Super Paper Mario

Thursday, September 27, 2007

When I was younger, I played an insane amount of video games. I remember that first time my dad bought me, that very expensive, console and I put on Mario Bros. Man did I love, just absolutely love that game. It didn’t take me long to master it either. I replayed it hundreds, perhaps thousands of times. It kept me company and was the one thing I was really good at. Actually, I got it at a time of my life when I was away from friends, in a school where everyone hated me and my family and I didn’t know the language. *thanks mom and dad, for giving me such a smooth childhood* Anyway, it wasn’t that bad, only lasted a few years. But one thing about that time in my life that really stands out is Mario Bros. The longest I played in one stretch was, well I can’t remember the time on it, but I played through the game 12 times before my stupid, jealous older sister accidentally pulled the plug from the socket to plug in her hair dryer… amazing what we remember isn’t it?

So looking back fondly at the original Mario Bros I use to play back in the early 90’s, I jumped at the chance of playing Super Paper Mario on Nintendo’s Wii. Bought it a few weekends ago and was instantly hooked. It happens to be my favourite Wii game so far… oh hell, I doubt another game will satisfy me now, not like Mario does anyway. Perhaps a combination of my intense love for the original Mario and Luigi, hopping about bashing rocks and squishing mushroom monsters along with a pretty good game play, makes this one top notch in my books. What I especially like about Super Paper Mario is that there are some, just a few, elements of the original game that they brought in. You’ll see what I mean, when you catch one of those little stars which makes you invincible for a little while. I like what they did, shows appreciation for the whole Super Mario Bros history. Anyway, the whole flipping thing Mario can do is also pretty kewl… he can play in 2 as well as 3D, took me one or two tries before I figured out what they were on about.

The Wii version of Mario Bros is brilliant, I’m not quite done with it yet, I’m trying to restrain myself actually, so as to make it last a little longer than just one straight weekend of play and luckily, we had a little holiday planned in between… man, that was one long week I spent in Italy, wishing I had taken my Wii with me!

The Story

The big bad is Count Bleck who basically wants to bring about chaos in the world. He does so by fulfilling a prophecy, he forces Princess Peach to marry Bowser. Mario, also in the prophecy, as the hero, jumps in to save the day. You’ll end up being able to swap, mid game, into any of 4 different characters, each with their own special powers. One by one, you’ll accumulate them, till you’ve got all 4. Oh and this time our favourite brothers have help in the form of Pixls, which will also accumulate during the game. They’re these little dudes flying behind you which can help you do various things, like throw objects and what not. I guess they act as your sidekicks.

And as for the Wii’s great controllers, well Nintendo has worked them in nicely. I don’t wana ruin it for you, but I can say that you do use both the controller sideways (the direction, 1 and 2 buttons) as well as the pointing on screen feature. Oh and every so often you get to shake it around a little

It was a little pricey, I’ll admit. I hesitated to buy it at first, but thankfully my better half decided to spoil me and thank gawd for that! It is worth every, single penny! Go out and buy it now! Lol

Happy Shopping!