Topic: Paper Mario and the Thousand Year Door!!!!!!!

@Dreamliner
I personally prefer Sticker Star & Color Splash over than Origami King despite the battle seems useless in both Sticker Star & Color Splash, I like the card / sticker system style that felt like disposable Magic system in Final Fantasy VIII.
The 3D objects Summon in both Sticker Star & Color Splash are my guilty pleasure and I like to use them frequently.
TTYD felt like standard JRPG games so I can adapt with the game quickly.

@Anti-Matter I think I wouldn't mind the battles in Color Splash so much if they were fast. No loading screens, etc. Just immediately snaps in and I can choose my cards. Fast Fast Fast. Haven't tried Sticker Star or Origami King.

I only played Sticker Star, it was...fine...but yeah I just wanted a traditional Paper Mario again. Battles seemed pointless, never even bothered with Color Splash or Origami King. I also liked the more original characters the older games had, even Super Paper Mario still did this despite being more of a platformer RPG than a normal RPG. I also like that the final boss/main antagonist is NOT Bowser. Maybe that's why I didn't like the original Paper Mario as much...? I dunno, they should remake that game. lol

@Anti-Matter Color splash is so fun lol, very nostalgic game for me.

Playing color splash right now actually. I'm not crazy about the battle system unfortunately. I was in the indigo underground with pretty much no cards for half the time. I was blowing money on the wheel to get some weapons, but after waiting for that, and the time it takes to do a simple battle, I was avoiding enemies.

@NintendoByNature Not sure anyone is crazy about the battle system. Genuinely can't believe 13/14-year-old me had the patience to go through every battle and tolerate it. I didn't even do that in Origami King, and I think its battle system is perfectly fine

@Dreamliner Sticker Star’s battle system is largely the same as Color Splash’s. I suppose a lil bit faster since you don’t need to color in the cards though.

Origami King’s combat system is more like a mini-game, where you slide parts of the battlefield on the round and back and forth.

The objective in normal battles is to group the enemies efficiently in order to defeat them quicker, and in boss battles, the goal is to make a route that passes through the correct icons so Mario can damage the boss.

@PikaPhantom yea its definitely time consuming. I don't mind the action but don't like coloring cards and doing the wheel every minute.

@NintendoByNature @PikaPhantom That's pretty much why I never got Color Splash... it's pretty much got the same battle system as Sticker Star. I gave up on SS after the second world, been running low on my good stickers and everything. Heck, Kersti came up and said to "try harder" because I apparently didn't beat the second boss "properly..." just, why?! I don't like to be negative, but what an awful, awful game SS was. And I'm a huge Mario and Nintendo fan.

Sticker Star grew on me quite quickly.

But the fact I played it years later (after Origami King), with full context and expectations managed… Perhaps that helped.

I even went and collected every single type of sticker for the museum.

@Eel Ah really? Yeah I'd imagine that helped too, knowing exactly what you're getting into. If you liked Sticker Star or if it grew on you, that's totally fine. (Same goes for everyone else who likes it.) That game just left a sour taste in my mouth when I first played it, lol. I no longer have it since I sold my copy years ago.

@MarioVillager92 i actually enjoyed sticker star. And like eel, after origami king( which so far is my favorite PM game). I read all about it prior so I knew going in it was going to be a weaker entry than the others and I was ok with it. It was a solid 7/10 experience for me. It didn't waste as much time as color splash does. I'll definitely see color splash through, but i can tell it's going to be a bit of a slog.

Man you guys made we want to replay SS, CS, and OK (Im probably gonna do that lol)

@NintendoByNature That's good you liked it. As much as I didn't like the game, I'm glad you got enjoyment out of it. I first got the game pretty early on, I did know it was gonna be different, but ended up hating it. Apologies if I sounded harsh in that other post of mine... that game just wasn't good to me.

While there are some bright spots in Paper Mario: Color Splash, the battle system was the biggest detriment IMO. It's clunky and slow; the only redeeming point for me are how fun the Thing cards are to use. It's very telling when I keep seeing stories of people actively avoiding battles, something I also did in the later half of the game when possible. Not to mention locking the moves to cards can hose the player in very specific circumstances (I think I've expanded on this point before so will refrain from doing so here unless asked).

A lesser annoyance for me was how your paint progress could be undone. This doesn't fly when time is finite.

The visuals, writing, Things, and (to an extent) the plot? All range from decent to amazing. But I found the gameplay outside of my OCD to paint everything (which was kind of fun!) to be meh at best and a slog at worst.

Sticker Star would immediately be a better game as an original, obscure RPG with moderately improved sequels, instead of the basis of ruining another series for no good reason where even the creators admit it is bad.

It took me more than a decade, finally nailed my opinion. It's a less creative Contact or YIIK. And y'know what, I would've loved to see a Contact sequel and I'm looking forward to the slowly being updated version of YIIK that might finally come out some day. And YIIK is probably exactly as hated in some circles, so I think this is a fair comparison.

Another comparison is how I think Wonder Woman 1984 is a 6/10 movie if taken as a dumb 80s throwback superhero film and immediately drops to a 3/10 when I think of it as a sequel to the 2017 Wonder Woman movie.

@Tyranexx fully agreed on everything. I actually enjoy the writing and story so far. The colors really pop too! I've been in sticky situations quite a few times with no cards to use 😒.

@NintendoByNature Yep. My experience with the game convinced me to not go back and try Sticker Star unless I find the game dirt cheap somewhere. I've been told it's a slightly worse version of CS. What stinks is that CS is a genuinely decent game, but the battle system is a major detriment. Can't say I was too fond of TOK's puzzle wheel either, but at least it was an improvement.

@Tyranexx interesting you didn't like TOKs battle system. I thought it was really engaging. Sticker star is just fine honestly. It's not going to blow your mind, but its a good time. I think I bought a used copy for like $18 or $20 a few years ago.

Sticker Star was part of my “doomsday shopping spree” buys before the eShop closed. The story is simple, and it doesn’t pretend to be deep or anything. Combat is straightforward, and you’re pretty likely to have a surplus of stickers, so running out of them is not usually a problem.

The level-based structure is a bit of a double edged sword, it’s true it feels less like a connected world, but it also simplifies travel in a game where backtracking and retrying levels is part of the gameplay loop.

So, within a vacuum, not expecting it to be a complex narrative driven turn-based rpg with heavy emotional moments… it’s simply a funny little game you play on short spurts.