a motivator that only lasts until repetition sets in - which naturally comes quicker with discrete numeric / logic systems versus their real-time equivalents due to having less total permutations - thus causing designers to reach for extrinsic incentives like EXP or rare drops in order to make up the difference for longer titles.
I think there's a lot to be said for more novel abstractions, but in recent years Ninty seems to have developed a fascination with zero-sum item / progression economies (Odyssey and BotW having no 100% reward, BotW / TotK / PM relying on transient breakables, etc) which puts the intrinsic horse before the fun-for-the-whole-duration cart in forgetting that repetition is something you actually have to design around.
I don't think it would take too much to fix in PM's case - either ensure each encounter is unique and lean in on a 'collect them all' sort of idea (which it almost already does with the practice machine), or add a trade-in shop between the larger combat areas that can be used to convert otherwise-throwaway drops into badges that grant some unique ability, thus broadening the scope of battles and giving the player a reason to play well beyond accumulating enough stuff to stomp the next boss.
Sumez wrote:I still absolutely cannot understand lamenting a "lack of color"
Think of it as a figurative turn of phrase with mild wink-nudge in the direction of Color Splash
