First off, let me say that the core gameplay in this game is awsome. I love the switching between 2D and 3D. There are great puzzles too. But the copious amount of text is driving me crazy. Sure some of it is cute or funny, but these characters go on for SO long sometimes that I feel like I am playing Metal Gear Mario or something. I stopped caring about the plot about 30 minutes into the opening because it rambled so much.
If they dropped the useless RPG elements (the game is INCREDIBLY easy, meaning you never really have any incentive to level up or ifnd items) and dropped the huge amount of dialog they could have made this a regular Mario Game that would have been even more kick ass, like a regular Mario game where you jump on shit and go down pipes and shit ya know?
All in all the game is worth playing just for the action levels, but the dialog is ruining it for me.
In fact, I got stuck right after fighting this one annoying character that just talked and talked. Then I was really low on points and got killed before reaching the next save marker, so – back with this talky character again. Only at that point I hadn’t built up enough points still, so once again I died and – back with talky character again. (Mr. Chunks, or somesuch.)
Now it is not that hard to defeat Mr. Chunks but it’s tedious to keep plugging through the dialogue over and over and over…
So I didn’t play for like, a month.
But the other thing is that when you get low on life points, or heart points, or whatever, you get this annoying beeping, beeping, beeping. I suppose some people appreciate the warning but it just bugs me.
Obviously, I’m not very good at playing, or I wouldn’t hear that constantly in the background.
Huh. The writing is what gives Super Paper Mario (and Thousand Year Door, and Superstars, and Partners in Time) its charm for me. The writing/localization team is clearly the same for all these games, and I find the dialogue to be pretty good. Granted, it does occasionally get tedious in SPM as opposed to the others, but otherwise it’s hardly destructive to the game.
My daughter loves RPGs and always has. She loves the dialog sections of Super Paper Mario.
On the other hand, I have always been fond of casual gaming, console games, and FPSes. I fricking HATE all the boring-ass yakking in that game (and it’s why I generally don’t play RPGs but for the Zelda series.)
But the gameplay itself has kept me hooked & I’ve just about finished it, so there ya go.
Haven’t played Super Paper Mario yet, as I don’t have a Wii but I loved Paper Mario just for the RPG elements. I never liked the Mario games much anyway, too much jumping. I’d probably play this one, too, and the chatting can be funny.
They could have at last given the user the option, then, to skip over the cut scenes (or whatever you call them) and just play the damn game. I, too, was annoyed by the lengthy rambling in between levels.
If you are going to trap me for 10-15 minutes of dialog then at least move into the current gen and use voice actors Nintendo. There’s no excuse to still be reading text bubbles.
Don’t get me wrong, some of the writing is funny and entertaining, but there is TOO MUCH of it.
The people who say “there’s too much dialogue” don’t realize this is a mix of platformer and RPG. As Red Barchetta and others said, it’s very well written and often very funny. I love the traits of the characters- the nerdy Francis, the CEO-like Nastasia, the pathetic-yet-determined O’Chunks, and of course, Count Bleck, who always has to add his name to each sentence. There are also some clever ideas- instead of dying, there are numerous references to “your game being over.”