Progress: Gave Up -- Bosses are too hard! I shall return.

Depressingly bored, I decided to see if I could collect some more stars in SM64DS, and I did. But the shoddy controls annoyed me too much to keep at it for very long. Goddamn.

Progress: Gave Up -- 105 stars

Progress: Finished Flipside Pit of Trials, Duel of 100

I'd been waiting for a chance to borrow this from my roommate for a long while. As the spiritual successor to the Mega Man Zero series, it seemed promising enough: interchangeable forms with different and new abilities, set in the same old blast-and-slash MMZ atmosphere.

Unfortunately, I have to say they really screwed the pooch on this one. I could get over the difficulty curve; the lack of health in the early game, the disproportionate strength of enemies, the long (longer than previous games') stretches of level that had to be repeated every time you died or, Light forbid, got a game over. I could get over the limitations of the ability switching; that you start with nothing, and need to earn each new form by beating bosses, each of which has unique disadvantages - I felt like I always had to choose to sacrifice some vital survivability for the necessary jumping height or underwater agility when switching forms, but again, this was not my main quarrel with the game.

What I couldn't get over was the "overworld" system. In MMZX, every area of the game is interconnected, like your Metroid or your modern Castlevania. But, unlike these, the map does not show the connections, or even the areas. No, what MMZX's map shows is a series of nodes - named as A-1, A-2, A-3, B-1, C-1, et cetera - with lines inbetween them to indicate that they are somehow connected. With any number of places for the doors inbetween nodes to reside, it is functionally impossible to get anywhere. There are also teleporter/elevator "trans servers" to move quickly between certain locations, but they are far too few to be practical.

I don't feel like I played ZX enough to give it an absolute evaluation, but the mechanics were just so bothersome that I felt like the rest of the game wouldn't be worth it. I will keep an eye on the sequel to see if it has fixed the map issue.

Progress: Gave Up -- Got Zx, Hx, Lx, Fx suits

Progress: Collecting treasure

Much like Paper Mario's previous outings, SPM begins a little slow but becomes very engrossing in the end. The story is about feelings, which is not something I tend to agree with, but it doesn't come off as vapid or lame. Summarily, I approve of this game's plot, and may even like it, maybe.

I never had the economic problems Brad complained about; after chapter 3 I had trouble preventing my coffers from overflowing (coins cap at 999). Just the same, I feel in general that SPM - after chapter 2 - has a respectable level of challenge. It rarely gets what I'd call "hard," but there were some areas that really kept me on my toes, and the writing and atmosphere really spiced up gameplay segments that would otherwise have been tedious.

I really looked forward to the action RPG game mechanics in SPM, and I do enjoy them a lot more than the turn-based schtick in the other games, but it still feels a bit lacking. The system is fun, and there's not really anything wrong with it; I just think there could be more depth to it. More damage modifiers, more combo options, more extra abilities - only a select few (offhand I'd say three, and even that's a stretch) of the Pixls are useful in combat. Relatedly, except in particular level design circumstances engineered specifically for certain abilities, the usefulness of any non-Mario party member is negligible, compared to the practicality and necessity of his flipping ability. The game could have been spiced up by giving the other party members more appealing traits.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it's a bad game, it's definitely a load of fun. It could be better, though, so I'm already looking forward to the sequel.

Also, the end-game stuff is worth mentioning: there is a ton of stuff to collect even after beating the final boss, but rather than the daunting, herculean effort some games have as second quests, it's all done piecemeal and in a lighthearted way. I'm collecting treasures now, and will probably move on to just general exploring afterward to see what's new in the world.

In the end, Tippi (the butterfly Pixl who reveals hidden things to you) and Count Bleck (antagonist) hook up and vanish. Local NPCs have been hinting that they're still alive, "somewhere," and since Tippi is such a useful game element I have a feeling there's going to be some endgame quest to find her again - and more story to go along with it.

EDIT: it turns out, this is not the case - though you can invest in a high-technical Tippi replacement (Tiptron), the Timpani/Blumiere ending is left alone. Oh well.

Progress: Finished Chapter 8

No sooner did I mention the glut of dialog that it stopped being a problem. Things really picked up in Chapter 3 - which is, as of yet, both the most awesome and most hilarious segment in any video game ever. I just hope the rest of the game can stand up to these kinds of standards.

The chapter organization is a bit disorienting at first; each of the game's (8?) chapters consists of four parts, each part being like a big Mario stage with puzzles and warp pipes and so forth. There is a hub world from which you can begin each chapter from part 1, and apparently you can revisit completed chapter parts at any time, but it is not your typical, seamlessly connected RPG world.

Really, there is very little about Super Paper Mario that is typical for an RPG. It is more like a cross between the sidescrolling action of a Mario Bros. game and the level design and puzzling of the previous Paper Marios. Thus far it appears to be working out fairly well.

Progress: Chapter 4-1

Spiffy. I've still got a long way to go, but the gameplay devices are pretty much as I imagined they would be. I'm already seeing the difficulty ramp up, too, though it's still not very challenging.

I do have to voice my gripe with the presentation. It's good. Too good. Sometimes I feel like the actual game is overshadowed by dialog scenes. I had been hoping this would stop when the NPCs were done reading the game's manual to me, but thus far this is not the case.

Progress: Chapter 2-2

Progress: Chapter 1-2

I'm glad I dug up MMZ2 and tried again, for the umpteenth time; the hard-as-nails intro still miffs me a bit, and the new Forms business is kind of a letdown, but the rest of the game is just as fun as the previous. Like before, there is a great amount of replay in the form of level ranks (and aforementioned hard-to-get forms) for the real die-hard fans, but I'm pretty satisfied with the ~5 hour main story.

Now I can start looking for the third installment.

Progress: Beat final boss, got Ultimate form