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

@PikminMarioKirby Just out of interest, do you go out of your way to avoid fighting/defeating enemies in non-RPG games outside of the Paper Mario series as well?

@Ralizah Typically I’ll fight enemies if it’s fun. Squashing a Goomba in Mario Wonder can be fun to get a jump boost, for instance. It’s satisfying, which is what matters. TTYD is very satisfying defeating enemies with stylish moves and creative badge builds.

However, if battling isn’t fun for me, I usually don’t. Like in Color Splash and Sticker Star when several unnecessary (and often boring) steps have to be made in order to battle, I’m not having fun. That’s why I like TTYD’s because I don’t have to color in the cards or peel the stickers. Exp is just an extra bonus, and I thought since this is an RPG series we’d get exp. Another reason why TTYD’s is superior in my opinion.

I quite like Origami King if I haven’t made it clear, but I personally find TTYD to be better in most aspects, and if people don’t agree that’s fine!

Not sure where you were going with your question, I think I made it clear that CS/TOK add extra steps that can get repetitive or boring, which obviously isn’t in most other games. I play a game and battle/fight if it is fun, satisfying, or even rewarding. But if it isn’t fun, satisfying, or rewarding I see no point to doing it.

@DanijoEX-the-Pierrot SMRPG is great, I hope you also enjoy TTYD when you get to it!

@PikminMarioKirby And that's all fine. But it's a different critique from what you offered in your other post that I responded to ("battling is pointless because you don't collect exp"). I've noticed that people tend to say this about the modern PM trilogy a lot, like battling in video games has always been tethered to the growth of an xp bar, and Nintendo suddenly invented the adventure game genre with Sticker Star, and it always struck me as odd. It also never seems to extend to anything else. Some Zelda enemies, for example, take a good while to fight, but I've never seen anyone decry the lack of XP accumulation while doing so.

I guess my next question would be: if the combat system is your issue, then would you be okay with a Paper Mario that's not an RPG, but still offers a more traditional combat experience like in TTYD? Like, badges and such, but you use expendable equipment to boost your attacks like in TOK.

@PikminMarioKirby I think the contrary: I consider battles faster in Color Splash than in TTYD. In Color Splash, each battle is done to be won in just one round, whereas it is very difficult to win TTYD's battle in one round (some star powers like the earthquake are very long and tedious to input). And I think it is more interactive in CS (for example, we have to input when using fire flowers or POW, but the player is completely passive when using items in TTYD). I also think enemies are more "lively", more animated and funnier in CS, with funny events during battles with them.

Really, I think there is a better pace in CS's fights. I never avoided a battle in CS (nor the battles of Sticker Star), whereas TTYD's battles became boring to me.

You say an interesting thing though: battles are not "necessary" in Color Splash, which is a good point to me that makes this game "more RPG" than TTYD in that angle (there are other angles CS is less RPG than TTYD). Indeed, the RPG are defined on the concept of "choice" of the player who is playing an RPG as he pleases. In CS, you have the choice between fighting or not fighting. In TTYD, you have no other choice but fighting.

Nevertheless, there is point in battling in Color Splash (and Sticker Star). First, it makes the player a good training before fighting bosses, in order to get used to the gameplay. Then, we get new interesting cards that make battles easier. Moreover, since enemies does not respawn, we can explore stages quietly, so that we can focus on the level-design and the puzzles without playing Benny Hill with enemis (some players may like playing that way, like a Survival Horror, by running and avoiding enemies, but that is not my case at all, I have so much more fun on battling and thinking without being disturbed by enemies). Finally, battling lets the player to complete the museum.

Yeah...TTYD's battle system is way better, I only played Sticker Star, it was...fine...but after playing it once I really had no reason to go back to it, at all. Also yeah, no exp means I also tried to avoid most battles if I can. There's no point, I mean, yeah, more coins, I guess...if I need another 1,000 more or something, which I don't, lol

But story is the other reason TTYD is better. Sticker Star is just...Bowser did something bad, go stop him, HE DOESN'T EVEN FREAKIN' TALK, he just..."Rawrs!", and that's it. lol
_{also I'm just sick of seeing a bunch of normal toads everywhere}

@RygelXVIII I have not played "The Origami King" yet, but I want to give it a try, someday.

@Joeynator3000 Sticker Star also punished the player the more battles they'd do, since the game makes you use your disposable stickers in them. They're the only way to attack enemies too, besides first strikes.

@Joeynator3000 Yes, that is one of the biggest issues Sticker Star have (but Color Splash haven't): an uninteresting story (except 2 or 3 very nice parts like the "flamenco octopus boss", the quizz, or the haunted mansion). Besides, gameplay is well balanced in Color Splash, contrary to Color Splash that can be very tedious. In other words, Color Splash fixes all of Sticker Star's problems, and this is the return of a funny story we like in the series.

Sticker Star has a nice battle system, it’s flexible in the way bosses have easy ways to beat them, but you can also take your time and make the battle harder by not using those easy options.

Of course then it ruins it by having Kersti complain after the battle that you wasted time.

But yeah, given how the game throws stickers at you left and right, and regular battles don’t give you anything besides a few coins, normal enemies are only a nuisance that can and should be avoided. Unless you really want to use up a few stickers to make room.

Never played Color Splash, so I can’t comment on that one.

@Ralizah I only listed exp as one reason. What I meant is that there is no point to do ‘boring’ battles if you don’t even get rewarded for doing so.

I honestly don’t know what your new question means. I don’t know too much about technical terms, I just play the games I like XD I just like the battle engine and characters and story, which is what was missing quite a bit in the new games.

@Rudolf “good training” isn’t a great reason to do battling for SS/CS. You can make that same argument for almost any battle engine. The problem with CS/SS is that the ‘bosses’ require one specific sticker/card, and it pretty much feels like it beats the boss for you in some cases. Completing the museum is also not a good excuse for the battle engine. Again, same argument can be made for tattle log in 64/TTYD. Respawning enemies is great so you can still level up, and they don’t respawn unless you get far enough away or whatever. Also, there’s a badge that costs 0 BP in TTYD where it can defeat enemies without going in battle if they are weak enough compared to you (when you get first strike). That’s pretty quick, but I don’t remember that in CS or SS (could be wrong since I haven’t played those in a while)

Yeah not the greatest design choice in my opinion. I definitely like TTYD’s BP over the limited Stickers/Cards from CS and SS

@PikminMarioKirby In Color Splash, contrary to Sticker Star, there are always hints to know what "Thing" we have to use against a boss, but before using that, we have to fight those bosses "normally" and can't use it at any moments, so it's not at all as if we do nothing against them. Besides, in Color Splash, the "Things" are much more convenient to use: contrary to Sticker Star, there are twice less in Color Splash (and no duplicate ones contrary to SS), we don't have to transform them into cards, and we also have "specimen Things" we can get easily and use during normal battles, so that we can keep the "real" suitable Things" against the boss (in Sticker Star, the management of the inventory was very tedious).

Yes, the respawn of enemies in TTYD is good for leveling, but if we don't want to do that, and if our level is not high enough so that this mentioned badge gives us an instant win against weak enemies, it can be annoying. The problem is that the played is forced to fight in TTYD even if he considers the battle system to bo annoying, or else he might not win against bosses.

And that is personal, but swap color of enemies annoyed me in TTYD. In CS, but also the original N64 game, I had the feeling enemies were more diversified.

Actually, I NEVER had the feeling to be "punished" when battling in Color Splash or even Sticker Star (or except during the first or two first hours when I was discovering the new gameplay). We are punished only if we don't understand battle system very well, e.g. if it takes more than one round to defeat enemies.
Since I'm already familiar with "Card system RPG" like Baten Kaitos, maybe that helped me?

(and there is no tedious backtracking, nor "pressing the button 100 times to say I love you" silly thing in Color Splash, nor uninteresting Bowser stages)

@Rudolf Yeah SS struggles with the problems more, however I feel like CS does somewhat to an extent as well, and it’s totally fine to disagree with that! Guess it just depends on your taste.

I think that it’s silly to complain that a few enemies are recolors in TTYD, when pretty much every NPC in CS and SS are recolors if not literally the exact same Toad or Shy Guy. In CS specifically, for the enemies there are the different normal re-color shy-guys, slurp guys, stack guys, spike guys (and probably color variants), those folded up ones, sombrero guys, shy bandit, etc (If I’m remembering right) CS is significantly more bland with it’s characters and enemies than TTYD is. CS’s bosses were also a lot of times just the Koopalings, but the bosses felt so unique in 64/TTYD which make them stand out from normal Mario games.

....Yeah after Sticker Star I stopped with the series entirely....so I never bothered with Color Splash or Origami King. lol

@PikminMarioKirby In fact, I preferred by far the Koopalings than TTYD's bosses. Actually, I think Color Splash is their best performance in any Mario game. They were so fun to fight in CS.
In TTYD, I don't particularly like the X-Nauts (I think I prefer classical characters in Mario series, not really the original ones, that's also why I prefer by far the original N64 game). As for the bosses, I liked the first dragon (There is a good gimmick with her weakpoint, but I don't particularly like her two brothers) and the final boss (that is long and more challenging, with cliffhanger), but else, it was just ok to me.

You talk about "sombrero guys" in CS: that's precisely such a creativity and silliness that is lacking to TTYD, I think.
In the N64 game too, there were funny enemies, especially the Shyguys. Such a silly thing is missing in TTYD (without forgetting the music that is outstanding in N64 game and Color Splash, nor their much more interesting level-design in stages).

@Joeynator3000 At least give Origami a chance. It's a genuine step-up from Sticker Star and on a level closer to TTYD(in its own ways).

@N00BiSH I saw videos of the game and it's just not doing it for me.

@Joeynator3000 I found Origami King to be fun (and of course better than the previous 2), but I don’t think it’s nearly as good as TTYD and 64. It still shares some of the same problems as CS and SS, but to a lesser extent.

I just prefer TTYD and Super to all the others because they go all out on story and uniqueness.