How do you follow up on "this is the worst Mario platformer I've ever played"? Well... you don't. And so comes an end to this let's play. There isn't actually much of a review in this video, so allow me to give you some of my more fleshed out reasons for hating this game.

First off, regarding the question of "why do people like this game", I'm sure a lot of the answers will be about the platforming. I will admit, the level design doesn't seem that bad. But it's severely hindered by the need to go into 3D mode everywhere to find secrets, plus the fact you have to frequently swap between party members and pixls. Combined with your inability to run, and you have a rather slow-paced platformer. I know you wouldn't think the inability to run would be a big deal, but I'm used to playing 2D Mario platformers with my thumb constantly holding the run button, as I'm sure is the case with a lot of gamers. You've probably noticed how I was using that floating platform pixl a lot once I got him. It's because he allowed for faster travel.

I don't mind the puzzle-solving in this game. Seeing as I hadn't gotten to the point where Lantis said it got awful, I can't say for sure whether or not they're good. But they were okay from what I have played (as a reminder, what you've seen me play was as far as I've gotten). But some of the design choices are just bizarre. Jump under a palm tree ten times? Really? That sounds like something somebody new to RPG Maker would use for one of their puzzles. I gotta admit, though, as much as I hate the dreadmills, I gotta applaud the game developers for being gutsy enough to throw those in there. But don't do it again!

The boss battles were too simple. I know that tends to be the case with 2D Mario platformers, but considering the combination with RPG elements, I expected more. At the very least, give them more than one attack pattern. Fracktail was the best fight that I played, and you know why? Because it wasn't a simple matter of "just use the same attack over and over again", you also had the phase where you were trying to get on his back. The boss fight with the giant blooper was the most disappointing because there was nothing to his strategy. Not once in the entire fight did he change things up. I would've at least expected two tentacles to go up at the same time at some point. Again, his size was compensating for something.

A lot of the chapters are too long and drawn out. The ones containing the chapter boss are fine; it's the rest I have a problem with. They're mainly designed as traditional Mario levels, but they're really LONG traditional Mario levels. Yet at the same time, they're presented as part of a story rather than traditional Mario level progression, which makes them feel even more drawn out considering the lack of anything. It's like if each chapter were its own dungeon, rather than the path to your next destination. I miss Petal Meadows.

Other little notes... I thought it was awesome that you can play as Bowser, especially with the ability to breathe fire. But the ability to play as Peach was "meh". I can't really comment on the music, since you tend to need to keep the volume down low when recording/editing let's plays. Finding the heart monoliths to enter the next chapter wasn't as enjoyable as it should've been. They should've kept it simple like the previous Paper Marios. I liked the combination of platformer and RPG, although I wish you had more variety in stat growth. The items seemed rather useless for me. I made much more use out of my items in the previous two games. The fact that the camera didn't follow your character at all when they jumped made for too many blind jumps. Taking damage for being in 3D mode for too long... eh, we go into enough detail with that in the video. And as I said in the video, I love the humor in the game. Except the dreadmills. ...And O'Chunks.

By the way, we never got around to mentioning it in this let's play, but Lantis eventually did get around to playing the fourth Paper Mario game: Sticker Star. To my understanding, it's even worse than this game, on account you gain nothing from battling enemies except for items that replace the items you had to use to win the fight to begin with. At least with this game, bopping on enemies is kinda enjoyable and rewarding.

Lantis and Ixzion, feel free to add anything to this review in the comments. As for me, yeah, I'm done with this game. Next month I'm gonna start a marathon of obscure Game Boy games, starting with Bubble Ghost. I'll see you then.

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{Guest Commentary}
Lantis:
http://www.youtube.com/lantis02
Ixzion:
http://www.youtube.com/user/talvarius

{Game Design}
Developed by Intelligent Systems:
http://www.intsys.co.jp/english/index.html
Published by Nintendo:
http://www.nintendo.com/countryselector