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Super Paper Mario

Sarka

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Librarian Newbie

Librarian

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The only thing I don't like about those screens is the HP in the upper left corner. They're making the game to easy, if you get hit you should either turn into small Mario or lose a life.

 

cough.... have you played any of the other Paper Mario titles?

 

this is a "rpg" not a platform game.. at least as far as I know

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Dante Newbie

Dante

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1UP Preview.

 

E3 2006 revealed several new Mario adventures, but it was Super Mario Galaxy that got all the press, what with the Wii hype and all. Meanwhile, the company quietly let slip word of something called Super Paper Mario, which promptly found itself whisked under the rug along with everything else for GameCube. And there it stayed for nearly a year, missing its original release date without a word, leaving fans to speculate whether it had been cancelled, moved to Wii, or would be arriving in its original GameCube form. And even after word arrived that it would be showing up on Wii, Nintendo remained silent on the topic.

 

But you can't keep a good game down, and Super Paper Mario finally showed up in public today on the show floor of GDC 2007 where localizer Erik Petersen gave us an enthusiastic demonstration of what the game will have in store when it arrives next month.

 

As the name suggests, Super Paper Mario builds on the N64 and GameCube Paper Mario RPG titles, but with a difference. "I'd say the other Paper Marios are about 80% RPG and 20% action; this one is the opposite," Petersen explained. Gone are the random battles and menu-driven commands, replaced with more traditional Mario platforming -- something that was always present in the Paper Mario games to some degree, but is heavily emphasized here. So while there's plenty of story (which Petersen assures us is up to developer Intelligent Systems' usual standards of subversive humor) the emphasis is square on completing twitch-action challenges.

"It's a love letter to 8-bit games."

 

Like the classic Mario games, SPM is broken into multiple worlds consisting of several stages apiece. But it's also a more open-ended role-playing experience, so everything is connected via a central hub. Levels (or "chapters," as they're called here) must be completed in sequence, but once a stage has been cleared it can be revisited freely.

 

This is hardly the only new wrinkle in the gameplay, though. Since SPM is a chapter of the Paper Mario series, it features the usual mashup of 2D/3D gameplay; Mario himself is a flat object moving through a polygonal world. While the world is usually seen from a side-on perspective, it's possible to "flip" the game sideways and look down the length of a level, where objects that seemed insurmountable in 2D space can easily be skirted around in 3D. The Paper Mario RPGs placed their random battles on what appeared to be literal stages, and SPM essentially makes all the world a stage, so to speak. By flipping the action sideways, obstructions resemble stage props -- flat, and simple to move past.

 

In short, SPM takes a long-standing assumption about 2D platformers and turns it on its side, literally. At one point in our session, Mario reached what appeared to be a chasm far too wide to be leaped, but the presenter turned the game sideways with a press of the Wii's A button to reveal that the hills which appeared to be in the background were actually just wide enough to run along. It's a little like the white blocks in Super Mario Bros. 3, which could be ducked behind for a quick shortcut to the end of the stage, but more fully realized and integrated into the entirety of the game.

 

Petersen describes SPM as a love-letter to 8-bit gaming, which seems obvious given its deliberately retro visuals -- paper cut-out characters run along in front of pixellated, computerized backgrounds. But it's also present in the level structure... and, of course, in the occasional nods to Mario's history. Just as Bowser could romp through a recreation of the Super Mario Bros. world 1-1 in The Thousand-Year Door, Mario can drop down into a secret recreation of world 1-2. This time, though, he can turn the stage sideways, gaining an interesting new perspective on a classic.

 

And the New Super Mario Bros. Mega Mushroom concept returns in the form of a power-up that transforms Mario into a giant-sized version of his 8-bit self, smashing up the stages in retro style.

 

The characters

 

Mario is certainly not the only available character in the game. Previous Mario RPGs have given Princess Peach and even Bowser some time in the spotlight, and in SPM they become full-fledged playable characters, each with their own abilities. They lack Mario's ability to turn the world sideways, but Peach makes up for it with a parasol that allows her to float by holding down the jump button. And Bowser is slower and clumsier but compensates with brute power -- pressing down allows him to breathe a gout of flame that can destroy everything in its path.

 

Since the usual RPG combat is out the window, Mario's companion characters have changed as well. Rather than rushing into the fray with a Goomba or Bob-omb or Lakitu in tow, Mario's instead accompanied by creatures called "Pixies" -- odd pixellated creatures who bestow special abilities. Unlike previous companion characters, Pixies can be swapped out at any time.

 

For the most part, Pixies appear to duplicate some of the abilities that Mario and his previous companions possessed. In addition to allowing him to flip the game sideways, they allow let him drop bombs. One even lets him point the Wii Remote at the screen to serve like a flashlight, revealing secrets and highlighting points of interest for more information.

 

That's not the only Wii Remote functionality added in the migration from GameCube. As in previous Paper Marios, attacks can be made "stylish" for extra points. This is done by shaking the Remote at the peak of Mario's jump, causing him to perform ridiculous acrobatics in mid-air. And points actually count for something in this game -- Mario's score is the equivalent of his experience points, and at certain score totals his level increases, alternately boosting his maximum health, strength and other attributes.

 

In short, our brief time with Super Paper Mario suggests an innovative, imaginative game that brings together series standards and genre tropes into something that looks and feels incredibly original, yet pleasantly classic. The game is out in just over a month, so we'll soon be able to see for ourselves whether or not SPM lives up to its potential.

 

For up to the minute coverage of the most important panels at this year's Game Developers Conference, check out our GDC Blog.

 

 

GAMESPOT: Super Paper Mario Hands-On

 

Since it was first unveiled in video form at the 2006 Electronic Entertainment Exposition, there's been some haziness as to what, exactly, Super Paper Mario is. Today we got our first hands-on time with the game at the Nintendo booth at the 2007 Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, and now we have a very good idea of what Super Paper Mario is: awesome.

 

The past two Paper Mario games have largely been role-playing games infused with a lot of the trappings of a traditional Mario platformer. You'd have a party of characters, you'd walk around an overworld and chat with non-player characters, and when it came time for combat, you'd switch over to a separate, quasi-turn-based battle screen. Super Paper Mario essentially reverses the ratio, and will play like a platformer infused with RPG elements. From the short demo we were able to play, the basic action felt much like a traditional Mario game.

 

Holding the Wii Remote sideways, as you would when playing a NES game on the Virtual Console, we ran to the right and left, bopped goombas and koopa troopas (and some new, boxy, multi-legged enemies), avoided Bullet Bills and Hammer Bros., smashed blocks, and collected coins. However, whenever we offed an enemy, we gained experience points, and any time we got hit by an enemy, we lost hit points. At one point we gained enough experience points to level up, which automatically replenished any lost hit points and boosted our other stats. Typical Mario power-ups had slightly different effects than you might expect, with fire flowers causing coins to rain down from the sky for a short period of time and there was even a pill you could snag that would surround Mario with five or six tiny 8-bit Marios. They would autonomously attack any enemy that you encountered, but would die one by one after each attack. One of our favorite moments from our demo was when we collected a mega star, which caused us to transform in a screen-filling, 8-bit Mario sprite that would smash through anything and everything in his path. It was definitely reminiscent of New Super Mario Bros. for the DS, but it was done with more style here.

 

The name Paper Mario comes from the fact that all of the characters, and much of the world itself, appear to be crafted from cut-out bits of paper, giving it all a very distinct 2D-cum-3D look and feel. The games generally play with the perspective of 2D sprites in a 3D environment, hiding paths in what appear to be flat backgrounds. Based on what we've seen, these kinds of ideas will play an even more prominent role in Super Paper Mario. Early on in our demo, we found ourselves standing next to a giant green warp pipe that was too tall for us to jump over, effectively blocking any further progress in the level. However, when we pressed the A button, the area of the screen immediately around Mario flipped, and we were essentially given a 3D view of the 2D environment we had been running through. In this altered perspective, the previously impassable warp pipe could just be sidestepped entirely. You can't stay in this perspective forever, though, as your hit points decrease every few seconds you're in the 3D realm. As soon as you return to the 2D view your HP begins to fill back up. The perspective change is pretty jarring the first time you do it, and we found that it wasn't ideal for attacking enemies as it could be rough to gauge your distance from enemies. It's also totally mind-blowing, and we saw it used in a few clever ways, such as when we reached a massive crevasse that we couldn't jump across. Flipping to the 3D view, though, we found that the rolling hills that appeared as part of the background provided us with a comfortable walking path.

 

Fans of past Paper Mario games will recall that you could do more damage if you executed an attack with some extra panache, and this remains true in Super Paper Mario. We found that, if we shook the Wii Remote when in mid-air during an attack, we would dish out extra damage, which was accompanied by a little fanfare. For the duration of our demo, a small, prismatic-looking butterfly was hovering over Mario's shoulder, and when we pointed the Wii Remote at the screen, it transformed into a spotlight. At the time we could just use it to spotlight enemies and learn about their strengths and weaknesses, though we were told that this feature would also be used to solve puzzles and suss out hidden doors later on.

 

The game promises a brand-new story as well, one that won't require prior Paper Mario experience. Though the Nintendo rep we talked to would neither confirm nor deny, we got the feeling that some favorite characters from the previous Paper Mario games might make an appearance. While we only played as Mario, we were told that Peach and Bowser would both be playable over the course of the game's 8 chapters as well.

 

The game will sport a similarly endearing art style that has become synonymous with the Paper Mario name, though being on the Wii it looks cleaner, smoother and more detailed. Our time with Super Paper Mario left us with an overwhelmingly positive impression, and there seem to be few upcoming Wii titles that hold as much promise. Super Paper Mario is currently set to hit the US April 9th.

 

 

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pedrocasilva Newbie

pedrocasilva

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Now this is what you call "Art".
Definetly, but for a *certain someone* it isn't art unless it states so in the website:

 

"It's not clear to me that Nintendo gives a shit about games as an art form," he said. To illustrate his point, he searched for references to games as art on all three console manufacturers web sites. While he found numerous such references on both the official PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 sites, Wii.com had none at all.

 

It's like... "the game isn't great unless it's written "great" ten times in the official website description". :heh:

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Dante Newbie

Dante

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IGN Preview.

 

Nintendo of America was on-hand at the Game Developers Conference 2007 with a handful of playable Wii titles, including the anticipated platformer/RPG Super Paper Mario. We took the gorgeously stylized sleeper for a spin and walked away completely dazzled. The title, which was originally planned for GameCube before it made the jump to Wii, is a sequel to the hit GCN game Paper Mario and bears many similarities to its predecessor. For one, it is brought to life with a quasi-2D style made possible with cardboard cut-out visuals. Mario is literally paper thin as he walks through colorful storyboarded environments complete with blocky clouds and skinny enemies. In addition, the title is neither a dedicated platformer nor RPG, but a combination of the two. That being said, in our experience Super Paper Mario leans closer to the former than the latter, as some of the turn-based battles of previous games have been thrown to the wind in favor or new real-time action. But the commonalities seem to end there because Super Paper Mario takes the 2D/3D relationship several steps farther and really baths itself in new and improved play mechanics, which are deeper and more engaging than ever before, even as it oozes enough style to satiate any desire for nostalgic presentation.

 

In Super Paper Mario, gamers control not only Nintendo's classic Italian plumber, but also Peach and Bowser, too. The characters become unlocked and join Mario's party, so to speak, as he progresses adventure, which Nintendo promises to be lengthy and challenging. In fact, a company representative suggested that the title could take some players upward of 40 hours to complete. Gamers grip the Wii remote classic style and move the mascots through the levels with the D-Pad, sacrificing true analog controls - and trust us, nobody is even going to notice. The 2 button causes the selected hero (or heroine) to jump into the air and the 2 button executes special moves endowed by floating collected Pixls, which we'll explain in detail momentarily. But the most important function falls to the A button, which literally transforms the play field from 2D to 3D in an instant.

 

 

Bear in mind that we only played about an hour of the finished game at Nintendo's booth this afternoon and, on top of that, we were at several times told to discontinue our current session because the company did not want to reveal too much about the stages ahead. That being true, just about every area of every level featured hidden puzzles that sprung to life through the 2D-to-3D mechanics - and gamers are absolutely going to love this stuff. Normally, Mario and friends explore the environments from a classic 2D perspective similar to Super Mario Bros., but at the tap of the A button, the camera shifts to shoot the action from behind-the-back of the selected mascot, changing the perspective to full 3D. The result is that items, enemies and barriers unseen in 2D become visible in 3D and vice versa, a truth that encourages and sometimes demands that gamers go back and forth at a regular rate.

 

If Mario finds himself crossing a bridge and players tap the A button, the camera will fall behind him, at which point players will realize that the character is no longer standing on what was a 2D bridge. Instead, he's floating in 3D space, and so he will fall to his demise. If Mario cannot jump over a too-high 2D pipe, players can go into 3D and simply walk around it. If a spiky character seems unavoidable in 2D, Mario can hop to the third dimension and maneuver past it with the greatest of ease. The list goes on and it grows in complexity. In 2D, Mario may speed right past a landscape with an inconspicuous bush, but when the perspective is changed to 3D, he can walk behind the bush and to a hidden doorway. Oftentimes, if there are 10 collectable coins floating in 2D space, the jump to 3D will reveal that they're actually aligned into five distinct rows; gamers who pick them up in 2D will only get 10 and players who go 3D will get all 50. With entire puzzles based around similar properties, what's not to love?

 

There are sometimes noticeable advantages to playing in 3D, but gamers cannot simply ignore the classic style altogether. As soon as the mascots jump into the third dimension, a life bar in the upper-corner begins to drain and when it reaches empty, they will start to lose hit points. The game may be more platformer-centric than ever before, but the characters do still gain experience points, level up, and collect a variety of items and weapons to make aid them on their quest. If gamers stay in 3D and lose all of their hit points, well, it's kaput time. (Certain items, however, will replenish hit points, so we don't believe too many players will consider this to be an issue - it's not.)

 

During any point, players can press both the 1 and 2 buttons together - it's easily done - to bring up the menu screen, where characters, items and Pixls are managed. It's here that either Mario, Peach or Bowser are switched in and out as the main mascot and the whole process, from bringing up the menu to playing as the selected character, takes about two seconds. Mario seems to jump higher, in our experience. Peach, meanwhile, can float across chasms with her umbrella. In addition, there are a variety of items accessible from the related menu and like character selection, the process is speedy. In our play tests, we executed fierce lighting attacks, sent fireballs and ice spikes at enemies, and regenerated hit points.

 

And then there are the Pixls, which are characters that the mascots encounter during the adventure that effectively join the party and, when selected, offer added core abilities. For instance, one Pixl enables players to pick up and throw objects with the 1 button. Another enables them to lay bombs, which explode in stylized pixilated clouds of fire and smoke. And a third turns the mascots even skinnier - useful for squeezing through some barriers and avoiding enemies. From what we could gather, there will be a wide variety of Pixls located throughout the title. As we played the title, we mentioned to a Nintendo rep that we'd prefer to run around the stages super-speed style, and he replied that such an option could be lurking deeper into the experience.

 

 

The Wii remote's motion sensor functionality is not crammed down the throats of gamers in Super Paper Mario, but there are some mechanics built around the features. For one, players are able to shake the Wii remote as they jump atop the heads of enemies in order to gain extra points. They can also shake the Wii remote to power-up certain item attacks. And at just about any time, gamers can point the Wii remote at specific areas on-screen to learn about them and also to reveal secrets. For instance, a dungeon wall may appear to be blank until players point the Wii remote at it, at which point a doorway will materialize.

 

Visually, Super Paper Mario is easily one of the most stylized games to hit Nintendo's new console, and what a great style it is. Anybody who grew up with the Big N's classic platformers will find the nostalgic throwbacks to be inspired. When Mario gains a star, the character grows into an enormous pizelized representation that is able to blaze across the 2D perspective as the plumber did in New Super Mario Bros. for the publisher's handheld. Classic characters, both enemies and allies, are reborn with crispy new artwork that looks colorful and pristine within the shifting universe. Everything runs in 480 progressive scan 16:9 widescreen modes, not to mention at a fluidity that never falters. The game looks fabulous in motion and we suggest that every reader jump over to our media section to download new videos.

 

Super Paper Mario debuts for Wii in America in April. Look out for more coverage leading up to the launch, but until then, rest assured that (so far) just about every facet of the game has us both dazzled and clamoring for more.

 

 

Images.

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