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Discussion There will never be another game like Super Paper Mario (Picture Heavy)

Truno

Truno

Koopa
Pronouns
He/Him
For better or for worse, there'll never be another game like Super Paper Mario.

I've seen a lot of praise for the previous Nintendo Direct as it showcased two unique-looking Mario games: Super Mario Bros. Wonder and Super Mario RPG. To some, these titles are just the latest installments in the ever-iterative franchise that is Mario. But to hardcore fans, these titles showcase a sudden shift in Nintendo's philosophy behind the Mario IP, as Nintendo had a firm and unwavering set of standards that the IP must follow since the Wii era. These standards led to various controversial decisions, such as the creation of the New! Super Mario Bros. series, the "vanillafication" of Mario sports spinoffs, the death of turn-based Mario RPGs, and the lack of unique characters within the Mario universe.

For example, the original Paper Mario (N64) and its sequel (TTYD) were created before these guidelines. From Sticker Star forward, the guidelines were imposed. You can see the shift in character designs here:
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Similarly, the original Mario Party (N64) showcased unique characters:
mario-party-n64-unlockables-03.jpg


These were altered in the newest Mario Party remake on Switch in order to fall in accordance with the guidelines.
Mario-Party-Superstars-Toad-Sticker-Shop.jpg


Almost out of nowhere, Nintendo decided to be more strict with handling the Mario IP. They opted to preserve the image of all characters within the Mario Universe throughout all forms of media. Any developer that was to touch upon the Mario IP had to follow a set of strict guidelines.

To fans, these changes were sudden and abrupt. What caused Nintendo to suddenly shift from allowing uniqueness and creativity in media that showcased their company mascot to establishing strict guidelines that imposed restrictions on directors?

I believe that the culprit is Super Paper Mario.

61Evlt3wq8L.jpg


Super Paper Mario is a weird game. It's a 2D Mario platformer that incorporates RPG mechanics such as HP, ATK, and DEF stats, unique character abilities, and EXP systems. On paper (no pun intended), that sounds pretty normal, right?

Well, let me introduce you to some of the wonderfully weird moments of the game:

The game starts off with Peach and Bowser's wedding (???) in an effort to create a Chaos Heart, a tool that'll aid the villain in the destruction of the world.

super-paper-mario-bowser-peach-wedding.jpg


Mario is banished to Flip-Side, the town in which his adventure begins. Flip-Side is filled with... strange folk:

th


Mario embarks into various worlds that are all interconnected with Flip-Side. In these worlds he:

1. Becomes a slave to a rich girl in an abandoned Mansion who is secretly a shape-shifting spider. The game pushes you to do nothing but walk in one direction for 15 minutes in order to generate electricity for your master... I'm not kidding. You're forced to hold the controller and press one direction for 15 mins+, that's the gameplay.

2-3_034.jpg


Mario escapes with the aid of other prisoners, and the boss battle includes... a game show in a bathroom?

2-4_072.jpg


And then the final showdown with the spider ensues:

th


2. You need to play a visual novel from the perspective of one of the minor antagonists in order to seduce princess peach.

3-4_107.jpg


And it all takes place in the cat-themed lair of the aforementioned antagonist!

3-4_040.jpg


3. You go to space wielding a laser-spitting galactic octopus with a fishbowl on your head for oxygen

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What are we doing in space, you may ask? Well, getting chocolate from the supermarket, of course!

4-3_043.jpg


5. Mario and Co have to go through 100 gates, aka 100 tests of strength, in order to meet the King of a new kingdom!

6-1_010.jpg


Surprisingly, the villain wins(?) and you witness the end of the world with the death of Mario and crew.

6-3_007.jpg


Mario is sent to... hell?

7-P_012.jpg


Within The Underwhere you have to face off with the mighty cerberus... but the game becomes turn-based?

200px-SPM_Underchomp_Battle.png


After his victory, Mario needs to search for the rest of his crew in... Heaven? Or, excuse me, The Overthere:

7-4_008.jpg


6. The final encounter results once the main antagonist is betrayed by one of his lackeys, who then brainwashes Luigi into joining his team:

cc2849d3005a6e16427f53ff4aaaeef869197e62_hq.jpg


These are just some of the many set pieces of the game. It's been a while since I played it, so I might be forgetting a few, but you get the gist. Super Paper Mario showcased the freedom that developers (even third-parties!) had with Nintendo's most prestigious IP before the guidelines were established. Although Wonder looks promising, it's doubtful that we'll ever see this kind of uniqueness from Nintendo's mascot ever again. But as I look back at SPM, I cannot think of another example in which a developer is given this amount of freedom to use one of the most popular IPs in the market to make such a weird, AAA game. The game was so weird that it effectively caused Nintendo to tighten their grip on any third-party (or internal) developer that used their iconic Italian plumber.

The game received mixed reception due to its departure from the turn-based RPG roots of its predecessors, the wacky plot and character designs, and the simplicity of its combat system, but I will always cherish it as one of the weirdest games I've ever played. What do you think of it, Fami?
 
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PM peaked at SPM and that was what ended it.

SPM is one of those games that benefited from time, as more people started looking as its exquisite sides: its excellent story, characters, soundtracks, unique locations and the like. And the fact theres literally only ONE toad in the whole game.
 
Super is my favorite Game of all time. You never knew what would await you behind next next world door, or when you might end up in hell, in space or the back of a electric dragon with Wii Shop loading screen eyes. People say that this game has a charming story, but lacks in the gameplay department. I never understood what's wrong with it, it's a fun jump and run / RPG with an incredible amount of attention to detail and love put into it.
 
It's still to this day, the best selling paper Mario game. It's still really odd that it's such a black sheep, when it's far more popular than any other game in the series. Same with Origami King.
 
Lozjam said:
It's still to this day, the best selling paper Mario game. It's still really odd that it's such a black sheep, when it's far more popular than any other game in the series. Same with Origami King.
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i mean, its the third most liked game in the series. Its hardly a black sheep and more like a controversial title.
 
Are these guidelines the same thing as the discussion surrounding the so called Mario mandate that supposedly never existed and was ultimately a design choice by the designer's own wish? Phew, that's a mouthful...

Anyway, I loved Super Paper Mario back when it released and recently replayed it, while I still found it a unique game I believe it's for the better that it will remain just that single game.

It was a very enjoyable experimental game, but I don't think the 3rd dimension did the game much good save for a few navigational gimmicks that could have been targeted differently just as well. Besides that the cooking mechanic from Paper Mario was very badly implemented in SPM and redundant because it came waaaay too late in the game. Then, from the Ninja chapter onwards the game suddenly feels rushed very badly. Such a shame. I did love the RPG mechanics but with some fooling around they were easy exploitable.

... Just my take, because I initially believed it was a awesome game until I replayed it years later and saw more flaws that put me off. I still love it for what it was but I will not remember it like a once in a lifetime experience.
 
Lozjam said:
It's still to this day, the best selling paper Mario game. It's still really odd that it's such a black sheep, when it's far more popular than any other game in the series. Same with Origami King.
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It helps that Super Paper Mario is a platformer and was the first game on the Wii to star Mario. Those are conditions we’re unlikely to see again.

Having said that, Super Paper Mario is great anyway, it really swung for the fences and I respect the sheer brazenness of the things it tries to do.
 
Fantastic write up. I played it earlier this year for the first time and loved it. SPM is rather underrated and doesn't get as much love as it probably should.

I know that everyone wants a remaster of TTYD, but this game would benefit more from a remaster. A few QOL adjustments would make for a popular re-release.
 
Nah, Super Paper Mario is only weird by Mario standards. It's melodramatic in a very commonly video gamey way. I liked it enough when I played it, but as time has gone on I like it less and less.
 
People love to say this but I’m not convinced that most of Super Paper Mario’s content wouldn’t be perfectly fine to exist in a game today, because most of the weird shit in that game is specifically of interdimensional origin. There’s no “mandate” that says new, weird, nonstandard characters can’t be used anymore, it’s just that they’re now trying to make an effort to have consistency specifically within the Mushroom Kingdom and characters from it, but as we see in recent games like Paper Mario: The Origami King, Super Mario Odyssey, and even Super Mario Bros. Wonder, it’s totally fine to have weird, nonstandard stuff in new Mario games still, as long as the stuff in question isn’t from the Mushroom Kingdom. And honestly, I much prefer it that way. It makes sense to put guidelines on a certain range of characters and such so that you don’t end up with a total mess and mishmash of conflicting things when it comes to continuity and lore, which is exactly what had been happening before they started making a coordinated effort to unify things more. And I think the first two Paper Mario games were much bigger offenders in that regard than Super Paper Mario was, given that most of Super Paper Mario takes place entirely outside of the Mushroom Kingdom.
 
The "M" from Mario's cap is actually meant to reflect the Mandate, not the Mario.
 
I replayed it about two or three years ago and I'd say it felt exactly as I remembered: the writing, the plot, and the situations Mario is thrown into are absolutely great, but the gameplay doesn't reach the same heights.

Switching to 3-D is a pretty awesome mechanic, but I think that given it is tied to a framework that has neither full-blown platforming nor deep combats, it ends up not having much room to explore.

Overall, I think the team did one hell of a job within the constraints of the gameplay, but those constraints are way too limiting.
 
It's weird to me that Paper Mario fans talk about old games as if it was their dead wife or something. Like, it's the only fanbase that seems to lament something being not the same with so much spite towards newer stuff.
Personally, I think SPM suffers from the same issue TTYD does: good concepts are not supported by its level design, which is often linear and asks you to go to the edges of the level multiple times, often disguising its padding as a joke. Replayed it recently, barely finished it. Honestly think 2nd and 3rd Paper Marios would benefit from someone cutting off like 5 hours from main story gameplay for them to be enjoyable to me, because no amount of "Mario in hell lol" (admittedly memorable and great subplot) can get me to walk back and forth a million times.

Also, there's gonna be a weird Mario again someday. Aside from people talking about "mandates", even if they WERE real, people in charge are quite old and new generation would definitely make something strange and unexpected. "Never" is a very strong word considering we just got an announcement of two really weird brand-new Mario games.
 
We have a thread specifically for talking about Paper Mario the series as a whole. Let Super Paper Mario have some attention for itself.
 
Love a good Mario Mandate thread, and I certainly agree with the OP.

I'm never sure how to properly rate Super Paper Mario as I don't think I ever enjoyed the act of actually playing it (I did not enjoy the gamefeel of jumping in this game) or flipping between the different helpers, but it was so strange, unique and charming that I made it all the way to the end having a good time. Flipping between perspectives remained interesting all the way through. It was a good game.

But afterwards I reckoned that was the right time to get off the Paper Mario train, and I've only ever dabbled in the subsequent games, which were clearly not for me. It's kinda strange as a veteran of the post-Other-M decade-long Metroid flame wars to be able to stand and watch the drama around the Paper Mario series with relatively impartial eyes. If pushed, I'm rooting for you hardcore Thousand Year Door fans, lol.

Fundamentally, I think Nintendo was right to tighten the grip on their IP from a business standpoint. I remember how funny and "un-Mario" people thought the Koopas using leetspeak were in 2003 in Superstar Saga - how deeply unusual that was to see in a Mario game - and then just four short years later in 2007 in SPM it felt like all hell had broken loose when it came to writing and characters. But I do think they went slightly too far reigning the writers in and drained a bit of charm from subsequent games.

Unpopular opinion: The Paper Mario series never properly looked like actual paper, and that always disappointed me. It should just have been called "Flat Mario". It wasn't until Tearaway on Vita that I saw something like I had originally expected Paper Mario to look like, and then Nintendo themselves kinda delivered on a similar idea in Yoshi's Crafted World.
 
Lozjam said:
It's still to this day, the best selling paper Mario game. It's still really odd that it's such a black sheep, when it's far more popular than any other game in the series. Same with Origami King.
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I would suggest The Origami King is a masterpiece that has a few crumples in its Origami Paper due to some of the gameplay. But otherwise, music, visuals, story and writing are all top notch.
 
I did play Super Paper Mario back in the day, found it charming and weird but never really got around to beating it. This was years ago though, maybe I should give it another whirl sometime.
 
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I’ve been working my way through replaying the Paper Mario series and Super Paper Mario is on deck. I may actually get around to doing the full Pits of 100 trials this time! Looking forward to revisiting some of the more out there chapters. I recall the space one being a bit dull, but the rest I feel pretty fond of.
 
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I just wanted to pop in here and an SPM fan and recommend the closest game I've played that gives me the same feeling. It's a cutetroidvania by the name of Wuppo.

Here's a post I previously wrote about the game.

-

First, here's the launch trailer to give you a good idea of what the game is like, since screens don't quite do its storybook aesthetic justice:



wuppo_screenshot_hd1ddkr8.png


So let me say I love Paper Mario in all of its forms, including its recent polarizing iterations. To me the most funny and surprising Paper Mario game was Super Paper Mario. Wuppo embodies the spirit of a Nintendo game for me, and it especially feels like a spiritual successor to SPM. It's funny in the same way that game is funny. It's also surprisingly poignant in the same kind of way SPM was (#Bleck was right).

You play as a wum, a roundish little individual that sits around the wumhouse all day watching TV. Your adventure starts when the siren call of a delectable ice cream cone brings you to the front desk of your apartment complex.

wuppo_screenshot_hd15fmje3.png


For a Metroidvania-ish-thingie, or as I like to call it a Cutetroidvania™, this game offers some very diverse locales to visit. What I love about Cutetroidvanias and Metroidvanias in general is the interesting places you get to go and the new game mechanics which allow you to visit them.

So, the interesting places you visit include:

-Popo City, an underground socialist city
-Wondersplenk, an amusement park
-The cradle of primitive civilization
-The ends of our very dimension
-And more!

wuppo_screenshot_hd4kzjrf.png


As you go you'll meet all kinds of fascinating and hilarious characters. You know the part of Paper Mario Color Splash (that none of you heathens played) where you meet the Shy Guy with the existential crisis? A lot of the NPCs in Wuppo are similarly unique, offbeat and endearing. The dialogue trees are endlessly captivating to read through. Another thing I really like about 2D adventure games is the NPCs you meet. I love reading through their various dialogue and seeing what happens if you say unusual things to them. The main character in Wuppo is hilariously expressive in his reactions which just adds to the joy of playing the game. You also have a partner character on hand commentating on the action at times, and to an enjoyable degree, without being overbearing.

Per Unseen64, inspirations for the game include not only Paper Mario but also Rayman 2 and 3, Undertale, Mass Effect and Banjo-Tooie, especially in terms of interacting with the world and its inhabitants. I think all of these influences shine through in interesting ways.

wuppo_screenshot_hd7qkkid.png


Like SPM, the focus isn't on action but on exploration, platforming and 2D adventure game logic. You traverse the world, learn new moves, figure your way around some open dungeon-y type areas, meet interesting characters, and partake in some combat here and there. There is some backtracking to be done, and the world feels open and connected in an organic and incredibly well thought out way.

wuppo_screenshot_hd14xvjiz.png


When action does come to the fore, it's mainly in the form of boss battles. These are a 2D twin stick bullet hell style of boss battles. Let me just say the game offers a difficulty setting you can change at any time. I was tempted to switch to Easy on a couple occasions but resisted and managed to make it through the game on Normal. I am seriously terrible at bullet hell games, but the bosses are so fun and creative that I am glad I powered through and was able to beat all of the main and secret bosses on offer, including the one that only shows up during a certain time of year.

wuppo_screenshot_hd16rvkla.png


Another thing I enjoy is Sidequests. The major sidequest in Wuppo is collecting filmstrips. (There are a whole bunch of others, too.) What's awesome about these filmstrips is that they're the main form of entertainment of the inhabitants of the world of Wuppo, so in collecting them you get to learn more about the game lore (delicious, delectable LORE), you get to watch a hilariously crudely drawn filmstrip, and you see how the characters who man the little theaters react to what's shown on film. One of these characters for example refuses to watch a diary filmstrip with you, but at a different screening area the character will think reading someone's diary is about the funniest thing ever.

wuppo_screenshot_hd60ek36.png


Also the game has some primitive cro-magnon characters that are basically talking flowers, and their dialogue and attempts at making filmstrips are legit LOL-worthy.

There is also a vast array of mini games, from taking up a newspaper delivery job, to competing in tests of wum pinballing, to muddy volleyball deep in a sinkhole forgotten by civilization.

How long is this game?

HLTB estimates 8.5 hours main story, 14 completionist. I'm guessing we put in a good 20 hours to 99.5% the game, and that's with barely touching an optional side mode.
 
It has some questionable gameplay choices, but as an experience this game is the shit. I loved at the time and I still do
 
Nabbit said:
I just wanted to pop in here and an SPM fan and recommend the closest game I've played that gives me the same feeling. It's a cutetroidvania by the name of Wuppo.

Here's a post I previously wrote about the game.

-

First, here's the launch trailer to give you a good idea of what the game is like, since screens don't quite do its storybook aesthetic justice:



wuppo_screenshot_hd1ddkr8.png


So let me say I love Paper Mario in all of its forms, including its recent polarizing iterations. To me the most funny and surprising Paper Mario game was Super Paper Mario. Wuppo embodies the spirit of a Nintendo game for me, and it especially feels like a spiritual successor to SPM. It's funny in the same way that game is funny. It's also surprisingly poignant in the same kind of way SPM was (#Bleck was right).

You play as a wum, a roundish little individual that sits around the wumhouse all day watching TV. Your adventure starts when the siren call of a delectable ice cream cone brings you to the front desk of your apartment complex.

wuppo_screenshot_hd15fmje3.png


For a Metroidvania-ish-thingie, or as I like to call it a Cutetroidvania™, this game offers some very diverse locales to visit. What I love about Cutetroidvanias and Metroidvanias in general is the interesting places you get to go and the new game mechanics which allow you to visit them.

So, the interesting places you visit include:

-Popo City, an underground socialist city
-Wondersplenk, an amusement park
-The cradle of primitive civilization
-The ends of our very dimension
-And more!

wuppo_screenshot_hd4kzjrf.png


As you go you'll meet all kinds of fascinating and hilarious characters. You know the part of Paper Mario Color Splash (that none of you heathens played) where you meet the Shy Guy with the existential crisis? A lot of the NPCs in Wuppo are similarly unique, offbeat and endearing. The dialogue trees are endlessly captivating to read through. Another thing I really like about 2D adventure games is the NPCs you meet. I love reading through their various dialogue and seeing what happens if you say unusual things to them. The main character in Wuppo is hilariously expressive in his reactions which just adds to the joy of playing the game. You also have a partner character on hand commentating on the action at times, and to an enjoyable degree, without being overbearing.

Per Unseen64, inspirations for the game include not only Paper Mario but also Rayman 2 and 3, Undertale, Mass Effect and Banjo-Tooie, especially in terms of interacting with the world and its inhabitants. I think all of these influences shine through in interesting ways.

wuppo_screenshot_hd7qkkid.png


Like SPM, the focus isn't on action but on exploration, platforming and 2D adventure game logic. You traverse the world, learn new moves, figure your way around some open dungeon-y type areas, meet interesting characters, and partake in some combat here and there. There is some backtracking to be done, and the world feels open and connected in an organic and incredibly well thought out way.

wuppo_screenshot_hd14xvjiz.png


When action does come to the fore, it's mainly in the form of boss battles. These are a 2D twin stick bullet hell style of boss battles. Let me just say the game offers a difficulty setting you can change at any time. I was tempted to switch to Easy on a couple occasions but resisted and managed to make it through the game on Normal. I am seriously terrible at bullet hell games, but the bosses are so fun and creative that I am glad I powered through and was able to beat all of the main and secret bosses on offer, including the one that only shows up during a certain time of year.

wuppo_screenshot_hd16rvkla.png


Another thing I enjoy is Sidequests. The major sidequest in Wuppo is collecting filmstrips. (There are a whole bunch of others, too.) What's awesome about these filmstrips is that they're the main form of entertainment of the inhabitants of the world of Wuppo, so in collecting them you get to learn more about the game lore (delicious, delectable LORE), you get to watch a hilariously crudely drawn filmstrip, and you see how the characters who man the little theaters react to what's shown on film. One of these characters for example refuses to watch a diary filmstrip with you, but at a different screening area the character will think reading someone's diary is about the funniest thing ever.

wuppo_screenshot_hd60ek36.png


Also the game has some primitive cro-magnon characters that are basically talking flowers, and their dialogue and attempts at making filmstrips are legit LOL-worthy.

There is also a vast array of mini games, from taking up a newspaper delivery job, to competing in tests of wum pinballing, to muddy volleyball deep in a sinkhole forgotten by civilization.

How long is this game?

HLTB estimates 8.5 hours main story, 14 completionist. I'm guessing we put in a good 20 hours to 99.5% the game, and that's with barely touching an optional side mode.
Click to expand...

Huh. You've kind of sold me on this, but it helps that it reminds me a lot of Maddy Thorson's 2007 freeware game An Untitled Story, a least in terms of the art style. It looks a lot more polished, obviously.
 
Wonderful game. Paper Mario is perhaps my favorite game so obviously straying so far away from the RPG roots was initially a turn off. However they did something unique that still maintained a lot of the great qualities of the Paper Mario series. They could have spun this off into its own subseries and still continue the Paper Mario RPGesque titles.
 
Mario is often at its best when it's at its weirdest imo. I was disappointed when Nintendo reined in the IP, particularly in the late Wii and WiiU era. Glad to see they've gotten a bit weirder again with Mario in the Switch era.

The story, setting and scenarios of this game are fantastic and so creative. The Sammer Kingdom/Underwhere part is the high point. The gameplay was inoffensive but bland for me. And the 3D bits being so limited and often gimmicky was disappointing. Soundtrack was brilliant again though, the whole Paper Mario franchise has great OSTs.

Overall, a strong spin off where some aspects worked super well and others fell a bit flat.
 
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While the platforming is more on the simplistic side for the most part, tho it does have a handful of cool set pieces, everything else is pretty much peak fiction in Mario form. The scenarios, characters, locales that the game shifts through is pretty impressive, somehow keeping itself pretty consistent the whole time, the music also helps a lot, everything Count Bleck related is excellent, and Bounding Through Time is one of my absolute favorite tracks in the franchise, and gaming as a whole really.

A game I cherish a lot, and as the years and games go by, also respect for everything it set out to do with Mario and succeded, and something that hasn't been or see it being matched in the near future in terms of its bizarre originality, Mario's Majora's Mask.
 
Hailinel said:
Once again, I am asking people learn what IP guidelines actually entail instead of complaining about a """"mandate"""" like it's a bogeyman created out of spite.
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I mean: You're right that IP guidelines are not literally the same as a mandate, but the effect is the same. The studios still have to adhere to the guidelines unless given permission to otherwise. Perhaps they're less strict than a "mandate," but Nintendo would still crush any rogue project that goes completely against the guidelines unless approved of first.
 
We will never see a Mario game as deranged as this ever again. I have super fond memories of playing it back in the Wii days and still adore the Flipside music. đź’—
 
SPM is by far my fave Paper Mario and one of my favourite games. The only downside of it is the 3D gimmick because it doesn't add anything and it's get old quickly. A full on 2D Mariovania in this style would be amazing.


Dizzle said:
Super Paper Mario is just Kingdom Hearts for Nintendo fans, I'm sorry.
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Kingdom Hearts is great so no need to be sorry :p
 
I hated SPM but when you put it that way OP I can kind of see the appeal, as a sort of Frog Fractions-vania type game.
 
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Narroo said:
I mean: You're right that IP guidelines are not literally the same as a mandate, but the effect is the same. The studios still have to adhere to the guidelines unless given permission to otherwise. Perhaps they're less strict than a "mandate," but Nintendo would still crush any rogue project that goes completely against the guidelines unless approved of first.
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You act like it's an act of aggression to stomp out all creativity when it's more "don't create Toads with penile heads and make sure Daisy's dress is this specific shade of yellow".

Paper Mario fans have an incredible persecution complex over something they don't even bother to understand.
 
Dizzle said:
Super Paper Mario is just Kingdom Hearts for Nintendo fans, I'm sorry.
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It is, and that's why I love it. Played it when I was 12, and just the right age to appreciate edgy clowns that wants to destroy existence because of feelings and that whole flavour of storytelling
 
VegiHam said:
It is, and that's why I love it. Played it when I was 12, and just the right age to appreciate edgy clowns that wants to destroy existence because of feelings and that whole flavour of storytelling
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I was 16, so I (felt like I) was aging out of that kind of storytelling. I fell off of Kingdom Hearts with Birth by Sleep a couple years later. But to be honest, I don't think it was the storytelling that bothered me about either game. It was the gameplay.
 
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Dizzle said:
Huh. You've kind of sold me on this, but it helps that it reminds me a lot of Maddy Thorson's 2007 freeware game An Untitled Story, a least in terms of the art style. It looks a lot more polished, obviously.
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It's a really wonderful game. I didn't know Maddy Thorson had a 2007 game. I've got to check that out. Thanks!
 
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Hailinel said:
You act like it's an act of aggression to stomp out all creativity when it's more "don't create Toads with penile heads and make sure Daisy's dress is this specific shade of yellow".

Paper Mario fans have an incredible persecution complex over something they don't even bother to understand.
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Errrr....I think you're getting me confused with someone else or a different group of people.

I'm just pointing out that the difference between an imaginary mandate and IP guidelines isn't really that significant in the context of the conversation. Like, people keep complaining that they reduced the creativity of Toad NPCs because of some imaginary mandate. But, if it's because of a set of IP guidelines they implemented, it's kind of the same difference.

I'm not actually a Paper Mario fan, but I've noticed the difference over the years.
 
Narroo said:
Errrr....I think you're getting me confused with someone else or a different group of people.

I'm just pointing out that the difference between an imaginary mandate and IP guidelines isn't really that significant in the context of the conversation. Like, people keep complaining that they reduced the creativity of Toad NPCs because of some imaginary mandate. But, if it's because of a set of IP guidelines they implemented, it's kind of the same difference.

I'm not actually a Paper Mario fan, but I've noticed the difference over the years.
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Yeah, sorry about that.

It's just a ridiculous thing to keep hearing, as though Nintendo has some conspiracy going to ruin a franchise for...some reason?
 
Hailinel said:
Yeah, sorry about that.

It's just a ridiculous thing to keep hearing, as though Nintendo has some conspiracy going to ruin a franchise for...some reason?
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I'll admit, I haven't heard that one. What I heard was: "Nintendo decided that they didn't need to turn-based JRPG spinoffs for Mario, so they revamped the Paper Mario series to be different from the other ones."

I don't know why anyone would think IP guidelines are supposed to destroy a game series. They might constrain the games a bit, but that's another issue.
 
Narroo said:
I'll admit, I haven't heard that one. What I heard was: "Nintendo decided that they didn't need to turn-based JRPG spinoffs for Mario, so they revamped the Paper Mario series to be different from the other ones."

I don't know why anyone would think IP guidelines are supposed to destroy a game series. They might constrain the games a bit, but that's another issue.
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It's just one part of a general nonsense sandwich including fans' tendency to blame every creative decision they don't like either on the Mandate itself and the Mario Shadow Council, or on Miyamoto personally because Tanabe was quoted once that Miyamoto gave feedback that an early Sticker Star build was too much like TTYD.
 
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Replaying this game leading up to TOK a few years ago made me realize that it's sort of a slog to actually play (I really don't think they hit a good balance of platforming/RPG mechanics, like at all lmao) but everything else about it more than makes up for it. Really makes me think if say, Sticker Star had a similar out there plot/memorable characters people would be (somewhat) more forgiving of its transgressions because I think SPM's writing and world-building is classic PM's strengths showing in full force.

EDIT: I mean whether you call it a 'mandate' or 'IP Guidelines', I think fans are just trying to refer to whatever influence it was that caused the obvious difference in character/world-building that occurred between the first three games and the latter three. Paraphrasing as its been a few years and I can't remember the specifics of the interview, but Tanabe's "we're not allowed to anymore" comment in response to someone asking about this leading up to TOK does indicate it's more than just the developers arbitrarily deciding they wanted to stick way closer to the mainline games, and TOK itself sort of indicates a willingness to at least try and pull itself closer to classic PM in that respect.
 
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Hailinel said:
Yeah, sorry about that.

It's just a ridiculous thing to keep hearing, as though Nintendo has some conspiracy going to ruin a franchise for...some reason?
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Nintendo would never willingly ruin their own franchise.

Nintendo (just like any other company), sometimes doesn't understand why something works, or doesn't work. And that ends up resulting in mismanaging.

Mario definitely had a period of time where IP guidelines were rather strict.
 
Lucifer said:
Mario definitely had a period of time where IP guidelines were rather strict.
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See, this is where I don't agree. It's not that they used to be more strict. It's that fans never understood what the guidelines actually were. So stuff like "No OCs" started getting parroted even though that was never true.
 
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