So, I've been sitting at Chapter 8-1 for a couple weeks now. I suppose I should just wrap this thing up and move on but this game ruined the interest I had in it and is now being trounced by Xenoblade Chronicles Definitive Edition as I play XC1 for the first time. I wanted to get through the 2nd Pit of 100 Trials but this game has a terrible management system for money and grinding for some just pretty much killed my enthusiasm for playing.
The best trick I saw for earning money was to do a card capture on Amazing Dayzee who can be found in Chapter 5-2. Trading in an Amazing Dayzee card is worth 300 coins. The problem is that to catch it you need to spend 100 coins for a Special Capture Card or Capture Card SP. (Something like that.) So, you sort of make 200 per Amazing Dayzee. Moreover, you can only capture it once and then you have to exit the level and re-enter it to capture another one. I'd done this process a couple times but didn't want to keep doing it every time needed coins. So, I had one card and captured Dayzee to get 300 coins. Used those to buy three more cards and went through the process again. Used the 900 I then earned to buy 9 more cards and then went through the capture process again. So, now I've got 2700 in coins that I can use for all other manner of quests and purchases that I want. Since you're only allowed up to 999 coins, I'll still have to trade some in from time to time to actually add the coins to my total. From there, I then started buying some ingredients to stock up for the Trials Pit. Since you can only hold up to ten items and the meal I wanted required 2 items that meant I could get 5 meals made then store those and get another 10 ingredients to then get another 5 meals made and then take out from the store the 5 earlier cooked meals. That might have taken about an 60 - 75 minutes. With that done, I was ready to finally go back into the pit. However, you can't stop and save during it and I knew it would take about an hour to get through. Since it was late already, I saved my progress and shut it down and haven't gone back to it since. That grinding was just so dull that after finally going through it to set myself up to continue on the adventure, I just don't care anymore.
The story doesn't help either. I don't really care about any of the villains. The game has been spilling its cards for awhile that Bleck and Tippi were/are lovers. The divided Ancient tribes and different Prognosticus books are just vague nonsense to try and add some depth to an under-developed or cliched story. In my last post, I said couldn't get to the level of hate that Luigi Dude professed for the game but I'm getting a strong feeling of dislike when I think about it. At this point, when it comes to the title of Worst Mario Game, I definitely think this should be highly considered in the discussion.
Now, one could say, well, then don't bother with the side stuff but even if I didn't then this game is pretty weak to stand on its own just based on the main story. If it weren't then I don't think the developers would have bothered to add all that extra fluff and "challenge" to it. Part of it seemed to be because some of these things were done in the first two Paper Mario games but that kind of stuff worked in an RPG where there was a lot more to do it. But trying to carry those traditions into a platformer game just does not work.
I'm really thankful right now for the direction this series took after this game with Sticker Star and on in which they finally cut out a bunch of this dead weight. This game is lucky it released early in the Wii's lifespan. It's ridiculous that this is the best selling title so far of the Paper Mario series. If nothing else, I hope Origami King can at least take that away from this game by releasing on the Switch and having little around its release so far. For this game to be the major Paper Mario experience for many players is a real shame and maybe why this series has never taken off like other franchises. (It probably didn't help either that so many people treated Sticker Star like it killed their childhood and over-reacted to the changes it brought.)
As mentioned at the outset, I've started playing XC1. Even with the graphical upgrades, it still feels/looks like a Wii game to me. Monolith basically said that its not like they completely rebuilt the graphics and environments for the game from the ground up. They just polished things up a bit. I suppose I'd compare it to a 360/PS3 HD game despite having little familiarity with them. It's in HD but it looks sort of like early HD development compared to how XCX looked or the various clips of XC2. I've spent a lot time in Colony 9 and it's got that look / feel of rust brown that was often joked about early HD games. For me, looking back at the titles on the Wii compared to what has since come, there isn't much of the "top titles" that have aged that well or might still be considered "must play". Off the top of my head, I'd probably select Metroid Prime 3, Kirby's Epic Yarn and Super Mario Galaxy 2 as great games still worth checking out. Yet, playing XC1, I can totally see why this game created such a reaction at the time for those that did play it and worked to get it ported over to North America. It's still early for me and I've only just left Gaur Plains to the next area after exploring it as best I could but I can see myself declaring it the best Wii game despite not having played it on my Wii.
I also bring up XC1 because compared to SPM, doing the extra fluff of sidequests and battling is much more rewarding. Even the gem crafting is better done than the cooking aspect although that has been one of the weaker things of interest so far. With XC1, it has got me pumped to go back and finish XCX because I'm starting to understand a lot of the systems in place for that game despite knowing I've got a lot more time I'm probably going to be spending on just this one game. It's got me excited to go through all the games in this series. Super Paper Mario, on the other hand, has kind of killed my interest in playing another Paper Mario game anytime soon. (That said, the stuff I've seen of Origami King still has me pretty jazzed for it so it should hopefully rid myself of those feelings.) XC1 still holds up 10 years later but I'm not sure SPM even held up at the time of its release considering I got it early on and it just never excited me that much to play it for some 12 - 13 years until now.
Enough typing. Back to playing.
Topic: Super. Paper. Mario. April. 2007. (Read 54463 times)
