Thursday, February 17, 2005
To shoot a paper man, you need a gun and some silly string
I know it's pretentious as all get out, but half of the reason I frequently update this site is just so I can catalog my opinions on a week by week basis. How egotistical is that? Well, not nearly as bad as The Narcissist, who actually brought a mirror to the ring so he could ogle his Grecian physique before and after each match. But probably a notch above Tony Danza, who loves his own name so much he refuses to go by any other name in the various endovenous he lends his extraordinary talents to. Extraordinary doesn't necessarily mean good, does it? If it does, change it to bile-inducing or anti-succulent, depending if you spend your days as a chef or not.
Now that I've devoted a good chunk of my post to a non-video game related introduction, it's time to get to the very opinion that caused me to write in the first place - Paper Mario 2 is boring. Oh so boring. In fact, I would go so far as to say Paper Mario 2 is the most boring game I have played this entire generation. Seriously, I had more fun playing the demo of Front Mission 3. Did I mention that FM3 is a friggin' strategy game? Have you ever heard me even talk about any strategy game ever? That's how boring PM2 is.
Why is it boring? In my review of Dawn of Souls, a game I thoroughly enjoyed (at least I loved FF1, I'm still making my way through FF2) I said something to the extent of "This game is so simple a baby with excessively heavy drool could finish it." The combat is just tapping A until everyone is dead and the story is so simple I could have skipped it and not actually missed anything. In fact, making up my own story with silly voices and elaborate dances would have ultimately created a much more fulfilling experience. I still liked the game, though, because it was fun. The pacing was rough at times, but the music was great and the enemies and locations were interesting. Also, it was older than the discovery of finely shredded cheese (I love those commercials. You know the ones: the husband thinks finely means "about bloody time!" as in "finally" but it just refers to the size of the cheese in question), and old games always get a break in my book.
Paper Mario 2, however, is not old. In fact, it's probably one of the ten most recently released RPGs. So, if anything, it should be really freaking good. Also, it comes from the pedigree of Mario and Luigi's Superstar Saga, wish I absolutely loved, and Mario RPG, which may very well be one of the five best games Square has ever made. This is where I raise my eyebrows thusly and say, with a hint of venom in my voice, "Or does it?" You see, Intelligent System's didn't make M&LSS and they sure as hell didn't make Mario RPG. I don't even think they existed that long ago. But they did make the original Paper Mario, a game I missed out on because my Dreamcast is one of those "I can't be in a relationship if I think you're with someone else" kind of systems. "It's me and no one else, not even that SNES floozy. I've seen you fingering her eject button." My DC was jealous. At the time, I was a might bitter, but seeing as Paper Mario 2 is so bad, it's probably best I wasn't allowed anywhere near the first.
Despite claims to the contrary, Paper Mario 2 is not funny. In fact, I laughed longer and harder at a line from 24 this week than any part of Paper Mario 2. Granted, it was a particularly fantastic part, and maybe the only genuinely funny line in more than 3 seasons... do you want to hear about 24 for a bit? It'll be real quick, I swear. There are these two terrorists, a wife and husband, and their son. The father is trying to kill the son and the mom wants no part in that. So she gets the counter terrorist, um, union (what does CTU stand for anyway?) to help her. When her husband decides to use the son as a hostage, she lets loose on this whole rant about how she hates America and won't help them if her son gets hurt, because she really hates our insolent ways. Blah blah blah. She probably talks for about 700 seconds, uninterrupted, about how she hates every American, as well as Canadian and South African citizens living in the US. Jack, the hero, is on the phone to his boss while she's ranting, though he's staring at her slack-jawed while she rants. When the ranting is finally (not finely) finished, there was a second of silence, and then Jack said to his boss "Did you get that?" And the episode ended. Made Timmy and I laugh quite heatedly.
Besides a renegade dragon eating helpless Toads (the mushroom guy, not the amphibian) there hasn't been any part funny enough to make me actually smile. And the combat, though implementing some minor real time elements, is way too easy. Sure, it keeps me slightly more interested having to hit A right before I jump on an enemy, but it's still so easy. I want some real challenge. I'm more fearful of dying by way of falling feathers from multching birds than from an enemy in Paper Mario. In fact, if I was to end my life in such a manner (by way of feather) it would actually be far less humiliating than dying in any manner from a blow in Paper Mario.
I'm more than 15 hours into the game right now and see no way it can improve. In fact, the deeper I go into the adventure the worse it has become. So long straight forward text based adventure, hello colect-a-thon. Do they really think it adds to the experience to force players to run all over the Kingdom? Surely, even the most feeble minded of denzians can see through this black shroud and realize that arbitrary length detracts more than adds to any gaming endevour.
In case it does somehow resemble a fun title, though - and in the off chance I grow to actually love the game - I now have irrefutable proof that the game was pretty close to bad in the not so early stages of the game. I have no idea how much longer I am forced to plod through this title, but I have three of the seven stars needed to open The Thousand Year Door so I'm hoping that I'm almost at the mid-way point.
Oh, and the music stinks. Every RPG needs great music. Seriously, it's worth delaying a game a year or more just to make sure it all sounds great. The graphics at least look cool, but who cares about graphics when I'm backtracking every 15 minutes accompanied by lame music? Oh how I wish I was playing KotOR 2 instead.
Now that I've devoted a good chunk of my post to a non-video game related introduction, it's time to get to the very opinion that caused me to write in the first place - Paper Mario 2 is boring. Oh so boring. In fact, I would go so far as to say Paper Mario 2 is the most boring game I have played this entire generation. Seriously, I had more fun playing the demo of Front Mission 3. Did I mention that FM3 is a friggin' strategy game? Have you ever heard me even talk about any strategy game ever? That's how boring PM2 is.
Why is it boring? In my review of Dawn of Souls, a game I thoroughly enjoyed (at least I loved FF1, I'm still making my way through FF2) I said something to the extent of "This game is so simple a baby with excessively heavy drool could finish it." The combat is just tapping A until everyone is dead and the story is so simple I could have skipped it and not actually missed anything. In fact, making up my own story with silly voices and elaborate dances would have ultimately created a much more fulfilling experience. I still liked the game, though, because it was fun. The pacing was rough at times, but the music was great and the enemies and locations were interesting. Also, it was older than the discovery of finely shredded cheese (I love those commercials. You know the ones: the husband thinks finely means "about bloody time!" as in "finally" but it just refers to the size of the cheese in question), and old games always get a break in my book.
Paper Mario 2, however, is not old. In fact, it's probably one of the ten most recently released RPGs. So, if anything, it should be really freaking good. Also, it comes from the pedigree of Mario and Luigi's Superstar Saga, wish I absolutely loved, and Mario RPG, which may very well be one of the five best games Square has ever made. This is where I raise my eyebrows thusly and say, with a hint of venom in my voice, "Or does it?" You see, Intelligent System's didn't make M&LSS and they sure as hell didn't make Mario RPG. I don't even think they existed that long ago. But they did make the original Paper Mario, a game I missed out on because my Dreamcast is one of those "I can't be in a relationship if I think you're with someone else" kind of systems. "It's me and no one else, not even that SNES floozy. I've seen you fingering her eject button." My DC was jealous. At the time, I was a might bitter, but seeing as Paper Mario 2 is so bad, it's probably best I wasn't allowed anywhere near the first.
Despite claims to the contrary, Paper Mario 2 is not funny. In fact, I laughed longer and harder at a line from 24 this week than any part of Paper Mario 2. Granted, it was a particularly fantastic part, and maybe the only genuinely funny line in more than 3 seasons... do you want to hear about 24 for a bit? It'll be real quick, I swear. There are these two terrorists, a wife and husband, and their son. The father is trying to kill the son and the mom wants no part in that. So she gets the counter terrorist, um, union (what does CTU stand for anyway?) to help her. When her husband decides to use the son as a hostage, she lets loose on this whole rant about how she hates America and won't help them if her son gets hurt, because she really hates our insolent ways. Blah blah blah. She probably talks for about 700 seconds, uninterrupted, about how she hates every American, as well as Canadian and South African citizens living in the US. Jack, the hero, is on the phone to his boss while she's ranting, though he's staring at her slack-jawed while she rants. When the ranting is finally (not finely) finished, there was a second of silence, and then Jack said to his boss "Did you get that?" And the episode ended. Made Timmy and I laugh quite heatedly.
Besides a renegade dragon eating helpless Toads (the mushroom guy, not the amphibian) there hasn't been any part funny enough to make me actually smile. And the combat, though implementing some minor real time elements, is way too easy. Sure, it keeps me slightly more interested having to hit A right before I jump on an enemy, but it's still so easy. I want some real challenge. I'm more fearful of dying by way of falling feathers from multching birds than from an enemy in Paper Mario. In fact, if I was to end my life in such a manner (by way of feather) it would actually be far less humiliating than dying in any manner from a blow in Paper Mario.
I'm more than 15 hours into the game right now and see no way it can improve. In fact, the deeper I go into the adventure the worse it has become. So long straight forward text based adventure, hello colect-a-thon. Do they really think it adds to the experience to force players to run all over the Kingdom? Surely, even the most feeble minded of denzians can see through this black shroud and realize that arbitrary length detracts more than adds to any gaming endevour.
In case it does somehow resemble a fun title, though - and in the off chance I grow to actually love the game - I now have irrefutable proof that the game was pretty close to bad in the not so early stages of the game. I have no idea how much longer I am forced to plod through this title, but I have three of the seven stars needed to open The Thousand Year Door so I'm hoping that I'm almost at the mid-way point.
Oh, and the music stinks. Every RPG needs great music. Seriously, it's worth delaying a game a year or more just to make sure it all sounds great. The graphics at least look cool, but who cares about graphics when I'm backtracking every 15 minutes accompanied by lame music? Oh how I wish I was playing KotOR 2 instead.
// posted by Tom @ 12:56 PM 
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