Super Paper Mario (Wii)

This is Mario's first proper adventure on the Wii and one that many Nintendo fans will love from start to finish. The graphics are bold and colorful, the ability to flip between 2D and 3D is a masterstroke and the Pixls Mario encounters all have ingenious abilities (my favourites being Fleep who can make u even thinner and Thudley who can smash things up).

The Mario magic is there, but there are still a few things missing that stops it from reaching those five stars. For one it is a bit easy - compared to the last two Paper Mario games - and some levels feel a bit too empty. The scrolls of text might get annoying to some aswell, although it an absolutely funny adventure! The turn-based RPGing of past Paper Mario's has been toned down a lot though, so it's not all bad! And the music has some delightful retro nods to classic Mario games of old.

We all know that Mario Galaxy will rock, but this is still a great adventure to keep you going until the mascot's must buy game. Definetly recommended.

Super Paper Mario is a combination between the RPG and side-scrolling platformer genres. You collect points as you kill enemies, and those points count toward increasing your level. As your level increases, you increase either your HP or your attack power (it alternates, you don't get to choose which one).

As with most games of this type, there are a lot of story-based cut scenes which do have an entertaining story to them, but sometimes get long and tedious, especially at the very beginning, where there's a lot of setup.

You start out the game as Mario, after seeing Luigi, Peach and Bowser all sucked into some kind of dimensional vortex. You set off to find and rescue Peach, and recover 8 Pure Hearts to save the world. Along the way you also have a Pixl friend accompanying you to help you along. You find additional Pixls with different abilities (like creating bombs or giving you a super-stomp ability for flattening large objects). As you progress through the game, you find the other characters and add them to your party, and you'll use their unique abilities in different ways. Mario has the ability to do the dimension flip I'll talk about in a second, Peach can use her umbrella to glide long distances or hide from damage, Bowser can wipe out enemies with fire breath and does double stomping damage, and Luigi has a super-high spring jump. There are also at least a dozen or so Pixls with varying abilities that need to be used in different ways.

The game itself is primarily the usual Super Mario action... you run to the right and jump over obstacles and on enemies. One cool thing is that you can shake the remote up and down after jumping on an enemy to get a bonus score. For enemies that take more than one hit, you can do this repeatedly for increasing bonus points. Sometimes you reach obstacles that you can't jump over. This is where the really interesting part of the game comes in.

Early in the game, you learn the ability of "flipping" which is triggered by pressing the "A" button and turns the game world 90 degrees so you can see a different perspective. For instance, if you are going along and run into a really tall pipe that you can't jump over, flipping may show you a path as simple as just walking around it. Flipping also sometimes reveals hidden treasures or paths.

The game overall provides enough challenge, leading you to switch characters and Pixls frequently to solve puzzles, but without getting tedious and repetitive. The space levels were particularly entertaining.

I expect a casual player can finish the game in approximately 30 hours, and it's fun for adults as well as younger kids. It doesn't rely as much on fine motor control skills and precise jumping (though those certainly can help in some situations), but does focus more on making you think how best to use your characters and Pixls to beat certain obstacles or bosses.

I would really only ding this game on replayability... it doesn't strike me as a game I'm going to be likely to pick up and play again once I've finished it. Not because it's a bad game, but because it just won't be different, so what would be the point?

'Super Paper Mario' is the first Mario game (other than Mario Strikers and Mario Party 8) to hit the Nintendo Wii and what a great game it is. The game takes elements from all of the various Super Mario games (such as the 2-D platformer levels from the original Super Mario Bros/World series, the 3-D platforming levels from Super Mario 64 and Super Mario Sunshine, the RPG storyline taken from the Mario & Luigi Superstar Saga and Partners in Time games and the 2-D paper style graphics from the Paper Mario games) and rolls them into one to create something completely new.

The game begins as a regular 2-D platformer that we've all seen before, until Mario learns a new ability where he can "flip" between 2-D and 3-D dimensions. The technique can then be used to reveal hidden enemies, boxes, coins and items as well as access new and alternative routes to help him get to the end of the level. As the game goes on, Mario gains the help of Pixls which also give Mario new abilities to use, such as grab and throw items and enemies, place bombs and change him to be completely flat, enabling Mario to be invisible and transparent. As well as Mario you eventually get to play as Princess Peach and Bowser too. Each character has different abilities, so you will need to switch between characters every now and again to get past certain obstacles.

Generally 'Super Paper Mario' is a good fun and well designed platformer with a lot of great features new to the Mario series. Flipping from 2-D to 3-D is a great new twist to a very old formula and is one that works surpisingly well. Most levels are quite long and fairly challenging, allowing you to use the characters' new abilities to the fullest. They also vary in design, ranging from hillsides to deserts to haunted houses.

There are a few bad points that stop me from giving this a 5-star rating. First is the intro which goes on and on and on. It literally takes nearly 25 minutes before you even get to take control of the action. I do like games with a bit of a storyline, but for a platform game this is going a little to far. Next is the controls. Although it does make good use of the Wii Remote in that you use it side-ways, giving it a NES controller retro feel, it rarely uses any of the Wii's unique tilt and movement sensitive controls. Also, switching between characters is very fiddly and tedious as you need to hold 1 & 2 on the remote to open up the menu, then select a character.

Overall this is a great game and a fantastic addition to the Mario series. Fans of both retro Mario and the newer Mario RPGs should love this and it should also keep you busy until later in the year when we get the next "real" Mario game, Super Mario Galaxy. With the possible exceptions of Zelda: Twilight Princess and Resident Evil 4 (depending on taste) this is the best game on the Wii so far.