(Is back from having a shotgunned compy) Getting back on the subject of the original PM for a second, I would like to comment on CK’s review of Paper Mario.
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Originally posted by CodieKitty:
This is one of the ugliest N64 games I’ve seen. The N64 should be able to take sprites better than this. But instead, we’ve got characters who look like they were drawn with a child’s blackened markers on thin art paper, then torn out of the paper instead of cut. I hardly noticed any of the sceneries, except for the clouds in Flower Fields which looked like a painting (though I guess I was trying to something to bearable because the music was making me want to ram a car key into my ears). When I originally played it a few years ago, this game’s graphics gave me a splitting headache. They no longer hurt my head, just my stomach. |
No kidding. I had went back and played it myself a few months back. And most of the sprites are rather oddly sized and distored. Some talking animations end up having this weird bouncing animation because of this, and it doesn’t do much for the graphics.
As for the backgrounds, they could’ve done a lot better. They basically stole the hand-drawn style from SMW2: Yoshi’s Island, and screwed it up horribly. Like slightly shading and putting the Colored Pencil filter from Photoshop overtop a low-poly image, like something you’d see from Star Fox. The overall effect was just bland and uninteresting.
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Originally posted by CodieKitty:
The only N64 game I’ve played with a worse soundtrack than this is Yoshi’s Story. All of the decent songs in this are remixes of some earlier Mario song. All the new stuff ranges from blah to needing work to downright irritating. Who the hell composed the Flower Fields song? And that racket that plays while the train is moving in Shy Guy’s Toybox? Or the friggin’ final boss piece of crap? |
To be honestly, the whole thing was rather bland, so I can’t remember much of it. All I know is, they screwed up the only piece that’s SUPPOSED to sound like its original version: the classic SMB theme when you do the 8-Bit Mario trick.
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Originally posted by CodieKitty:
The battle system is too slow. Sure, not as slow as Magi Nation (on my New Game+, I spent three hours in the Shadow Hold fighting everything, then had to reset because I used a key in the wrong place. When I restarted, I ran from everything and wasn’t in there for more than twenty minutes), but still slow (granted, some time in the middle of playing this I had emulated Sweet Home on my Dreamcast, and its lightning fast battle system may have spoiled me a little). The only person who doesn’t feel the need to put on a little show and dance before attacking is Mario. Those Crazee Dazees (or whatever they’re called) in the Flower Field are by far the worst offenders, as they feel like they take twenty seconds to attack. |
To me, the whole thing seemed slow. Even Mario. During the first battle with Bowser at the start, Mario seems to FLOAT more than jump whenever you use his jump attack, and the extra bounce with the action command is no different.
Speaking of; the action commands are rather dull and boring.
Quote:
Originally posted by CodieKitty:
...and how Axl’s was total **** because it took some skill to use. |
I would’ve ENJOYED having to use some skill to do most of these, as it would’ve made the battles less monotonous. In fact, the buzzard in front of Dry Dry Desert was more interesting, as he had a different action command to defend against an attack where he grabs you, even though it was just mashing the A button repeatedly.
And the “puzzles”...or should I say, “lack thereof”. Wow. “Deliver this to this guy”. “Get the wizard so he’ll point out the fake toads are fake toads”. “Find the stupid temple in the desert”. ...Yeah. Looking back, I now feel that I wasted my money on Paper Mario. At least PM:TTYD had (somewhat) strong puzzles (Hey, at least it gave use to those pointless Attack FX badges), faster battles, and a bit more meat in its storyline. Paper Mario felt too much like doing the same old thing all over again for no real reason whatsoever.