Advance Wars Days of Ruin Act 2.5: A Rose By Any Other Name

This side of the Greyfield story is much more clear about what it is about and what it aims to do. And at the same time, there remain a few distinct holes in the pacing department.

We start with Will stepping up to the position of Commander of the Wolves, in a literal fashion fighting back Brenner from the brink of defeat. This is precisely the situation Will needs to establish himself as a viable candidate, and yet Will also maintains a veneer of newness. Will has, up to this point, been treated like a kid to be looked after, and while a lot of that has been in his particular personality, this does also suggest that not enough of the plot has really been devoted to setting Will up as someone to be trusted with jobs. Lin makes a pretty good snark at his expense on the subject, but all it does is remind us that Will isn't particularly far out from being a civilian to be looked after.

The next chapter is a complete change of pace from the story so far, being a bit of a dumping ground for an assortment of plot points. We are introduced to Tabitha, Caulder's older daughter and the one with a bit more agency over his desires, and the Talon Gun, one of IDS's toys that they left lying around to be used against us. And while we are here, we are also given the reinvigorated Creeping Derangea, to become a spectre hanging over the army. One of these stuck around in the plot, with Tabitha joining Penny in not really developing or doing anything until the game is ready for them. There's some times where I feel like a few plot points could be given more time to breathe, and maps like this are probably what they were looking for, and yet we won't hear from Tabitha again until after this arc. Despite, you know, Tabitha being the one to pull the trigger on killing Brenner. I also find it interesting that the only times the Lazurians are playable in here are the breather chapters. Will must really need that time to cook.

Chapter 18 has the breakdown amongst our army as a result of the Creeping Derangea, Will stepping up to knock some heads together, and then almost as quickly, the revelation that Creeping Derangea is affected Greyfield's army too. We are invited to compare and contrast Will's response to the situation- telling people that while their emotions are valid, that the smart thing to do is stick together and trust in Dr. Morris- with Greyfield's, and watch Will's army hold together while Greyfield's buckles. This is probably the key piece of the arc, trying to explain how the dire straits we started with are converted into a strike against our oppressors so quickly, but there's a certain tone that's expected of the final maps that doesn't quite show as a result. The plot didn't really want to linger in this arc long, but something about the rush takes away from the moment.

Chapter 19 is another breather moment, this time with the town of Salvation and The Worm. We get yet another insight into how Creeping Derangea affects the populace, this time with a genuine populace rather than that of one of our two armies, and it lies in the middle- and yet somehow, closer to ours than to Greyfield's. The cultish devotion to an authority figure feels like something that Greyfield needs in order to establish himself as the fascist commander he believes he is, and yet his habit of shooting anyone who so much as looks at him funny prevents one from forming. We also see that at least Davis of Greyfield's army defects into Salvation, but his single conversation prevents us from seeing if this is something happening in great numbers- or indeed, if Davis was intended to have been killed as part of his devotion to The Worm.

In one of the biggest swerves in the story, the immediate next map is our climactic battle with Waylon, murderer of Forsythe, Greyfield's most "trusted" soldier, and a general pain in the ass. See what I mean about how quickly we go from being on the backfoot to plunging into the heart of the enemy? Waylon at least makes up for his lack of narrative buildup with a map and playstyle that give him a final fight to remember, but I can't help but feel as if something is missing in the jump from Salvation to Waylon. It certainly doesn't help that the whole lack of choice in CO rears up for one major disappointment- Waylon's biggest crime in the story is murdering Forsythe, and he is an air CO. This should have been a Tasha map. They brought Tasha, of course, but in such a supporting role that she's not even allowed air units of her own to match Waylon's. Climactic maps in the Wars World games often involved the player controlling more than one army, but I think DoR deliberately chooses not to include such maps for the sake of its story tone. Still, I wish I was playing as Tasha.

Waylon is followed up with the final map with Greyfield, and at the very least, they turned up the stakes appropriately. Caulder is given a direct impact on the story, and has given Greyfield something that allows him to be a threat without having that army that's slowly been driven away from him- and something the narrative can feel free to include in the form of a time limit. This map has two major stumbling blocks for me, though- it's our first map playing as Lin the CO, which pretty solidly confines it to being a Fog of War map, and the Caulder Missiles aren't a map feature, meaning that the standard play is what we need to defuse what the story spends quite a few words building up as a significant threat. AW2 and Dual Strike have big, world-shaping missiles to throw around and challenge us to stop, but these are map features, and we are given unique wincons to somehow disable these (usually by capturing properties "powering the structure" or blowing up a terrain feature), and I feel like it would help my state of mind on the status of the Caulder Missiles if victory here were done the same way. And yet, winning directly leads us in to the most impactful scene in the story- Lin doing to Greyfield what he did to Forysthe and Brenner. There's no way I'd give that up for anything, but a map where we go up against the Caulder Missiles would definitely invite Greyfield to slink away more easily. Plus, these superstructure maps don't really feel the same in Fog of War- which again, Lin needs for her CO Power.

As a package, this arc of the story represents the part of the story IS has always been worst at- the part where our ragtag bunch of randos turns into an army capable of turning back the organised empire that has been causing us so much trouble. Fire Emblem spends a lot of time coming up with maps that have unique goals, mixing it with a good excuse for EXP for our units that grow as the story progresses, helping to cover up for an overall lack of narrative flow. This is not something Advance Wars can rely on- since any given map will be the same no matter what maps have come before it, we only get unique setpieces to differentiate our various plot points. AW2 played to Advance Wars's strengths, giving each country a series of vignettes, with a variety of different schemes tailored to the personalities and abilities of each of the colourful cast of COs. But step back, and notice that each of that game's twelve heroic COs gets two maps each. We have four COs, and the way CO Units work differently to Wars World D2Ds mean that "unique abilities" of each CO can't make or break map design that way. We still clearly have a shortcoming compared to what AW2 did- we could have had another Lin or Gage map to play more effectively to their strengths (Gage didn't even get indirects...)- but being asked to fill a Fire Emblem story's narrative pacing with Advance Wars has worked against the game as a package. What this means for Advance Wars as a whole depends on why this game was using an FE structure to begin with- as an experiment, this was a pretty distinct failure, but did IS mean this solely as an experiment, or did they genuinely thing that AW should be heading in FE's direction, and saw this as reason against trying again with the series? Given the lack of any fresh AW content since, one can only imagine which answer is more likely...

Advance Wars Days of Ruin Act 2: Another Name For Murder

Well, that sure seemed to run the gamut there. We've seen quite a bit, and the transition between Acts 2 and 3 is a little more muddied as a result. Partially because of how long, or otherwise, Act 3 will be left if you cut it at the natural stopping point. So, what have the last few chapters been about?

After a timeskip, the bunker we've spent all of Act 1 claiming has reached the end of its resources, with no sustainable situation in sight. Almost immediately, Waylon comes along, claiming Brenner's- or rather, Lin's by proxy- tactical acumen for use in Greyfield's half-baked war with Rubinelle, using an extension of resources as bait. Almost immediately, we can start to see fallibility in Brenner, although we certainly haven't been encouraged to look for it yet. A true heroic commander would have turned that bunker into the formation of a new society, and would've turned away Waylon immediately. Brenner says he does the right thing, but he doesn't seem to have thought all the way long term about it.

We get a few missions fighting Lazuria here, and Tasha's single-minded revenge has allowed her to fake being an evil CO to transition from The Beast with. With that said, Waylon and Greyfield's definitions of heroics leave a lot to be desired, and the player is probably asking questions about which side they really sympathise more with long before Will and Brenner start to question that. Using just Tasha to form our opinion of Lazuria, perhaps "both are assholes" was the intended reading, but Tasha even takes the time to calmly explain her reasons for hating Rubinelle to Will, and in hindsight of "what kind of a monster Greyfield is", her story would make an excellent motivation for a hero. Gage, meanwhile, is a Lin found on the opposite side, and while Lin's not exactly winning prizes for being a good person, having Lin around helps explain the kind of character Gage has.

And then we are introduced to Forsythe, and in a single map, we are kind of retroactively given a justification for why Brenner was so happy to take Rubinelle's side in the war even as Greyfield threatened to murder him over it. Brenner's father was murdered by Lazuria's still serving general, and his death was responsible for a stigma he carried around in Rubinelle's army. This backstory bomb comes out of nowhere, and while revealing it earlier might have tarnished the pedestal the story's spent so long putting Brenner on, it's kinda too perfect an explanation for Brenner's ruby-tinted glasses to be thrown out almost when Brenner's ready to take them off. Forsythe, for his part, spends his time firmly characterising himself as exactly the kind of man who could be forgiven for killing a man's father, so much so that Lin's already talking about it before the scene where Brenner and Forsythe bury the hatchet. Now granted, the War Room is of questionable narrative value, but it does highlight how little time these COs are getting.

And then comes the twist in the story- Greyfield and Waylon cast aside all plausible deniability and start killing PoWs. They kinda spent a lot of time talking about how Lazuria needed to stop existing for them to be happy for this to come as a surprise, but there is a world of difference between talking about it and actually doing it. Brenner, as is his character, is quick to declare that the right side to be on is with the Lazurians, and in doing so, sacrifices his own life to let them escape. Given his role as a mentor, idol, and a "grizzled brunette father figure in an Intsys game", it's frankly a small miracle that it took this long for the game to kill him, but to be fair, the only CO that dies in the Wars World trilogy is Sturm. The real question here is why Brenner seems so insistent on it. Yeah, he's the one Greyfield wants, and giving it to him is the best way to get everyone else out alive, but Brenner's never let a life be sacrificed on his watch, why is his own on the line? Somehow, I get the feeling there's supposed to be an entire arc Brenner's going through to get to this point that just... never turns up because Advance Wars isn't big on this sort of thing. Chalk one up to the differences between Advance Wars and Fire Emblem here.

Gameplay-wise, this is mostly a continuation on the tutorial. We get three missions in sequence introducing us to various naval units, with the final one being a halfway-decent production battle on its own merits. Tasha's navy-only battle was one hell of a matchup for a tutorial, though. After all this navy, we get a final showdown kind of map with Forsythe, which also doubles as an introduction to meteors and plasma- surprisingly, the fact it's a tutorial doesn't really matter that much. And then next mission, we finally get to see the main draw of Advance Wars- COs! Not really sure on how they went about introducing them, though. It's a very powerful narrative technique, particularly when paired with next mission, but this results in introducing CO Units, and their somewhat unintuitive and original mechanics, in a weird order for getting the player used to them. CO Units are considerably less important to DoR combat than COs were to Wars World, but still, I kinda wish they had a better tutorial. Oh well, they hit it out of the park with Chapter 15, they get a pass.

Advance Wars Days of Ruin Act 1: Struggle to Survive

Days of Ruin has a bit of an issue trying to squeeze itself into an act structure of any kind, but I think we can all agree what we just did was definitely an Act Break. So then... what's going on here, then?

We start off directly in the apocalypse, with Will getting absolutely no time to establish himself before Brenner and Lin jump in and take him under their wing. And you know what? Fair. Will hardly seemed like he had a self to establish, owing to being in the academy that would have guided him along that path, and much of his characterisation in Act 1- and to a lesser extent Acts 2 and 3- is about finding his self. And he could certainly do far worse than emulating Captain Brenner's heroism and selflessness. Act 1 hasn't yet concluded this arc, but there are some events in Act 2 that are definitely aimed at challenging him on this.

Brenner and Lin themselves serve as de facto main characters for the opening stretch, and all of the challenges involved are posed for them. Or rather, Brenner in particular. Lin has been a hanger-on, making her particular attitude known when required, but she has not actually impacted the plot yet. Another clear indicator of a character being saved for later, Lin's job has been to do off-screen things and it's high praise that she hasn't needed to contribute directly yet. Brenner is able to heroically do everything he wants to because Lin knows how to get it done, and Brenner has not set himself impossible goals because he knows Lin's capabilities. Without even having to acknowledge it, the two are established as a good team.

Our heroism, then... we go to Freehaven, help them, and nothing happens because the Mayor's a jerk. We go to Morris's town, recruit them, and are introduced in passing to Caulder and his as-yet-unnamed daughter, and their aims in destroying our factory are met. We then escort both villages to a bunker on Isabella's say-so. All the while, we fend of a persistent yet singular raider and his army of tanks. The only clue as to where the plot will go from here, other than Caulder himself, is a misson where we save a different self-satisfied prick from someone other than The Beast, and we hear rumblings of national friction predating the meteors. Sound familiar? That's a pretty bog-standard Fire Emblem opening, minus the part where all the Brigand Bosses are played by the same actor. Surprisingly, Advance Wars gets a lot of mileage out of the pacing, given all the unique units we have to be introduced to. Yeah, Fire Emblem uses its opening stretches for the same reason, but they don't have quite as many units to go through. Compare this to some of the openings of the Advance Wars trilogy games, and you'll notice a few climactic maps pause to explain new units.

On the other hand, meanwhile, there is one... weird bit to the pacing here, and it might help if I mention a few statistics and details from future maps to illustrate my point. For one thing, this game has 26 chapters. For a second, The Beast has by far the most maps where he is the opposing CO, at eight- the next-most frequent opposing COs (it is a tie) don't even make it to five. And finally, one of this series' most important mechanics hasn't even been introduced to us yet. The pacing of the opening is fine enough in a vacuum, but when we look back on this after the next ten chapters, I can't help but feel like there were a few Beast chapters that could've perhaps been pared down, making some breathing room for later enemy factions to establish their credibilities. At the same time, though, I'm not necessarily going to say they needed it. Something to think about, perhaps.

Mechanically, what have we seen? All of the ground units and their functions (we haven't used any War Tanks ourselves yet), and most of the air units. We've also gotten a fair taste of their strengths and weaknesses, both on the offense and defense. There is one more type of unit we have yet to meet, and the first part of Act 2 is going to be giving us a few maps worth of introducing us to this unit type- a fairly standard Advance Wars order of operations. We have also been introduced to unit production, and have been made to use it on offense and defence- although not that often on defence. There has also been a nice helping of Fog of War- Advance Wars' fog mechanics make playing in it much more bearable, and it uses it more liberally as a result. A Fire Emblem game wouldn't give us more than one Fog map by this point. Of course, we are still missing the major mechanic alluded to previously, and with it, any reason to want to play one CO over another. This wouldn't have been the case in the Advance Wars trilogy, but it does somewhat impact the player by making Brenner, Lin, and Will feel more samey than you'd want. Admittedly, even with that later mechanic, DoR downplays the differences between different COs, but it's still not a great feeling. At least it doesn't feel bad that you're not allowed to choose.

Pokemon Sun and Moon Analysis: Poni Island

So then... Poni Island. The Garden Island has quite the garden path to traverse, requiring us to be cognizant of both what SM was doing and what USUM was doing to judge the stories as written. This could be a doozy...

First off, we land in Seafolk Village, and are directed to Hapu. Hapu then takes us with her to Tapu Fini's Ruins, rounding off the whole "bring Nebby to Ruins" and answering none of the questions raised by this plot point. The plot has since moved on, and now we are seeing a kahuna be chosen. The Island Challenge having a big gaping hole carved into it is one of the points that most supports Kukui's assertion that the Island Challenge needs innovation, but his chosen solution doesn't even assist on this topic- it just adds five new positions that need to be filled, while the challenge it replaced used pre-existing positions.

From here, we are more or less led straight to the Altar. We just need to pick up a token Flute- which is an excuse for Lillie character development in SM and accomplishes nothing in USUM- before going to Vast Poni Canyon. We get a bit of closure with Skull beforehand, but ultimately, we never get to see how Guzma brings his experiences back to Team Skull. USUM did try and work with this, by adding a Guzma scene to Mina's Trial, but said scene was more about Guzma's quarrels with the Island Challenge. For all the importance family has within the plot of SM, actually discussing positive familial relationships like those of Burnet/Lillie, Guzma/Plumeria, or even Gladion/Lillie (the two interact once) doesn't seem important to the game. The story has much more to say about redeeming Lillie/Lusamine.

Vast Poni Canyon has two major setpieces- Lillie's first Trial, where she stands up to the situation that we had to save her from in the opening setpiece, and our last Trial. At least in SM. There is an interesting juxtaposition in the matter, and it should be the angle through which Lillie's newfound capabilities express themselves. But to a degree, Pokemon has put an impressive level of emphasis on the idea that it is actually possessing Pokemon which strengthens your capacity to affect the world, and this is something denied to Lillie in the story. The conclusion of her arc- her setting out to begin a League Challenge with a fresh Starter- seems to be where the devs want Lillie to get her first Pokemon, but I feel, at this point in the story, Lillie should have a Pokemon of her own other than Nebby. Not only would it give Lillie a new angle to demonstrate character development- she could have much more control over it than she does Nebby- but it would emphasise the idea that Lillie can take care of herself, while still having plenty of upwards mobility to justify our continued assistance.

At the Altar, there are two different climaxes of the story- in SM, Lillie confronts Lusamine, and stops her from being evil so she can become her mother again. In USUM, Ailey confronts Necrozma, doing a job that Lusamine was too short-sighted to do right and accomplishing the job despite Lusamine having made it that much harder. Thematically, Necrozma is trying to do too much to have a coherent understanding on why this is an appropriate climax- it's less of a natural conclusion to the story and more of an excuse to fight Ultra Necrozma. Lusamine, meanwhile, is the opposite- this is exactly the correct climax for the story, except the game ignores the reasonable climactic conclusions to draw for no explicable reasons, and the confrontation with the Motherbeast Lusamine is not an excuse for any original mechanics (other than, perhaps, the idea of Pokemon getting totem auras in Trainer battles). This story had an amazing premise, but it is clear as crystal the developers either don't know or don't care about that fact. When your story is already so heavy that it's an obstacle for the enjoyment of some people (including your target demographic), the least you can do is at least make it worth it. SM's strong reputation is entirely on the back of fans filling in the blanks.

The aftermath of the Altar directly leads into the League Challenge in SM, but USUM decides to add a new Island Trial, and give the existing Grand Trial more weight, in this time. Mina's new Trial brings a wonderful sense of closure to the standard Island Challenge, but the special circumstances of our Trial go unanswered- we do not get any idea on what Lillie, Gladion, and Lusamine are up to here. Only Hau, and sort of Guzma, get any screentime, and even Hau is only vaguely foreshadowing his Champion battle. This is followed up with Mount Lanakila, which does have a moment with Gladion, only for him to be his usual reticent self. If anything, the plot is more interested in adding more fights than it is with wrapping up story conflicts. Considering USUM decided to add a brand new story rather than focus on the one they already had, no surprises, but still.

Both Nebby and Necrozma have interesting recruitments. Nebby is given to us by Lillie because she is well aware that Nebby's disobedience- and preference for us- was due to her shortcomings as a Trainer, and she would not be able to use him to his fullest potential until she had some genuine experience under her belt. Or at least, that's where it should have ended. Lillie gives Nebby to us on the expectation we serve as a replacement mother to it, virtually committing the very crime Lusamine is guilty of. We are a favourite aunt, not a mother, and while Lillie's isolation from her own mother has likely primed her to think of the replacement relationships she develops to be parental in nature, this is a character flaw. Necrozma, meanwhile, seems to only be catchable to add to our Pokedex, added to the only place it fits, and the devs saw fit to add to Lillie's reasoning for giving us Nebby by telling us to... rob Nebby of its self to satisfy Necrozma's desire for light. And here I was thinking Lillie couldn't get any worse from SM. It's hard to say this makes Lillie come out looking bad, because of the pre-existing potential reasons to use, but it does make the story look bad, because it really emphasises the lack of understanding the writers are working with.

The games converge with the Pokemon League. SM doing this directly after Motherbeast Lusamine brushes into issues with pacing, both narratively and mechanically, and the expanded gameplay sequence USUM offers was an improvement. The only real downside is the downplaying of the Lillie story, and considering the issues currently going on there, that's probably ultimately an upside. The League Challenge itself is fairly standard fare, and it is almost entirely here as mechanical tradition. For all the issues with doing away with the "kahuna blitz" that used to end the Island Challenge, exactly how would it compare with series history? Ultimately, the question really raised here is "why is the Champion the point where the credits roll when our story is ultimately more interested in something else?" This is a question Pokemon is not unaware of- BW had N and Ghetsis usurp the Champion and be the point where the credits rolled- but after this game, I think Pokemon really does take the lesson to heart. SwSh expands the role of the Champion to the point where "beating him rolls the credits" is the natural conclusion, while SV doesn't roll the credits with its own Champion, continuing the story beyond that point to a place where it is satisfied rolling the credits will be appropriately satisfying. To some extent, Pokemon is still penned down by what it has established as tradition and what alternatives it is willing to explore, but at the very least, they successfully pulled off the League they included to check the box.

Mechanically, Poni Island is... a bit of a mess. In SM, there's so little stuff to actually do that we only gain about five levels and a handful of TMs between Lusamine 1 and the Champion- and it's only because some of those TMs are awesome moves like Flamethrower, Ice Beam, and Dazzling Gleam that it really feels like Poni is a substantial leg of the journey. The difficulty spike at the start also accounts for most of those levels. USUM adds more battles here, rounding out our EXP curve, but doesn't add too much in the way of TMs, and doesn't even add a set of Tutor moves. Since we've already mostly finished up our development in Ula'ula, all Poni can do is challenge that team and ask if it can stand up to pressure. Poni's short length in SM doesn't wind up doing much of that, although USUM does find some neat places to add it. Especially those new Veteran generics.

Pokemon Sun and Moon Analysis: Ula'ula Island

"The Big Island" is right. That's a lot of ground we've covered to get here, and in addition to all but finishing off most of our team's evolutions, we've also learned many of the moves that will appear in our final learnsets. In addition to this, the story has expanded in scope, with not only Team Skull growing to become a greater threat, but their financial backer came to meet us on her terms. So, what does the midgame look like in Pokemon?

Malie City opens with a surprise battle against Rival Hau, and in a startling moment, this is actually going to be the last one before the end of the game. In USUM in particular, he puts up quite the fight, but Hau serves as a surprising example of a rival for not having a matchup between "still setting up the pieces of his team" and "final encounter in the very endgame". Not unfitting to his character- while many rivals set themselves the goal of challenging us directly, Hau instead questions whether this is the path his heart is set on following. In that light, perhaps us challenging him wouldn't be much of an encouraging direction to have him constantly chasing our shadow. Besides, it's hardly as if we've been bereft of opponents in his absence.

Following this encounter with Hau, we get to tell Kukui about our encounter with the Ultra Beasts- something that amounts to very little owing to his and Burnet's tragic absence from this plot point- and then escort Lillie to Malie City's Library in order to look into the Legendary Pokemon. Although the relevance to Nebby's plight seems apparent, this leg of the plot is not interested in drawing any conclusions about the matter. In SM, we strictly speaking don't even know Cosmog's teleportation powers have anything to do with Ultra Space! All we know is that there exists a legendary Pokemon capable of travelling between dimensions, and is presumably benevolent. Pokemon proves itself to be relatively lax about developing the boxart legends in a timely manner, if ever. Pokemon never really struck me as a series big on this kind of plot development, though- it prefers to show things off before it explains them, and that's when it explains it at all and doesn't leave it up to the player's imagination and experience. Capturing the childlike wonder found in the environment of playground rumours is pretty difficult, especially for video games.

Next up is our first Ula'ula Island Trial- itself a bit of a modest affair not helped by the lack of confidence in the Trial Captain, and ultimately more interesting because of the cool sights to see atop Mount Hokulani. Before we make it there, we're shown Kukui's grand ambition of a Pokemon League, and afterwards, we're first introduced to Guzma and his- and by extension Team Skull's- resentful attitude towards the Island Challenge. Around this point, the Island Challenge starts to be challenged as a concept, and the story doesn't really seem too opposed to that fact? Sure, Guzma is framed as wrong, since he's the main antagonist and all, but Kukui's arguments, since he's a proponent of his new Pokemon League, are more general, about the idea of exploring a region as a young child at all, rather than specifically about the Island Challenge. This gets even worse as the plot continues, since our next representatives for the Island Challenge are Acerola (whose Trial uses a relatively new setpiece) and Nanu (who is not interested in being an Island Challenge staff member at all). The undertones this plot point deals with by being related to both the Hawai'ian's colonisation and the fandom's disinterest in drifting away from the Gym Challenge make for interesting reading, and I'm not entirely certain- or comfortable with- what conclusions one is meant to walk away with.

Around this stretch of the game is a nice, long stretch of gameplay with a relative position of spinning wheels in the story. We go through Route 12, have Gladion take a stance on the Nebby plot point, try to find a safe spot for Lillie, do Acerola's Trial, have the Yungoos get kidnapped, and then have to traverse three routes to get to Po Town and do the dramatic rescue. Akala framed Lillie's relative absence from the story as her being literally unable to pursue her plotline due to a roadblock, but here, it more just feels like Lillie genuinely has nothing of interest to be doing right now. Nebby's interest in the ruins where the Tapus reside goes unexplored, owing to Lillie not having a clear understanding why, and perhaps they could've allowed that connection to become more apparent to help Lillie feel more involved here. As it is, Lillie is limited in portrayal as little more than a fancy MacGuffin, and while there are good reasons to explore that angle, I would prefer if the characterisation was actually actively portrayed rather than her helplessness coming about as a result of a lack of plot agency.

After Po Town, we are thrown into the major infiltration of the enemy team base- rather than Po Town, like Team Skull's portrayal would lead one to expect, it is instead the Aether Foundation, which explores a few key ideas- the corruption inherent in their use of secret, dangerous research for Faba, their ability to play both sides by bribing Team Skull to take the heat with Guzma, and finally the monstrous control Lusamine exerts over what she considers her property when it comes to her children and her personal collection- at least in SM. The Aether Foundation ultimately comes out of this raid looking every bit the villain they're trying to look like, when later plot developments- and even Hau, Lillie, and to some extent Wicke and Gladion- seem to see the Aether Foundation's evil ventures as temporary in nature. This may be a strange case of a values mismatch between writer and reader, but ultimately, it does somewhat explain the characterisation retool of Lusamine for USUM- it is bringing Lusamine more in line with what the writers were intending her to look like, with her SM portrayal being less an accident of a branding mismatch and more an accident of a writing fumble. Now granted, this doesn't really make the shift better; I'd argue it makes the shift worse, as in a vacuum, the SM idea is stronger, and the USUM idea also doesn't entirely fix the problem that caused this whole mess. Ultimately, what exactly caused the shift is something it's going to be hard to properly identify, for the same reason identifying it matters- what caused the shift strongly reflects the attitudes and beliefs of the writers on the topic of people like Lusamine and the power they wield in all three roles of "independently wealthy director", "public role model" and "mother". Such a volatile answer is one the writers have no incentive or interest in divulging, considering their nature as a world-famous child-focused brand encouraging them not to delve too deeply into such matters.

Gameplay wise... there has been a lot of extra fights to get into. Seven numbered routes to explore (Route 13 doesn't count), a fair number of non-numbered routes, we're more regularly challenged by the boss fights, there are multiple Trainer boss battles in addition to Totems, we're given ample opportunity and reason to be on our toes. This is matched by a similar opportunity for us to get access to endgame quality moves of a variety of attacking types, to join the freebie Psychic, most of our Pokemon are reaching their final forms, the new Pokemon we have the option of catching are getting stronger, and our Pokemon's natural learnsets are rounding out. Pokemon's excuses for not throwing everything they have at us are getting weaker, since we are getting every resource we need to bite back, and so the game is making no bones about making the Pokemon we fight be individually optimised. This does, however, raise the question of what "upness" the lategame can throw if the midgame is already there.

Pokemon Sun and Moon Analysis: Akala Island

Wow, look how far we've come. We started this island having barely got a team that could do more than click their STAB move, and now not only have teams switching out as the situation demands, but can also cover outcomes beyond what is written on the box. So how has this come about, and how has our understanding of the story evolved alongside it?

On arrival in Heahea City, we have been introduced to Akala's more involved Trial process as compared to Melemele's, as well as seeing Lillie duck out of the story for a segment to wait on (and fail to meet) a contact. Lillie then proceeds to largely stay out of our way until all three Trials are complete, which mostly works on the grounds that Lillie doesn't have too much more to do until we learn a few extra details, but also there's a general reluctance to share those details in a timely manner. This seems to be a bit of a "the middle is the hardest part of writing", but for right now, the gameplay seems to be doing quite well on its own, and Lillie could use a break- even if she's spending her time stressing about Team Skull.

Before Brooklet Hill, we get another battle with Hau, as well as one with newcomer Gladion. I like the idea of having these two battles so close together for juxtaposition, but it does kinda feel like it hasn't been long enough since our last battle back on Route 3. Considering I previously said the Route 3 content could use trimming, perhaps this is the battle to keep, and have Hau come in with Eevee, Pikachu and his Normalium Starter. And of course, first we have Hau, the friendly rival who heals us up before we get into an "old-timey shootout" in a "Western set", and then we have Gladion, who challenges us before asking questions and dismisses Hau as flighty. Gladion is 100% the more serious opponent, but with his encounter with Team Skull after the fact, it is made clear that his serious behaviour is as much a presentation as anything.

From here, we have three Trials to conduct, and they happen in an almost rapid sequence. We beat Brooklet Hill, walk south to Royal Avenue, do a Battle Royal, slip around behind it for Wela Volcano Park, and then go north and around it straight to Lush Jungle. It's likely they didn't want to leave you without your Starter's Z-Crystal long no matter who you picked, but wow they don't really feel so close together until you realise that Wishiwashi and Lurantis are four levels apart. At this stage of the game, four levels isn't much, certainly far too narrow a gap to separate bosses two notches apart. Gameplay-wise, we're spending this time gathering new teammates, and many of our next encounters narratively want to be at a point where we're operating from a position of power.

After this, we stop in the Dimensional Research Lab to plant the seeds of inter-dimensional activity that will be sprouted later, and then head south for a blitz of plot developments. We're introduced to Aether Foundation- something a long time coming, considering the time we've had where we could talk to them mechanically. Almost as soon as we are introduced, we are swiftly followed with an invitation to visit them on their home turf, we have a battle with Team Skull's Admin that's largely a continuation of all the miscellaneous Skull stuff rather than the major plot, the Grand Trial with Olivia itself squeezed in there, and then the proper major introduction at Aether Paradise, introducing, in rapid succession, Faba, Wicke, Lusamine and UB01-Symbiont. There is almost certainly an argument for spreading these out, even if Lusamine and UB01 should be nowhere else but the very end. Slip the Aether introduction in between one of the Trials, just to explain them before we get proper Aether outposts to visit, make Plumeria part of the Diglett's Tunnel encounter (or honestly, put Faba here, so him inviting Hau makes more sense), just... I know I praised a gap in plot developments during the Trials, but we have a whole island for this sort of thing. I'm not saying move anything new in here, just let it spread itself out a little more.

There are a few miscellaneous encounters scattered in here. In SM, we meet Sina and Dexio, who give us SM's island-spanning fetch quest, Hapu, a story-important character to this game, and Colress, a previous-game cameo who has some relevant to the plot of USUM. In USUM, we additionally meet the Ultra Recon Squad, who kinda cheat a little bit and show off our first UB (UB Adhesive Poipole) before we even learn about Ultra Wormholes, and then we get another cameo encounter with Looker later- and ironically, Looker was far more important to SM than USUM. Hapu kinda gets to hide her relevance here to people who don't recognise the classic characters, but mostly, I see a bunch of people using up the time that Alola's story could be spreading into. Not particularly urgently, but in general, the previous game cameos seem to be more because "SM is the 20th anniversary game and we're going to be celebrating series history" than a part of the cohesive whole. Considering how little of this carried into SM's own legacy, it is hard to describe what happened here as anything but a failure.

Lusamine's introduction at the ending serves two major purposes, depending on which game you're in. In SM, it is the payoff to a barrage of very suspicious Aether details, giving you an ostensibly philanthropic woman whose brand of smotherliness is off in just the right way to come out in front, given a new goal in "adopt the alien UB01 by whatever means necessary", and in exactly the same place that we saw Lillie escape from in the game's opening- a place Lillie shows no intentions of returning to. Even if Hau hadn't explicitly connected the two characters, we would know that Lusamine is the one pursuing Lillie, and we also have a few clues as to what Nebby has to do with anything. In USUM, the addition of the Ultra Recon Squad refocuses Lusamine towards trying to "deal with Necrozma", a situation that makes her look far closer to the role she claims for herself... but with all the hints that something's not right here left intact from SM. Even UB01's appearance feels kinda detached from the new plot, and only considering USUM's story, I'm not 100% sure what it does other than showcase UBs for Hau- something that might've been better served by us having our first battle with Poipole, had we not been in the conservatory. USUM's reliance to sticking rigidly to SM's story means that Lusamine still has an antagonistic role to play in USUM's story, but even this early, we get the sense that USUM is chafing against this requirement.

Gameplay-wise, well... when dividing a Pokemon game into four mechanical acts, Akala corresponds to the "fair-game" section. For most players, no matter which game you're playing, the largest portion of your team is typically going to come from this section, where type diversity is much greater than the early-game, but your team is much more in flux and open to comers as you find things you need to be including. The wide diversity available across the ranch, the brooklet, the volcano park, the jungle, the tunnel and the outskirts helps add plenty of environments from which to draw Pokemon, and many of our teams have found a strong core that includes something from Akala. Ula'ula will see very few additions, and most of the Pokemon that get added will be in types that we haven't seen much of- Electrics, Ices, Steels, and so forth. We also got a bunch of strong-but-not-endgame TMs like Scald (OK, maybe not that one), Flame Charge, Bulldoze, Leech Life and even Psychic at the very end. As we enter Ula'ula, we're actively thinking about our learnsets, and indeed, in this game, many Pokemon we have yet to meet will suffer because they don't have access to key moves available early in their learnset.

Pokemon Sun and Moon Analysis: Melemele Island

It's kinda weird to think about, but now we have to think about how Melemele Island was as an arc. How do you judge Pokemon in the same way as you would any other RPG?

The thing about Melemele is that it has the burden of starting off the adventure. Giving us our starter, teaching us the important battling loops, many of the Things that a Pokemon fan doesn't realise it's still important to be teaching the new players, as well as how Alola is going to play- both to new fans, who have no frame of reference, and for old fans, who need to be told about the new features specifically. And while it's doing that, it also needs to set up Lillie's arc, and USUM adds the Ultra Recon intrigue into the pile. It is a mess, and a mess that Pokemon has never exactly been good at dealing with. If you feel the cutscene bloat, that's just... a thing Pokemon has.

How well did we come out the other end, then? Well, surprisingly, things aren't so bad the whole way down. Lillie's encounter with the Spearow sets up the Nebby storyline pretty effectively, giving just enough intrigue to explain pretty much everything. I prefer the version where we don't have our starter yet, but both versions do just fine. The Starter spiel's fine, the separate Pokedex spiel is a little weird but allows Rotom Pokedex to breathe, and then we get to the Trainer's School. It's a pretty neat way to dump a bunch of useful mechanics on us early, especially in USUM where they actually use it for that purpose, although I'm sure being advertised as an actual school doesn't help its reputation. SV was a bit of an improvement in this regard- although that claim oversells what SV's Academy is in practice.

After this comes Hau'oli, which is a blitz of cutscenes that have... well, there's a lot of fat here that could use trimming. Poke Finder was just a bad mechanic, dragging that with it. The character customisation cutscene has some important development to build on later. The Tauros joke was honestly pretty weird, I'm not sure it needed us to be involved in seeing it cleared. Team Skull at the Marina was done much better by USUM- having them hassle Hau for his amulet improves both Hau and Team Skull, and it fits in much better than having them hassle Ilima for stealing Pokemon. Stealing Pokemon isn't even really a Skull thing! I think they just got too used to villain teams doing this. Route 2 has another event for Skull to interfere with, to set up them interfering with Verdant Cavern's Trial, and while the Mantine Surf one was funny, this also throws weight behind the Verdant Cavern interference. Mild spoiler, but none of the other Trials actually have Skull interference. Between that and it being unclear how we solved the puzzle of Ilima's Trial without Skull's help, and I kinda want to call it out? Although in this case, more interference was probably the answer, not less. Skull's supposed to be big on challenging the Island Challenge, they need to actually do that.

And then we come to Route 3... and if I must speak truthfully, I am legitimately wondering if any of this is necessary. Sure, keep Route 3 and its Trainers for EXP purposes to give Hala a curve, but Nebby going into the Meadow doesn't expand on the Lillie story at all, and that was literally all this diversion was. There's a later area, unlocked as a reward for beating a Trial, that has no plot reason to visit it. Why not make this one the same thing? Failing that, maybe this was a good chance to have Lillie make the formal request for you to get involved with the matter of Nebby, rather than simply talking about Oricorio's forms. Lillie is going to form the backbone of the lategame story, because of her relationship with other essential characters, and I don't really think I can understate the importance of using her time in the earlygame properly. Even if we are to be kept in the dark on the important facts, there's still good time spent with her (time that changes context based on later reveals) and bad time spent with her (time that doesn't change the player's impressions at all). At least SM gets us off the island pretty cleanly after Hala, while USUM gets bogged down by the extra minigames it has to exposit about (and doing both badly).

In a USUM note, how is the Ultra Recon Squad? Well, remember what I said about good time and bad time? The Recons kind of exemplify "bad time". The Recons are mysterious characters whose importance will be revealed at fixed points in SM's preset plot, and I don't think the Ultra Recons needed many scenes on Melemele to establish them when it's going to take some time to reveal their goals- and explain why we should care. I mean, sure, throw in one or two of them- especially since we need to establish their shaky alliance with the player, but this is weighed down by the fact it's not going to be until like the end of Akala when we learn who their other ally is, and what they offer in comparison to us. Of course, people who played SM have a good idea who this other ally is and can make some guesses into reasoning and motive, but they're not the only people who their scenes are aimed at, are they?

And now we talk mechanically. This was an earlygame of a Pokemon game- a bit of a "press your best attack" fest until we get enough options that type coverage is something both sides need to be paying attention to. Pokemon can't- and honestly shouldn't- try to make it any more complicated than that. The most important part is, and always will be, the transition between "spam A" and "actually have coverage to care about". And there were far worse ideas than setting that transition somewhere around the Melemele -> Akala transition. Both from a level perspective (Pokemon start learning diverse moves around level 20) and especially with USUM's tutors and some choice TMs scattered around Melemele's ending and Akala's perspective, Akala Island is where you learn to start playing this game, and what better way to establish "you're on a new island" than by changing the flow of the game? Melemele shoulders a heavy burden, but it does so to try and prevent Akala from suffering under it too.

Where Did We Go Wrong? The "Iwata Asks" That Started It All

When one discusses Paper Mario, there's one thing that can't go without mention: The Iwata Asks interview that caused the whole backlash. Miyamoto looked at Sticker Star, disagreed with the RPG loop, and told IS to take it out. If you hate Sticker Star, you are going to point at this as the root of your problems. And why wouldn't you? The RPG Paper Marios were good, the new ones aren't, surely that's what the issue was? Looking at SPM, though, I'm not as sure. Sure, the game doesn't have the onslaught of nothing but Toads that characterises the modern trilogy, but do the Flipside Folk really distinguish themselves much further? In the rare instances where they even appear at all?

The Four Heroes of Paper Mario: How Brightly They Shine

While Mario is a household name, there are three others that share a similar amount of spotlight, to the point that anyone who knows enough about video games to know more than Mario's face knows about them, too. I'm talking about Luigi, Peach and Bowser, and while one of those may not be as heroic as the rest, that's the collective noun Super Paper Mario goes with, and he does enough of his best to earn it. These are probably Nintendo's most valuable assets- and while Super Mario is intentionally flexible enough that Nintendo's willing to share them around, that doesn't mean they don't have some basics to adhere to. And Paper Mario is... somewhat interesting in its relationship with them. It's interesting to ask oneself why exactly Intelligent Systems grapples with an official mandate limiting their story prowess while thinking of how they used the Four Big Ones.

Super Paper Mario: Timpani and Lord Blumiere

Oh boy, where do I begin with Super Paper Mario... this is very definitely a game in the Paper Mario franchise. On one side, there is the RPG elements of 64 and TTYD shining brightly through. And on the other, there is the straightforward nature of making Paper Mario appeal more to the sensibilities of the platformers Mario starts with. And how exactly can one judge it, when they don't even fully understand on which side the game is to fall?

Plot-wise, an ancient artifact of doom has predicted the end of the world through the means of a second artifact of doom, and a particularly suicidal man reads this and decides he should help facilitate this. The Heroes arise to stop him, gathering the pieces of the artifact crafted specifically to counteract this particular prophecy, but even they are held back and the only one who can truly set things to right is undoing the problem that caused his depression in the first place. At no point in this plot description does the fact this game is part of the Mario brand become apparent. Bowser and Peach's wedding creating the Chaos Heart is not explicitly linked to their decades-long history, nor is the fact that Luigi is the thing that controls it because he was the first to touch it. And even then, neither of these things required that these be the Mario characters, and the only difficulty in finding replacements is creating the characters who should never be married. This story is not a Mario game. There is no two ways about it.

That's not to say it's horrible, but... the story does have its flaws. Blumiere and Timpani's romance, the keystone to the entire story and its conclusion, is taken for granted and has no time to develop because of the writers' distinct lack of interest in letting the characters in on its existence until the final hours. The Town Stories are almost completely detached from Count Bleck's plan, with the impending Void and general machinations of Team Bleck having little influence over each individual segment. There are precious few characters for the audience to connect to, and even fewer they're meant to get attached to- especially since most stay in their Town Stories. As an RPG, these are particularly painful flaws, and while 64 and TTYD did not necessarily lack them, they certainly managed them far better. They make sure to maintain the audience's interest through strong writing and connecting how things work in the moment. SPM often prefers to spend this time teasing you about how much it's not telling you about the ending.

The individual chapters, of course, get hit hardest here. Partially because navigation is on a linear basis (we never go back to Yold Town or the Underwhere because that's not how platformers work), only a few characters get to shine. With Pixls divorced from the story as partners instead of actual characters, we don't even get them to pick up the slack. Francis has to win his reputation based on two appearances and all the things he wrote down in his castle. Squirps doesn't even understand what his job is. Flint Cragley is lost in his own delusions. Luvbi is the best they have, and she suffers because she's unpleasant to be around until a key reveal and they backload that one, too. The chapter stories are microcosms of the whole story- they don't want to interrupt the platforming, perhaps, but that simply shows the mismatch between RPG and platformer.

And then we've got to discuss the gameplay. It's bad. But it's not bad because it's frustrating. If you come to hate a game's gameplay, odds are this problem happens because you are not given the options you wish you had or "luck-based" elements repeatedly come up in player-negative ways a few too many times- think TTYD's stage mechanics or any time you got walled by an evasion-heavy build. Super Paper Mario, on the other hand... it's not very hard to be good at Super Paper Mario. Even without Bowser/Carrie, you can get very good at combat with Carrie, Cudge, Bowser's fire breath, Peach's parasol shield, and simply the way your Atk stat goes up so high so quickly. This makes boss fights incredibly difficult to come off as threatening, especially since they're all fought on flat plains (it took until the final boss for platforming to be in a platforming game). The hardest parts of the game are areas where platforming goals are covered by enemies on ledges higher than/too far away from you- even with your high jump, it's hard to deal with these enemies, especially if there happens to be a low ceiling. This is why Bowser/Carrie is so strong- that is a good way of dealing with it. This isn't a problem in the platformers- those are games that reward speed and technique, and enemies are less obstacles to avoid and more opportunities to facilitate elaborate movement. The way the RPG mechanics require you to stop and consider your options, stop and deal with an enemy because you need the points to level up, or stop and play conservatively because of your low HP, since the punishment for getting killed is so much greater here than in the platformers. Dying and trying again is part of the point of the platformers. In RPGs, this is a punishment. Super Paper Mario may not be hard to master, but the gameplay doesn't form a cohesive whole and the seams still shine through, even if they can be brushed aside to get to the end.

I've gotta be honest... I think Super Paper Mario is a Modern Paper Mario title. I mean this to uplift the modern games as much as I denigrate SPM, but all the qualities we ascribe to modern Paper Mario to describe it's failures are found here. Indistinguishable characters with the bare minimum of development. Skeletal Town Stories with better concepts than executions. Progression that follows its own logic in a way that seems to have fun at the expense of the player. And a gameplay loop that been improperly balanced- just far too easy instead of far too hard. It's a game aimed at young people, and those people latched onto the romance of Tippi and Bleck. And because, when SPM was new, every game in the franchise was good and beloved, no one thought there was a good reason to question this one. But now, Paper Mario has an anvil around its neck: Sticker Star. Sticker Star is a bad game. I don't think it is possible to redeem that game. But Colour Splash and especially Origami King have to struggle under the weight of being follow-ups to Sticker Star. These games aren't as strong as a cohesive whole as TTYD's narrative or even how 64 makes Mario's playful world feel larger than life. But SPM, a game that struggles under the weight of the mechanics it borrows and stories that only get to work with their fundamentals, lacking the bells and whistles of a more well-polished experience, fits in more closely with them than it does its predecessors. I don't think Super and Origami King are that different- but only one of them was judged in the light of Sticker Star. In a way, the problems that made Sticker Star particularly offensive were always bubbling under the surface, but because of the way we saw that problem take form, we only consider the games following it to suffer under its yoke.

Super Paper Mario Chapter 7: A Bone-Chilling Tale

We started this chapter being confronted with the reality that Mario has an afterlife and now we are in it. After long enough, we came to accept that... and then got the Luvbi reveal.

7-1, as the game officially considers it (if you check your Chapter log while in the Underwhere but before putting the Pure Heart in the Heart Pillar, you'll notice the game does register the Underwhere as 7-1), is a thorough introduction to the afterlife, with all the bells and whistles of the Greek version of the myth, and also introducing us to the characters of Jaydes and Luvbi. Jaydes is exactly the sort of person I'd hope to see at the top of the afterlife's structure- strict, but fair, running a tight ship, and ready to help when she is needed. Although we find ourselves on the wrong side of her judgemental gaze- showing up with a dead Pure Heart when she knows full well her daughter happens to be one does tend to do that- we can help her clean up her plate, get her help, and then get out of her hair. And then the next part comes along and we turn out to be after Luvbi next.

Luvbi being the Pure Heart changes so much about how the chapter opens, but then it takes a complete backseat. Jaydes sends us to the Overthere, and it turns out that the mechanical need for opposition takes the form of an unrelated crisis involving the release of Bonechill and the Skellobit Army, which can distract us... somewhat. In reality... neither Luvbi nor the Skellobits are given spotlight? 7-2 is taking place under heightened security because the Skellobits are on the loose, but we don't see them until 7-3 and we also don't really treat them as significant enemies in and of themselves there, either? When they talk, they are fairly replaceable minions, and they only really do so when they're threatening Nimbis that are the real interesting part of the conversation- at least as far as the game's concerned, because the Nimbis are hardly much more involved characters either! Rebbi is the only Nimbi who gets a second scene, and what they're like and how they bounce of Luvbi doesn't have much to do with anything.

Luvbi herself only has so much to go on too. She constantly teases Tippi about her crush on somebody- and later Mario and co. with Peach before she gets angry about her- while complaining about her own romantic prospects. Her constant pining for love is likely foreshadowing her role as an actual icon of love, but considering the breadth of loves one can have, Luvbi isn't particularly interested in demonstrating herself as being a diverse lover. She constantly berates everybody, showing little patience for not getting her way. Sure, she's competing with Peach in regards to being a pure little angel, but it's hard to consider this girl as really having love as her core when it's her distaste that shines. Ironically, this might have been smoothed over if we got the Luvbi reveal sooner- perhaps if Luvbi was somehow made aware that the end of this journey would demand her death would cause her foul temper, and our progress through the Underwhere and Overthere would help her come to terms with it. Not that there's much on the path she could use- that's an entirely different story that needs an entirely different Road, Stair, and Overthere to accommodate it- but it would do the job of the childish spat at the end of the chapter far better than something that jolts you out of the world of the afterlife and into the real world of how real parents and children come into conflict.

The afterlife itself, after the initial shock of "Mario died and went to hell" wears off, is... well, kinda an afterlife in name only? The Shaydes disappear after 7-1, leaving the Underwhere Road full of D-Men whose job is to maintain it, and 7-4's Nimbis, who less resemble the departed souls of the living and more resemble a distinct race of cloud people. There is very little about the way 7-4 happened that would have to be told differently if these people weren't God, Satan and angels, but instead Parakoopas, their tribe leader and the Ruined Dragon coming to tear the place down (not that the Ruined Dragon is the go-to for "things that fit in Mario games", but compared to Satan...). Even the things that are based on actual elements of the afterlife, like Cerberus and the three Fates, are played more for laughs than they are evoking the imagery of their original counterparts. It's hard to demand more from a game that ought to have reconsidered doing it at all, but if you're going to get Mario in the afterlife... you might as well go whole hog? This is never going to happen again.

Mechanically... this is a chapter that's full on platforming. The enemies aren't the problem- not that they ever really were- but this place is full of tricky navigation, with two tall levels to fall down and have to do over and then a third area that's a samey maze. If you're good at the game, this needn't be too bad. If you're less good... this is going to suck. When Mario games get harder, they usually demand more skill for similar levels of investment- levels don't get longer, they get harder. And honestly... I'm not sure I'm seeing that from the layouts of Chapter 7. It's more true in Chapter 8, but Chapter 7 isn't too hard to navigate from a skill sense, more of a navigational sense. And navigation is not a skill Mario considers too essential. The only complicated levels in Mario games- the Ghost Houses- are about navigating the tricks and traps, less knowing where you're going. Even by adopting the nature of Mario as a platformer, Super Paper Mario is drifting away from what Mario's platformers are all about.

Super Paper Mario Chapter 6: The End of a World

This is a formal reminder that we are still playing a Mario game.

Chapter 6 is not exactly a proper Chapter- the entire story, from start to finish, sets up both the expectation and the delivery that we are going to see the end of a world, a nice way to ensure that the stakes of the story- largely forgettable since we stopped visiting Ancients- have been reinforced. Chapters 3 through 5 are all about their respective settings, with the Void being easy to block out of the sky by the prevalence of interiors and Chapter 4's background. In some ways, the fact that Chapter 6 is going to raise the stakes does colour the story- the Duel of 100 would not be a satisfying chapter if played straight. Instead, the fact you are challenged to complete a fraction of the Duel of 100 is to escalate the anxiety in the player, making them feel like their time is being wasted while disaster descends upon the world they are currently occupying.

King Sammer, and the Mimi duplicate taking him over, presents an interesting use of Mimi compared to her earlier appearance in Chapter 2 and her later one in Chapter 8- even despite her childish temperament and refusal to properly adjust to the face she wears, the fact King Sammer himself is fairly childish and nobody comments on his unusual behaviour means that she passed by completely unnoticed until the penny dropped. By being set in feudal aesthetic Japan, the audience expectation is that the story will be about honourable samurai who follow their ruler, and it turns out that was exactly the wrong move. It seems kind of a shame that the Sammer Guys never really get the chance to reflect on how they managed to let her slip by.

Meanwhile, the World of Nothing is... well, they say "there is no greater fear than imagination", but when it comes to destruction, that adage proves somewhat incapable. Players may be excellent at imagining a place as it collapses, but they are far less good at seeing the remnants of what stood before it. Seeing the World of Nothing- a single flat line dotted with only the occasional Sammer remnant- is a simple statement: This is what being erased looks like. When Count Bleck says he wants to erase all worlds, he truly means that there will be nothing left. Not even ruins. If his promise to his minions of creating new worlds on top of where the old worlds once were was true, then these Worlds of Nothing would be overwritten like old save files to do so. And somehow, despite everything, the game is fully prepared to make this worse.

Mechanically, Chapter 6 sucks. Not only is there a Flipside and a Flopside Pit of 100 Trials, but there's a Duel of 100 as well? In addition to potentially exhausting the player on 100-floor challenges, the Duel of 100 is a far inferior version of the Pit of 100 Trials as well. Each battle is preceded by entering a door, doing a somewhat awkward jump onto a platform, going through preamble, and then starting the fight. This fight will last approximately five seconds before you fade out into a postamble, and then have to walk over to the other door- and then the hop off the platform can get just as awkward. The Pit of 100 Trials understands how to make the idea of a 100 floor dungeon in a platformer work far better, and while the Duel of 100 has some decent jokes and references to make of it, 100 was far too many to make an impact and a lot of them get obscure enough it's hard to pick them out from the original ones. Add that on top of the World of Nothing being a clear "the story impact is all that matters, and the gameplay being terrible is part of the point" sort of area, and it's hard to like playing Chapter 6. At least it's the most memorable one, because of both the Sammer Guys and the World of Nothing. You can't deny story is the selling point here.

Super Paper Mario Chapter 5: A Crag in the Dark

Chapter 5 is, somehow, a bit of a more "traditional" chapter in a sea of creative ideas. That still has its own interesting concepts of its own. And then kinda squanders most of them.

Let's start with the setting, since that's the big one. Chapters 3 and 4 were massive differences from the norm: 8-bit land and space, respectively. Chapters 6 and 7, likewise, have some very unique choices in land, especially for the time. Even Chapter 2 is pretty original, with the mansion setpiece usually being "haunted house" and not "trick house". Chapter 5 uses a relatively routine mountain biome as its home, with the original elements being the cavemen vs flower people conflict and the incongruent technology both sides possess. Chapter 5 comes the closest to feeling like "same old Mario", which is arguably why the parts that are still SPM's weak platforming design stand out so much more.

The plot of the story is simple: The Floro Sapiens are kidnapping Cragnons, go stop them. One thing about RPGs that allows them to write more involved stories is the fact that you are not only able to return to villages after the first time you visit them, but you are often expected to. Super Paper Mario's more linear approach doesn't facilitate that- and it even shows that off with the existence of Jasperoid to give you gameplay hints for a simple block puzzle that doesn't have anything to do with anything. There is no reason to go back to the Cragnon Village after receiving your mission, so the whole "polluting the water" element of the plot doesn't go anywhere because you can't even look at it. Even if you wanted to put some polluted streams on the path, it's hard to justify seeing Cragnons outside the village during this kidnapping crisis.

Inside the caves, we are introduced, almost out of nowhere, to Flint Cragley. Much like the pollution, returning to the Cragnon village after reloading the map does give you a foreshadowing dialogue, but even knowing the man exists doesn't quite prepare you for... him. Cragley follows in the footsteps of Kolorado and Flavio, almost blatantly so, and in doing so carves his niche as being... the most competent of the trio? OK, Flavio is far more successful in his chosen career and deservedly so, but Flint clearly has some grasp of how to use the footage he gets to parlay fame among the Cragnons, even if he cluelessly bumbles his way into acquiring it (and may or may not exaggerate elements of what he finds). I think he's not a clear downgrade from Flavio, but I do prefer Flavio's cohesion as a character in a story in comparison.

The Floro Sapiens, and their King Croacus IV, are the dictionary definition of missed potential. Or, arguably, ignored potential. Ignoring them brainwashing and enslaving the Cragnons, they're kinda "in the right" here, and the fact they possess the Pure Heart suggests that the inverse story- where we spawn in the Floro Caverns and fight our way to the Cragnons- may have been an equally valid way to tell the story. A daring story may still have kept the unsavoury elements of Croacus's character, having us challenge him about how far his revenge on the Cragnons should extend. I find the idea of us having entered a conflict, chosen a side and selected wrongly interesting- and fitting SPM's overall tone of challenging the nature of the RPG Hero- but like many of its narratives, it's all concept and no execution. Admittedly, the big problem here was brainwashing the Cragnons and making the Floro Sapiens bad guys.

Ah, the brainwashing. The Floro Sprouts, likewise, seem more useful to Dimentio than they do the Floro Sapiens. Croacus has brainwashed the Cragnons into mining beautiful gemstones- overall, this does less for his goals directly and mostly just gets Cragnons out of dumping trash in the river by having them not actually being there. Dimentio, meanwhile, is experimenting with what O'Chunks can and can't do while brainwashed, and rather explicitly has more in his back pocket. We are very definitely setting up a plot point in which Dimentio pulls one out whenever it is least convenient for us, and all we really thought about it here was putting a dead one on to fool a scanner. I don't think we're meant to walk away thinking that the dead one had any psychological impact, but it was still a highly risky idea.

Mechanically, Chapter 5 is a bit of a lull. The combination of the lack of exciting setpieces and narrative means we read this as a purely gameplay chapter. Playing Super Paper Mario as pure platforming exposes a lot of the game's weaknesses, not helped by the backtracking in 5-1, if you need to check the passwords with Jasperoid, all the puzzles to find the tablets in 5-2, and then digging through to find Hornfels and Monzo in 5-3, and going through all the puzzles of 5-4. Huh, that's a lot of puzzles this time around. Considering narratively, we're not asking enough of our circumstances, I find the fact that the gameplay is asking us to explore these samey environments and learn our way around to be both ironic and ill-fitting. I feel like the gameplay should be straight-forward, with a nagging sense of there being something we're missing- lots of 3D secret opportunities that aren't capitalised on, for example. I guess that explains why our brain has been turned off when the cutscenes start.

Super Paper Mario Chapter 4: Into Outer Space

Chapter 4 is a chapter that diverts from the game's platforming elements to deliver a unique gameplay theme, and is also the first Chapter in which analysis of the story as a "Town Story" makes sense.

The major plot of the chapter is centered around the mystery of Squirps, an alien who answers precisely zero of the questions asked of him, and the information he does choose to share is vague, delivered in an impenetrable vocal pattern and often can be learned with a cursory look at the surroundings. Squirps is meant to be frustrating, but the game runs head-first into an issue of tone holisticially.

Thus far, the game has typically been a light-hearted romp with humorous NPCs to talk to, charming villains to bumble about in our path, and has kept the intrigue localised entirely to parts of the narrative it keeps openly mysterious, like the love story between Blumiere and Timpani and Dimentio's scheming. Chapters 2 and 3, which had serious plots but no actual serious moments to underscore them, set the tone of what a "serious plot" looks like in SPM. For this chapter, Tippi and the Heroes constantly raise suspicions of Squirps, setting up this vague and unhelpful character to be antagonistic, but the player is not convinced in the slightest. Not because they suspect Squirps is deliberately unhelpful- they're not convinced Squirps is evil because a helpful character who speaks the way Squirps does fits right in with the tone of SPM. The characters raising red flags, written in such a way that it is more likely signposting than humour, is taken as more humour. When Squirps is revealed as a prince, son of the guardian of the Pure Heart and last hope for her will that it reach the Heroes, the audience is not surprised because "I thought you were evil", like Tippi- they honestly just kinda roll with it because that's what Squirps is doing.

As a defense mechanism for the Pure Hearts, Squirpina's method is rather interesting. She locks the Heart in the bowels of the least pleasant place in the cosmos to go to, seals her son in hypersleep to serve as a guide once he arrives, and then... lets the treasure be forgotten. It's not in danger because no one knows it's there, nor are they interested in going there for the sake of Treasure. As a concept, the plan was rather sound- Bleck's minions didn't get much of an ambush in here, more of a follow- but Squirps did not come out of hypersleep with a helpful mental state- perhaps she thought Squirps would mature while in hypersleep, but forgot maturing requires actually doing things.

Speaking of Squirps, I find it interesting that dealing with Squirps involves two things that RPGs typically shy away from: pooping, and eating. It's a little weird that it is delivered in that order (you'd think feeding him chocolate would cause him to need the potty later), but it says a lot about RPGs, as well as society as a whole, that "the plot involves helping a character use the bathroom" is inherently a comedic skit. I will give the game some credit for not making the joke about Squirps not wiping itself.

On a completely unrelated note, the chapter's villain and Team Bleck encounter. Mr. L is Super Paper Mario's biggest impact on the Mario IP, only not being the game's most memorable aspect because Count Bleck and Dimentio are poised to do that themselves later. Starting with the N64 era (possibly due to his omission from Super Mario 64), Luigi has been the butt of every joke, the eternal second banana, and Paper Mario is no exception. While Luigi is not a real person and bullying him does not have consequences on his psyche, the many jokes at his expense cultivated an environment where "Luigi has enough and bites back" was an obvious joke that somebody was going to snipe at, and many fans did. IS, on the other hand, took it upon themselves to pull the trigger and put it in an official game, in the sort of game openly willing to take these risks, and alongside the existence of the Negative Zone in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Luigi's dark side rose to canon status (as much as Mario has such). With it out in the open like this, the path that led to Dream Team's reclamation of Luigi as the proud eternal sidekick was laid out.

With that said, in Chapter 4 itself, Mr. L is incredibly underutilised. He shows up only at the very end, having absolutely no connection to the Squirps story. He has followed us into the depths of the Space Graveyard, despite the narrative promising this is a difficult feat, and challenged us to a boss fight with nothing but a quick establishment of who, exactly, the Mysterious Mr. L is, as a character in his own right. His Brobot boss fight, being in space with the Squirps gun, feels like something that should've existed earlier in the chapter, setting up Mr. L's cred as a villain alongside the other members of Team Bleck. Clearly they wanted the surprise reveal, but they also ruined that by calling 4-4 "The Mysterious Mr. L" and revealing his presence, if not his identity- and even then, when Luigi has been as blatantly removed from the plot as he was, a character identifying as L is likely Luigi anyway. Mr. L's largest contributions to the narrative are his commentaries on Luigi's characterisation, not his actual... contributions.

Mechanically, Chapter 4 is of course a curveball chapter. With 4-1 and 4-3 being entirely shmup exploration and 4-2 using low gravity to make comparisons to the rest of the game difficult, this is a breath of fresh air (ironically) that the gameplay loop did kinda need. Since Chapter 6 uses a similar non-standard setup, I suspect there is an element of intentionality to this, but it's much easier to fall into just focusing on the story aspects when we're able to be distracted from the gameplay mechanically as well as narratively, as incredibly hilarious as that sounds. While the chapter is filled with the same mechanical issues as the rest of the game, the exotic theming helps make them more bearable and wacky. Leaning into the issues rather than pretending they don't exist, as it were.

Super Paper Mario Chapter 3: When Geeks Attack

Chapter 3, for many, is when the game gets really good. I look at this chapter, though, and wonder if this is more of a sign of the game firmly picking a side on what it wants to be good at.

We start, right away, with Tippi being taken away from us by Francis, which leaves Mario without a voicebox. Tippi should feel like more of an absence than she is, as a critically important story character and the one thing in our party that is always present onscreen, but really... most players weren't exactly leaning on the Tattle. Arguably, it's something they'll miss when they get to the nerdy setpieces in 3-4, but it's hard to use a Tattle in a game with the fast-paced action of a platformer even if it wasn't triggered by moving the controller against the normal grip.

The four levels found here are a nostalgia level culminating in Bowser's big arrival, a water level culminating in the game's only true miniboss, an ascent up a vertical level with a matchup against a Team Bleck goon, and finishing with a dungeon crawl through the nerdiest dungeon to every meow and a boss fight with a surprisingly tricky geek to get the Tattle ability back. Said aloud, I'm surprised how many bosses Chapter 3 throws at us compared to the rest of the game. The fact that I said Big Blooper is the only real miniboss in the game should tell you loads about who else we're fighting- lots of Team Bleck and few other bosses. Chapter 4 will have no bosses outside the one guarding the Pure Heart. This increase in bosses is accompanied by more chances for dialogue, which helps support the fact the only NPCs in the entire chapter were Francis's maid robots. This game loves it its funny dialogue, but it only gets to use it when there are people to speak.

Mechanically, we have added Bowser, Thudley and Carrie to the team. These three additions have one thing in common: Damage. Double damage, a more precise way to deal double damage with Mario and Peach, and a refinement to the game's controls to make landing damage in the first place easier than ever. If you were having trouble with the game's mechanics, this chapter will cover you, and there are even more Pixls that make the game even easier for the situations we're currently not equipped for. Between these and Catch Cards, it's rather difficult to feel engaged with the combat system- which makes sense, because platformers are a difficult genre to fit combat systems to, often encouraging you to move along at a rapid pace. But oh boy, the boss fights either sideline your combat skills or turn into "win as soon as you get on top of them". Or fire breath them.

A lot of people seem to point at this chapter as either a high point of the adventure, or where the game really starts to kick into high gear. And honestly... I'm not 100% convinced. Between the trivial combat, the frustration of the Dotwood Tree, the swimming level that is 3-2, and the mostly jocular tone of 3-1 and 3-4, I feel like this is the game firmly establishing that there won't be much of a game here, purely a light-hearted adventure while it's not being serious with Bleck, Dimentio, and the Blumiere/Timpani plot thread. No, by this point, the game has locked in its aesthetic, and that aesthetic truly is unlike any other Paper Mario game, and even farther removed from Super Mario. You play this game to see what is going to happen next: Very rarely, if ever, do you care about how you're getting there. In some ways, this is a consequence of a very RPG-heavy company trying their hand at a platformer game. In other ways... these are the roots from which Sticker Star's flaws grew. That inability to secure Super Mario's essence, and that disregard for mechanics in favour of narrative- and in particular, comedic narrative.

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.

Super Paper Mario Chapter 1: The Adventure Unfolds

With the Prologue shrunken away to nothing here (ironically, in the most plot heavy game in the trilogy), Chapter 1 has the burden of explaining all the mechanics, in addition to introducing the game's signature gameplay gimmick. So then... what actually happens?

1-1 has us go right to Bestovius, learn how to flip, and then do a bunch of basic "look at what 3D does for you!" setpieces. 1-2 has us drop in on Yold Town, which is one of surprisingly few settlements in the game, yet only really seems to act as setup to get us to find Thoreau- something many later Pixls can manage without being blatantly railroaded. 1-3 is a trawl through the desert, with a brief stop to throw hands with O'Chunks. And then 1-4 is a (bit of a watered-down) dungeon with Fracktail as the boss, and then some exposition with Merlumina- exposition that the game actively jokes about skipping- and the parts we do get don't seem to agree on what, exactly, we were supposed to be learning. For a "plot-heavy" game, it's not opening with its best foot at all, is it?

Many of the game's most beloved elements aren't in play yet. We haven't seen much of Team Bleck's other members, we haven't seen anything about the game's central characters, we haven't been introduced to a mechanic that minimises some of the writing weaknesses that happen here, our toolset in general is pretty meagre (although this may also shore up some of the pacing), and the worst part of it all is that we don't even get a coherent story to make up for it. Chapter 1 of 64 could get you invested with the coolness factor of the Koopa Bros. while you were coming to grips with the new mechanics the game just let you start using. Chapter 1 of TTYD had Koops's quest to find closure with Hooktail and his father, and also fed you a lot more plot details about the Door and the treasure to get you started, even if the X-Nauts weren't introduced until afterwards. SPM is expecting you to maintain your interest purely based on the opening cutscene, the stakes of the story, and virtually nothing internal to Chapter 1 itself. Failing to bait a compelling story hook is a death knell for stories, and SPM is perhaps a textbook example of that. Regardless of whether or not you like where it goes, it is impossible to deny that it practically requires trusted recommendation or investment from spoiled later events to make it through some otherwise dull (although thankfully short) opening segments.

Mechanically, the chapter is a bit of a mixed bag. This is their chance to showcase some of the ingenuity afforded to them by the new 3D mechanic, something I'm sure Miyamoto wishes he could've been the one to design, but because this game is still being designed by RPG experts first and foremost, this game doesn't fully scratch that Mario-esque platforming that the level design evokes, which only really serves to highlight some of the narrative flaws highlighted earlier. When neither your RPG narrative or your platforming whimsy is firing on all cylinders, you look less like you have a plan and more like your cute idea to combine two disparate genres is backfiring by both genres making critical concessions to support the other. While that's not to say SPM repairs this when both RPG and platformer sides are at their most involved, having your flaws be noticeable while your strengths are being kept secret is the worst possible position to leave yourself in at this critical stage of the story. This is not a problem that many RPGs are in the habit of solving, but I think, Shhwonk Fortress aside, TTYD wasn't actually that bad about balancing secrecy with hooking the player.

Technological Expertise Central- Executive X-Naut: Many Call Me TEC

TEC-XX, Grodus's brainchild and greatest failure, is one of TTYD's most beloved characters, and almost certainly the most memorable. TEC is, arguably, one of the most important characters in shedding light on the X-Naut motivations, and paid a part in keeping Mario on his toes and accurately aware of the stakes of the situation he found himself in. All the while, TEC is engaged in a complex story of love with Peach, and this leaves TEC sitting at the crux of multiple different identities all at once: A many-layered contraption with multiple goals they aren't quite aware are at odds with each other until after the time comes for them to intersect.

Paper Mario Thousand Year Door: The Crystal Stars and the Legendary Treasure

Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door is a well-beloved entry in the anthology of Mario RPGs, and with good reason. But for as strong as the game is, it falls short of the legendary status it has been given.

So what's the plot, overall? The X-Nauts are hunting for a legendary treasure, and Mario must stop them from acquiring it at any cost. The fact that this treasure is a demon that uses Princess Peach as a vessel to awaken adds another dynamic and is an actual plot-use for Peach, but overall, the story errs closer to not being a story one might associate with Mario. The gathering of seven star-shaped collectibles is very Mario, but the characters and world Mario is surrounded by takes a step away from both Mario's iconic designs and functions. In the thick of the action, the idea is that you stop thinking you're in a Mario game and start thinking you're in an RPG, and while that isn't necessarily a problem, that is something you have to play carefully with, because if the stuff you're left with isn't good, then the immersion will be worthless.

The plot is good, especially considering the undercurrent of Grodus always considering whether the plans he has are currently viable for dealing with Mario and adopting new ones as Mario crushes the old ones. However, the ending comes dangerously close to undermining the whole adventure. Beldam, the X-Nauts and TEC should not have come back, and the fact that they did so reveals a layer of uncertainty in the writers' room that weakens the stories being told. How are we supposed to read Vivian if "she goes back to Beldam" is considered her happy ending? TEC blew themselves up specifically to deny the X-Nauts use of the Fortress- how can we admire their courage when their efforts are actively rewound? It is possible that the miraculous and unexplained revivals and redemptions are intended as an extension of TTYD's parody elements, where the joke is exaggerating saccharine endings where everyone is happy by extending that montage well past the point that everyone should be happy. The problem with this suggestion is that it is bold to attempt when the rest of the story is otherwise on the earnest end of the scale, with the parody elements confined to mechanics and the structure of the story as opposed to the content.

As for the world itself, the main hub town being a place that doesn't belong in Mario is both a blessing and a curse. By being so novel, disconcerting and daring, the game quickly establishes its own identity, but the fact that it is inherently limited by not being allowed to go the full distance helps to defang that town. There is blood, but there cannot be a murder. There is a bar, but they must drink cola. The mafia rule the roost, but they're not allowed to put people in cement shoes. The majority of crimes that get shown are of the form "don't ask", which is the game putting forward its best effort to present the idea of this town while not actually being allowed to depict it. In addition, the other locales, with the nominal exception of the Glitz Pit, stray away from this "cutthroat lawless side of the kingdom" aesthetic and feel far safer to belong in- which means that Rogueport's dangers are limited only to NPC dialogue and the Don Pianta content. The X-Nauts being as oppressive as they are carries the tone further afield from Rogueport- that is, when they're not being comical oafs it's hard to be worried about except for the possibility they might hurt themselves. Crump has a lot to handle, being both comic relief and a vessel for drama and high stakes.

The chapters themselves, on an individual scale, do feel significantly improved over 64. That's a general undercurrent that pervades the whole game- directly compare two elements, and TTYD wins out over 64 in the vast majority of cases. Individual chapter stories have a full plot apiece, with a strong core conflict that Mario can insert himself into. Chapters in 64 were far more aimless in comparison- the town would have people in need of help, the dungeon would be inhabited by a monster guarding the Star Spirit Mario needs, and while the two are theoretically linked, the tissue doing so is nothing but sinew, with the exception of Chapter 3. Every Chapter in TTYD is a strong Town Story in its own right, with the exception of Chapter 7- which was always going to be an uphill battle anyway- and nailing this helps any problems with the overall narrative and tone. You have just enough of the X-Nauts through the TEC arc that you're still actively thinking about them, but they don't have to carry the whole story if the individual Chapter stories are picking up the slack- which is good, because the X-Nauts can't be as scary as they want to be in a game with Mario's tone and require hiding behind the black to keep up that impression.

Mechanically, TTYD's "improvements over 64" start to feel less decisive and more like sidegrades. The retooled Badge system allowing you to stack many types of power-increasing Badge, in addition to the new "ridiculously high" cap for BP means that the tight damage system fostered in 64 is quickly inflated. In practice, and also considering the easy accessibility of Power Lift and the nature of Superguards, the player doesn't necessarily know how much damage they are going to deal and take, bringing TTYD more in line with other RPGs in that you just use your most effective attacks and hope you take the enemy out. When you add the Stage on top of that, where any moment you can find loose props falling on your head to damage you, apply status conditions and in general cause chaos, fighting is overall more playful and loses the charm the low-numbers system adds. Since Mario & Luigi Superstar Saga has already come out, I have to wonder if that game had an influence on the mindset of the developers: Mario & Luigi's combat system incentivises fighting bosses without taking damage yourself, and because this is such a fun, Mario way of fighting, Mario & Luigi's core gameplay loop has remained the same throughout all five entries in spite of the changes to how it is played, something that Paper Mario cannot say the same. Even though TTYD is still using the beloved RPG formula that earned Paper Mario its accolades, the hesitance to continue doing so still tinges the corners of the setup even back here.

Overall, TTYD is a game I struggle to put a holistic label on. The story was better than I remembered it- although the 2004-era veneer of misogyny makes me uncomfortable at times- but the gameplay was much worse. It's a game that deserves much of its accolades and more, but it's also a game that isn't fun and any replay is tinged with the knowledge of all the backtracking that you're going to have to do. It's a game that's much better the first time than on the replays, which is once more in line with RPG tradition than it is with Mario. Admittedly, this particular issue also strikes the Mario & Luigi games- although instead of sluggish backtracking, Mario & Luigi suffers from extended tutorial sequences and a lack of a strong customisation system to form the backbone of the replayability. TTYD's Partners and Badges supplying the latter may be, in part, why TTYD has a stronger legacy than many of the individual Mario & Luigi games- it's easier to want to sit down and commit to a replay when you know what you want to focus on the next time. There's no one part to make you dread replaying the game- there's a hundred little moments that'll irritate you every step of the way.