Despite being told countless times to play the fantastic Super Mario RPG Legend of the Seven Stars for the SNES, I’d never played an RPG Mario game, only playing Super Mario 64, Mario Kart 64 and Mario Party growing up. As one of my first video games, Super Mario 64 has a special place in my heart. Developed by AlphaDream, some of their other titles include Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga for the Game Boy Advance, Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time. NDS and Mario & Luigi: Dream team for the 3DS, but now comes the next installment in the Mario RPG franchise Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam for the Nintendo 3DS.
The game opens with Luigi accidentally opening the book that contains the world of the Paper Mushroom Kingdom, which releases all the residents of the book with the exception of Paper Luigi. Play as party of three characters: Mario, Luigi and Paper Mario and make your way to Bowser’s castle. When the two Bowser’s meet up it’s a clash of egos, though their eventual partnership is foreseeable. And naturally, having two Princesses Peach is a mildly comical twist on the tiresome kidnapping premise.
Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam offers classic RPG gameplay. The battle system is easy to grasp. Mario, Luigi and Paper Mario each have a jump attack, and a hammer attack, as well as special attacks such as using Luigi’s flamethrower. Players can also choose to flee or use items to heal or deal damage. You can use the touch screen to access cards that deal extra damage as well. Progression in Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam is based on completing puzzles and mini games- with the main mini game being collecting the paper toads in each area to help them cope with new surroundings of the third dimensional world.
When it comes to the graphics, Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam does an excellent job. The blend of Paper Mushroom Kingdom with the standard Mushroom Kingdom World is magnificent. The voice acting is on point and fits, living up to the standards set by previous Mario games. Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam has a great sense of humor, although I did have trouble remembering the main story once i picked the game up again. A colorful atmosphere, mixing in with some things that will feel familiar and some that are brand new really manages to bring the world to life.
What I didn’t like in Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam is the countless amount of time backtracking, repetitive timed mini games, or attacks (those various attacks, dodges and counters all involve some aspect of timing your button press just so in order to get the most out of them) which took me time to master. To be honest, I still haven’t fully mastered them. Maybe I shouldn’t have been multitasking while playing the game. Also even though the game has a comedic dialog, I wish more was done story wise.
All in all, Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam is a good game with exciting, fast-paced gameplay that keeps the player busy from start to finish. AlphaDream did a great job and this is for sure a RPG Mario game worth picking up, if you haven’t played one but the story brings it down.