Topic: NL Game Club Session 1: Paper Mario

I'm still at chapter 2 since MHT has taken over my life. XD I'm going to get back to it though so I can finish it in time.

lol, I got kind of uncomfortable after using that one for a while... also people were giving me funny looks.

I'm almost finished with Shy Guy's Toybox (yeah, I'm taking my time!) but I've been doing loads of sidequests too. There are so many!

Do you ever find out what was on that video tape you deliver to Koot from Goompa? lol

SPOILERS: Shy Guy's Toybox

I've been searching for star pieces and I finally got the Jump/Hammer power + 1 badge. Then I got it again from Anti Guy. I'm a little overpowered now - it's nice doing 8 damage with a jump and 6 with my hammer. But is that a good use of BP? lol I've already got the max 30 BP and I'm skimping on jump/hammer skill badges for the attack, HP and FP bonus badges.

@HolyMack Depends on how you're playing. I used both Power Plus (you can get the second from Merlee for 25 Star Pieces), a few Defence-oriented badges, and filled the rest with Power and D-Down Pound/Smash. You'll have a ton of HP and FP by the time you reach the final boss anyway

@HolyMackerel: I just like have enough power to defeat at least one regular enemy per turn, and since you're about at the part where enemies have 8 hp, it's great to have both Power Plus. **SPOILER** Plus I found the Zap Tap Badge and Ice something Badge to be very useful for the next area you'll be visiting.

Just finished chapter 4! Completed Shy Guy's Toybox. I may not have time to complete the game by the 16th but I will definitely finish it afterwards. This game is so fun!

Did anyone else have trouble managing items? 10 held items and 30 stored items just isn't enough... I keep tossing things away without using them. I'm so used to other RPGs where you can get immense stacks of stuff and you save them up for really tough battles.

I've been running around almost endlessly doing Koopa Koot's favours and delivering letters. The sidequests are pretty crazy, but the rewards are really worth it! The quizzes are also interesting... I forgot what the colour of Luigi's pants are (I thought they were green but those are his overalls!), and then there was the number of windows on the Goomba family's house. I can't even remember these details!

SPOILERS: End of Shy Guy's Toybox
I loved the Shy Guy commander. What was his name again? He was actually... really easy. But maybe that's because I have two Power Plus and Defense Plus/Dodge Plus badges active. Hopefully my HP and FP rise soon enough so I can get deactivate my HP/FP Plus badges for more useful things. I don't have Power Bounce and that's pretty much the best skill I've seen. o_O

Oh the Big Lantern Ghost was a really interesting fight. I like how they change up the boss battles! I actually had a bit of a tough time because Goombario kept getting zapped. >_< Luckily him blowing out the candle gave me a little recuperation time.

Heh heh. Yeah, 10 items is a bit hard to manage, it's annoying when you pick something cool up like an Ultra Shroom, but have to throw something useful out to keep it.

Sorry for not participating when i said i would. For now i have misplaced my game it seems. Next one though.

This.

i've been really busy, i'm at shy guys toy box though. I might be stuck there too i remember having trouble

but great game anyways i'll try my best to finish it up

WOO!!! Done!!! Wow, Bowser was much easier for me this time around for some reason. Hey, question to anyone else playing this on the VC... After the credits have played through, and you get to The End screen, is there any way to save? I let fireworks go on FOREVER, but eventually shut the game off and when I started it again, I was back at the save point just before the battle with Bowser. I'll put my review up a little later, maybe after the end of the session.

Unfortunately not, there's no postgame here. If you want to go do other stuff, you'll have to leave Bowser's castle and come back again later

I figured I would play through this game again, it is as fun as I remembered!
Though everything is a bit easy when you can do 15+ damage per turn... With regular attacks xD

When do i need to get my final thoughts posted by? I still have a few hours to do on the game, but probably wont get onto it until Monday night. Thanks

Ok I played it a little over the weekend, and am now up to chapter 5. I figured I can beat it by Friday if I play a little every night. After a couple of false-starts, I've started to get into the game more and am really enjoying it.

Just a question- does the anti guy have much hp? As he does a fair bit of damage. Thought I might come back to him later in the game.

Although I'm on Chapter 7, I'm not sure if I will finish it by Friday as I fell out of the game since Christmas with all the new games I have. I'm even ignoring some of my new games because I have so many so Paper Mario doesnt take a high priority. If I can 100% SMG2 by then I might get back into it but for now SMG2 has taken over my life. Just when I thought it was over at 120 stars there's Green Stars everywhere argh!

iirc, he has 50HP. He also has very powerful attacks. He's completely optional though, so if you don't want to fight him, just walk past him. Or give him a lemon drop (cake mix + lemon, iirc) and he'll let you open the chest without a fight.

Finished the game today. Really enjoyed it. Will probably post a few paragraphs tomorrow night as a mini review. Shall I post it here? With spoiler warning of course.

@Fuzzy Anti-Guy is easier than The Master from the Dojo. I had a pretty good strategy to defeat him involving Goombario's charged jump attack. I'd follow Raylax's advice though,

@RetroRich Sure. Look forward to hearing what you have to say!

OK - Sorry for the long post, but here are my thoughts on Paper Mario. POSSIBLE SPOILER WARNING.

Super Mario RPG is a great game and I really enjoyed playing it, but for me fighting a bunch of tools with Bowser and Peach at my side just didn’t feel quite right. And who the hell was that Pinocchio looking dude anyway? And a tadpole, come on! Although the crux of the two games is roughly similar, recover the missing 7 stars/star pieces, I enjoyed Paper Mario far more and I think the reason for this is the return to the tried and tested plot. Giant redhead fire-breathing spiky snapping turtle kidnaps princess of anthropomorphic fungus tribe who is then rescued by unlikely hero in the form of displaced Brooklyn plumber via an epic journey to the ends of the earth. Or (quite literally in this case) to the moon and back. How can you go wrong? Setting this RPG adventure in the Mushroom Kingdom with all the familiar enemies and friends was just a better fit, for me, than introducing a new bad guy. But that’s just my opinion.

The badge system was interesting and well done, although I didn’t rely on it that much to beat the game. I pretty much stuck with the same badge types for the whole adventure, and instead relied on star powers and my sidekicks to get me through. I don’t intend to play through the game again, but the badge system offers flexibility to the way the game is approached such that a number of different strategies are available to the player. There are even a few which change your sound effects, which was cool.

Mario’s party of sidekicks got pretty large towards the end of the game as he came across and recruited more and more characters that had been affected by Bowser’s, and his generals, atrocities. I actually quite liked the fact that the majority of them were enemies from other Mario games. It may just be the way I played, but I did find however, that I relied pretty much on one sidekick, bombette, for the majority of the fights. I found that the others were only really required for a very few battles, although they were all required at some point to progress through the environments. Actually, this is a pretty cool feature and did offer a very minor puzzle element to some sections of the game.

I tried to find a copy of the game for N64 so I could experience it on its native system, but unfortunately was unsuccessful. Ebay and Amazon in the UK were listing plenty of copies, but it was averaging £50 for a complete copy (I don’t buy games without boxes). As such I down loaded and played the VC version. Graphically I thought the game was excellent. I’m not sure if the 2D characters in a 3D world had been done before this game, but it really was well done. Obviously the VC N64 games have been visually improved somewhat, but you can’t polish a turd, so the original must look pretty sweet too. Having played the game I am actually quite pleased that I didn’t get it for the N64 as some of the battle techniques, like wobbling the control stick to power up an attack, would probably have finished off my ageing N64 controllers and were far better suited to the more robust control sticks on the CC and GC controller.

It took me around 28 hours to beat this game, but there was plenty more I could have done. I didn’t get all the possible badges, I didn’t find all the star pieces, and I didn’t complete all the recipes (which alone would have taken several more hours). I did complete the side quest for the old koopa though, what a demanding so and so he was! I think I delivered all the letters too, but I’m not sure about that.

I rate this game highly and would recommend it to pretty much anyone. I’m 31 years old now and usually prefer to play more mature games, but I thought I would give this game a try and am really glad I did. The story is great, there are loads of subtle and some not so subtle references to popular culture, the graphics and sound are amazing and have aged pretty well, and there are plenty of opportunities in the gameplay to allow players to develop their own strategies. I was putting off playing my copy of Paper Mario – The Thousand Year Door on GC, but this game has inspired me to give it, and possible even Super Paper Mario, at try; after I’ve played a few more mature titles in the meantime of course.

Happy gaming!