I was looking at my collection of Wii games the other day — a fierce fivesome of Wii Sports, Madden, Wario, Link and Excite Truck — and I realized something: I yearn for a PLATFORMER. Call it an addiction to Mario or Sonic from the Genesis era or whatever, but it was a craving.
So when Blake gave the Infendo tip line a heads up about Game|Life’s GDC impressions of Super Paper Mario, I clicked over there with some obvious apprehension. That quickly faded away, however:
It’s been nearly a year since they announced Super Paper Mario, and I just got my hands on it. Hoo boy. This is the game to be excited about. As you can see from this one image that I stole from the internet, you can flip the game’s perspective back and forth between 2D and 3D. Since you can do it at any time, that means they can hide all kinds of secrets. I think there will be a lot to do in Super Paper Mario, owing to this fact.
It felt great. Is the platforming gameplay as tight as New Super Mario Bros.? No, but then, it doesn’t have to be, as the focus is really on exploration. You’ve seen screenshots that show a gigantic pixelated Mario stomping his way through a level, but what you haven’t seen are the little tiny Marios that you can pick up from time to time. They’ll surround you ten at a time, then attack enemies as you run along. Very fun.
Sure it was originally meant for GameCube, but the art style really is platform independent. Who’s craving paper?