So, I know that this thread has been declining in interest lately, but I just got a reflection on him that would be interesting to get your takes on it.
I was browsing stuff from the brawl days and I found a thread that was mostly negative on the idea of paper mario for brawl. The whole thread was 4 pages of basically people trying (and honestly failing miserably without knowing) to prove that paper mario = mario, mario in the game = why?
There were also a lot of praise for geno in contrast, but that's beside the point. The point is some people DID acknowledged some differences, they however didn't told the full picture and they basically are telling that it's just doesn't change that he's still mario.
Aside from the obvious argument of paper jam giving paper mario as his name, to me this really does raise the question:
What makes paper mario not mario in practice?
Because in theory, well his origin are mario (he can't BE THE mario because of paper jam).
What I noticed is most people who argue against has really messed up answers to that question. Some might completely deny any differences other than being in paper, but others do note some. The most popular is the artstyle, but alone, this doesn't make it. It doesn't mean that dr mario which have a different style of clothing isn't mario.....
Others points out moveset, but again, if toon link was as less of a clone as possible, it would still feel like link cause they are basically using very similar abilities and the way they use them are also similar.
The problem is this: most won;t go further. I think supporters here will understand that this just isn't the full picture.
If I try to answer this with an exhaustive manner, here's what would be my answer:
Paper Mario has different origins as of his series being kinda disconnected of the mario one and just being in theory a lot different, the genre, the design choices, most of the paper mario series is hard to be much similar to the main mario series. The only thing that feels similar is basically that it is ONE OF the mario subseries, but in concept, it differs a lot.
His world is very different allowing for a very different feel as a character. Being in a paper world changes the way you would act with this character, even turning from left to right constantly remind you of the quirkiness of his world. It changes how he can interact with this world and how he lives pretty much. This is important as it gives a distinctive definition of paper mario as a character.
After, you have his personality. This is felt as you play his games (which is actually why it's the least mentioned), but it strongly differs from mario. Mario would feel like a character that is just happy overall. The problem is it's kinda hard to give him a very well defined personality.. You could say he loves to jump.....that he has some emotions....but tbh, it's kinda hard to have a very well defined personality in his main series. Paper Mario on the other hand, you could go a lot further. I actually tried to do this and I noticed that it really is well defined. He would be someone who just wants to have fun when fighting. It would go as far as to make his audience happy and root for him, I said once that this is like his fuel in fighting. He's someone who wants that his enemy gets that as his crowd is close to him. Then, you have his partners which are just like his crowd: they root for him and paper mario basically has mutual trust with them. As much as his hammer actually.
There;s several animations that points to this, just the stylish and the thumbs up are quite telling, but just plainly having an appeal command.....this is really pointing towards that. This could be because it is an rpg, but his artstyle even helps. See, being always facing the players, his emotions and reactions feels more defined, even the Charles voices just fees more intense and it is the same voice actor. This could be true for any paper characters though.
Finally, I would mention his abilities. Paper abilities not only allows attacks, but also quirky animations. His partners allows for having versatile moves and his main attacks allows to basically have a wide variety of situation to use them. This is important when you mix this with his personality, the moves themselves are very diverse, but the way he will present them would correlate with his feel. To me, he;s a fighter that would try to be appealing while using his versatile moves as a paper in motion. That;s pretty much his goals in fighting summarised in one sentence and it is a well defined playstyle.
Add all of this and you might wonder that not all of these matters.....they actually do.
See, Sakurai WILL care for these. He said multiple time that the way the character is and the way the character do stuff in his games matters a lot in how is playstyle is made and his moves. The GDC conference he did for brawl is the one that is the most obvious, what matters is what the character FEELS and what feels it does when fighting with or against him. G&W has laggy animations on purpose to give the g&w feel. Toon link having several facial expression cause his game just emphase that. You could go on and on, but how he interact with his world and how it feels to the player just matters a lot.
If it only took the more defined emotions, the different interaction with his world and his different feel for toon link to be in as a semi clone.....
idk why people don;t get how paper mario makes sense since it's pretty much almost impossible for him to be a clone.
Btw, you can;t do this with other mario. If I take soemthing like mario in a kart or striker mario, well, sure, they look a bit different and they could do different moves, but does the character defined enough to give a different feel to it?
To me this is like dr mario, it's ok to be a clone as he just isn't defioned enough to drift away from mario. Same as toon link, altough, his personality does differ, not his playstyle, only slightly.
Paper Mario goes beyond that and thus why it;s not redundancy.
What would you answer to that question? How does Paper Mario isn';t mario in practice?
Btw @
MasterOfZoroark
I already added you to the supporter list
I really hope Paper Mario becomes DLC because I'm thinking about changing the CSS when you can hack the game and could give them wing cap and tanooki tails and do a PK sparks skin
