it;s time, the tree house ended for today and I got some time to relax and I checked everything we know so far. This post will tend to be exhaustive, but please note: it likely might get outdated rather quickly so, I will only post additional info, this is what was shown, heard or accesible today.
First, we got the digital event with the trailer, right after the event, we got some screenshots and a summary on their E3 website:
http://e3.nintendo.com/games/3ds/mario-and-luigi-paper-jam/
After, the tree house did footage of it (this link contain the right time)
http://www.twitch.tv/nintendo/v/6240441?t=3h47m59s
And finally, gamexplain did 2 video footage of screen with direct audio:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIbIN49uoDk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBMkPZj_suc&feature=youtu.be&a
This is every documents we have on the game, nothing more.
Now, let;s get to the summary.
the game is clearly advertised to be M&L, as stated in one of the feature of the summary:
- Characters from the Paper Mario universe – including Paper Mario, Princess Peach, Bowser and Toad – jump out of a book and into the world of Mario & Luigi, resulting in hilarious and dangerous hijinks, trademarks of the Mario & Luigifranchise.
and there;s a plenty of other evidences, but this one shows it's a fact.
As for the book, we see it looks like the sticker star book, yeah there is some sticker star elements, but don't fret, these are good parts of sticker star
We know luigi kinda fall over the book as said int he treehouse, basically, we don;t know much. We don;t even know the main vilain but I will bet you it is NOT bowser because with the trailer scene.....it would feel weird. (inb4 shadow queen, lol)
We don;t know much of the dialogues, i cannot tell if the humor style is more m&L than PM (they are vastly different).
So, now that the summary is done, the game is said as action rpg (and it is accurate) as well as the release date being Spring 2016 meaning what we saw is quite far in dev.
now, let';s get tot he actually game.
The tittle screen is the trio and notice already paper mario do its thumbs up, yay!
a quick not on the tittle, I learned that paper jam is actually the thing when you get a paper stuck from a printer. Upon learning that, I felt the name was extremely clever because it;s the paper that jammed into m&L.....brilliant.
Now, the world are clearly M&L style, so is the music. now, tbh, I dont; like both style compared to paper mario, but let me continue (there;s other stuff that I love about the game).
The animation depends, if Paper Mario, you get paper mario and if M&L, you get M&L. this lead me to check the paper mario animations and FINALLY THINKING IN BATTLES IS BACK!!!!!!
The paper mode animation is just not fluid, I hoped to see a twist.....I would forgive if 3ds limitations, but at least that and the paper plane from TTYD are back (and folding over....this is ambiguous though). So, I won;t complain much, you have stuff from TTYD so YAY!!!! The hammer is the wooden one (good to see you back.....i love this hammer design a lot) and he uses a very huge ultra hammer that looks paper mario 3d style to have the special attacks. These attacks are actually good, it's the enemy is paperised no matter if paper mario or M&L (you have both kind of enemies, more on this later), and you try to to slap a bomb with tennis stuff. The trick is you have to aim it on the papers and you have to press the button of the character (mario is a, luigi is b and paper mario is y). this sounds very hard in a good way, these might be the best action commands ever because paper mario also has neat stuff.
At the cost of his turn, you can have copies sticked to you. For those of you who played SS, it';s like the 72 boss sticked together, except you have around 6 copies I think. the enemies in paper however has that ability as well which leads to weird paper attacks that honestly, might be a contribution tot he paper mario series as the paper part of the enemies was too weird in SS and not much shown in other games, this one seems to do it right. The copies makes the action commands way harder, but you can deal more damages. Overall, I love it
other things to note of him in battle, you can block and he has the classic duck and cover animation again, YAY!!!!! one cool thing though, I saw a dual fire flower attack with M&L, paper mario was actually cheering behind them, a quirky addition. In battle, he has the famous angry pose when in defense, AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH YES FINALLY HE HAS IT IN BATTLE!!!!!! The other things are classic, he has tripping when you actually trip (watch the treehouse footage, you'll get what I'm saying) and the on one foot animation like before the plant boss. You can attack either M&L or paper enemies with any characters, it doesn't matter. Finally, for some reasons, paper mario can fluffer, you read that right, fluffer....I don;t get why, but I'll just say it's cool
btw, his pose are back like the stylish poses, you have them integrated with stuff like action commands or winning a battle (this is the first game that has him NOT do the thumbs up when winning, but don;t worry it appears often enough in battle).
if I don;t bring m&L gameplay, it's because it's what you would expect from dream team (i even played the demo and some parts were really similar). One thing I noticed is that you could just use paper mario a lot and don't use M&L a lot, this is why I am saying that I mind find a way to like the game anyway.
Last battle mechanics are the cards and you willl notice that they have the shiny SS textures, a nice touch. These cards appear after one turn is complete and you have a limited amount of cards displayed on the bottom screen and you can only have 3 cards at the time. My theory is that you gain cards int he overworld or by a shop or something. As for the unexplained button on the lower screen, i think it's a shuffle cards button, leave that to your speculation.
Speaking of gameplay, overworld, well one thing that bothers me a lot is it already was annoying for me to press 2 buttons to jump.....you now need to press 3 buttons. This was actually shown by the treehouse footage, the guy was choking on some parts due to him having to press 3 buttons in order just for jumping. 3 buttons is way harder to get used than 2 so this is one of the thing I just don;t like about M&l that got worse imo.
However, I do not see any evidences of switching powers or tech....this might be very good if it is not there for me, if it;s there, please don;t use it as much.....again, one of the thing I didn't liked about m&l. at least it;s not like superstar saga when yu switch powers AND leaders....this one I got pissed at one point. You have a 3 hammer combo if you time the button (but it seems fine for such action, jumping seems not however). You have a dash after a fluffer which I ask, why exactly after a fluffer? Maybe it is to eliminate powers switch? if so, NEVER MIND YES, BEST REPLACEMENT EVER!!! You can also trip to catch running stuff like toads in this case.
The paper craft battle is pretty straight forward, it's an M&L style mario, sorry but it doesn't look paper mario style to me.... At any case, you do some rhythm stuff to charge it and you just ram into other paper craft enemies (which actually, not sure if I would describe these goomba as paper style or m&L style....leaning on the later). You can also charge it to have it drop the papercraft, but you need to gain it back by moving the platform and you loose a bit of power. You can charge it by doing the rhythm thing again. overall....it;s not much paper mario to me...it;s just there.....not very much interesting tbh.
Some other things about the overworld, we see cactus and those dessert trees from SS. This is again very good because it was a good part of SS.
Every paper mario characters has a white outline for the first time ever. This would NORMALLY look extremely odd, but consider that they are near m&L styled characters, it actually makes it better. So, cool.
This is it for the game mechanics, overall, the paper Mario stuff are well integrated and if it;s going well, it might make me buy the game despite my complains about M&L gameplay due to some stuff that would overshadow them.
Now, here;s the stuff that just makes me EXTREMELY HYPE, how much nintendo cares about Paper Mario.
Sure, the goomba tells it;s 2 mario, but guys, if you read the text from the footages, you will clearly see Paper Mario and mario, THIS IS THE BEST THING EVER!!!!
Look, this has HUGE implication. Every enemies has the word paper in front of them and paper mario is no longer mario. every freaking paper mario elements is NOT viewed as mario and even more, the guy at the tree house stated that paper mario has abilities that mario cannot do as well as its series having a distinct flavour and artstyle. mention of spm and TTYD, but as expected, no SS mention.
This means 2 things:
- Paper Mario gets so much deserved love. Seriously, I myself never thought they would ever say "well this guy is no longer mario, it's another entity". for me, it jsut felt like toon link before and it does bring heavy love tot he series. He even has its name officialese for the god sake, what can you ask to have the love of the series better? not only this is very bright looking for his series, but because the James leak is still around, it doesn't change the chance of getting a Paper Mario game on WiiU. Even more and this is the the cherry on the cake, this game is probably a transition to paper mario coming back big. They are aware of what happened to SS, that tbh, I don;t think I shoudl doubt this anymore, they know. This game i feel is a tastes of the charms of Paper Mario and because of this, it will likely sell a lot. I really feel that this game is the midpoint between SS and paper mario getting back on its glory. It just makes sense for me. Basically, FINALLY THE SERIES GETS SOME DUE LOVE LIKE IT SHOULD BE!!!!!
- You waited for this one....it completely screws up our logic on his support for ssb4 in a fantastic ways. Before, you could not deny he was the same mario, just being an offset of him would be enough in ssb. Now, you can no longer say he;s mario, but you HAVE to acknowledge that hes now officially Paper Mario. This is huge guys, i feel so much free that I can finally have solid evidences against the claim that he is redundancy because of being mario. Even the treehouse guy (the one who actually worked on the games) acknowledge that Paper Mario has different abilities that mario cannot do which is made obvious in this game. Even more, notice how paper luigi is not playable? Yeah, this again, makes him very distinctive as a character. This is like the Overthere and I;m not joking, I would NEVER think this day would come when you could finally argue that Paper Mario isn't mario, but PAPER Mario. This just looks bright to us and this is why we should jsut do more effort now, the newer game will bring more activities.
TL;DR (though, why you didn;t rerad this interesting post?
).
I am not sure if I will buy the game because I need to see if the aper mario stuff would overshadow my dislikes ont he M&L gameplay. This game implies SO MUCH
stuff for the series making a sequel more likely and finally getting rid of the worst arguments ever against its inclusion in ssb4 and his series now gets the recongition it deserves. it is the midpoint between the fail with sticker star and a big come back to root.
I;m actually looking forward to hear more but now, I shall plan my activities on support because look, even the OP needs a huge revamp like....wow.
Does anyone have any opinions on this exhaustive review of previews?