SPM Post Chapter 2: Backdoor Deals

Mimi delivers her failure report in absentia. Or is possibly present in the room, disguised as someone else. I think there isn't anybody else in the room, though.

Nastasia is the only one treating this situation with any sort of professionalism. The situation doesn't deserve any, but she tries.

Also, I'm not really sure losing to us was Mimi's fault. She failed to beat us, yes, but as far as I can tell, everything she did was the "correct" decision. She was just unsuccessful in managing to secure victory because we outplayed her.

Bleck's reaction is to comment on how Mimi's loss reflects on our strength- O'Chunks was testing us, but Mimi was going all out. Their next efforts must match this.

Oh hey, O'Chunks, we were just talking about you!

Considering what Cherbils look like, I'm fairly sure this is the game getting away with sneaking a rude joke past the censors.

This is what I mean when I say I feel O'Chunks is singled out by Team Bleck. He is the only character to lose to us who has to quantify his failures to his boss like this. Then again, I highly doubt Mimi would ever turn in such a report if assigned.

O'Chunks nervously admits that despite this bravado, he indeed still hasn't quite finished up.

...That is cruel and unusual punishment, Nastasia. Think of the carpal tunnel! Does he at least get a laptop?

Super Paper Mario Chapter 2: Tricks, Treats and Traps

There's an interesting corollary to the assumption that Chapter 1 is the most important part of any work, and that is the function of Chapter 2. Intermediate-level players know that Chapter 1 can often feel sluggish in comparison to the rest of the story, since it has the important job of explaining the world you are going to be occupying, and so by Chapter 2, you need to get good or the players can be more confident the game will never get good.

Chapter 2-1 is a platforming segment, nothing particularly special other than introducing you to water, a few more high-up platforming bits to fall down from navigating. 2-2 and 2-3 are the real nasty ones, though: A mission consisting of running around a badly booby-trapped mansion that's barely started before it's over, and then a long grinding session for Rubees unless you look up the eight-digit code. And you've gotta find the safe, too. Merlee's Mansion is a massive series of jokes, and this does show what tone the game wants, but it's a dangerous game to continue to hold back your best effort after a slow opening, especially when you're following up a popular formula with a less tested one.

2-4 has a dungeon, with a maze full of doors to repeatedly loop back on and an invincible monster to chase you down. The small number of rooms helps soothe the frustration of returning to many of them frequently, but it also hides the fact this chapter is about as short as the other two in Merlee's Mansion. It's doesn't feel quite so gleeful about wasting your time, however, with the Mimi jokes and the... attempt at good fun that is That's My Merlee!, but if there was a second part of Gloam Valley and the Merlee's Mansion stuff was packed together into just two pieces rather than three, it probably wouldn't bloat the chapter too badly. It would also make it take a little longer to get past Chapter 2 at all, though, so it's a bit of a wash whether the chapter being altogether short makes up for it coming up short.

Plot-wise, we went into Merlee's mansion, found out Mimi had set up a trap, blundered right into it despite knowing full well Mimi was up to shenanigans, broke our way out of it because Mimi left the vault in our reach and/or complying with her until we agreed to her terms, and then plunged into the basement to find the real Merlee and, after a brief stop playing "spot the doppelganger", took out Mimi. Town Stories are not this game's forte, especially considering the lack of towns to terrorise, but you can really tell there's nobody in the plot you're encouraged to care about. Yes, we want to win, we want Mimi to lose, and Mimi has done some serious damage with the whole "slavery" thing... but we don't care what happens to any of the chained up Gloam folk. Hell, we barely care about Merlee. The story just hasn't built anything up to pay off, leaving this chapter more about progressing the overall story by tapping Merlee's fountain for loose Prognosticus lore and getting her Pure Heart. And "there are four Heroes" is hardly the most entrancing lore to work with. This is something later chapters fix, which just makes it all the weirder they just kinda... didn't bother for the first two.

Mechanically, we've been introduced to Peach, Boomer and Slim, with... mixed results. Little combat means little utility of Peach's parasol shield, while Boomer has been treated as utility and Slim has... well, honestly, very little was saving Slim. Constant switching has now been introduced, and honestly, good thing there isn't much of it, because this is only going to get worse the further we get in the game. If the switching bothers you, that won't get better. I wish this game had Gamecube controls so there was a button to map a quick swap to, but somehow I don't think that would've been implemented even if there was. This entire chapter feels like it definitely suffered from the developers making this game a platformer when they didn't have any real investment in playing to the genre's strengths, although this mechanic of Hero/Pixl switching is going to be something the game's dealing with the whole way through.

SPM Chapter 2 Part 2: Stop Copying Me

Taking a break from Merlee's mansion for Merlee's basement! That's... well, it wasn't the pretty Gloam Valley, I'll tell you that much.

Merlee seems to have brought the Pure Heart with her. Or perhaps more accurately, Mimi locked her up because she had the Pure Heart on her.

The faded text here is not because I skipped it and came back, that is an actually the visual effect in use.

Merlee has the same astral projection powers as the Star Spirits. This time, we'll be using her a bit more actively than the Star Spirits.

Merlee's habit of rhyming everything she says existed in 64 and TTYD, but since you only talked to her when doing the mechanical stuff and one sidequest, you didn't necessarily notice this. Here in SPM, she's the signature character of 2-4. So, we're going to be hearing from her a lot.

Merlee's running away from Mimi, rather than being imprisoned by her. The same result has arisen, though- perhaps she used to be imprisoned and is not anymore, perhaps she escaped to this dead end and Mimi considered her sufficiently cornered by stalemate that she could act as if she had won. Which she could. With impunity.

All we know is that Merlee is somewhere in here. Where? She's hidden. That's the idea.

And to make things worse, we don't necessarily know whether we can trust what we see.

...Merlee, is your rhyming scheme OK?

SPM Chapter 2 Part 1: All That Glimmers

With Princess Peach at his side, Mario set out once again, bound for adventure. This time, our heroes were tasked with finding the mysterious charmer, Merlee. If Merlon was right, then Merlee was the key to finding the next Pure Heart. Never one to flinch from danger, Mario set out to find Merlee's mysterious mansion. But little did he know, the evil works of dastardly Count Bleck awaited at every turn...

Now, I wouldn't say every turn...

Now how do we turn around Chapter 1's pacing? I know, a swamp level! It's not as bad as it sounds, but the specific use of the phrase "bogging" evokes the exact opposite of the image SPM needs to start projecting.

The level design is pretty, though.

Shame it's only in 2-1.

You know how hard it is to be Peach, unfailingly polite and kind to all, when you have to respond to observations like this? Frankly, it's amazing she only expresses her anger in Super Princess Peach, when she gets access to the power to literally control her emotions like a remote.