Most of our readers probably at least once played the game Super Mario Bros., released back in 1983, for 8-bit Famicom console (in our country known under the guise of the Taiwan clone Dendy). This game changed the way people think about what actually needs to be platformers, and hit the “Guinness Book of records” as the best selling game in history. Since then the light appeared a lot of different genres of video games about a plumber Mario, but it is unlikely many of you know about the RPG series with this character in the lead role.
The first role-playing game series called Super Mario RPG, was released in 1996 by Studio Square (now Square Enix) for the Nintendo 64 platform. It was Square in those years was an industry leader in the development of games of the genre JRPG, so it was not surprising to observe the presence of in-game features, like carefully crafted story and turn-based combat, borrowed from another popular Studio series — Final Fantasy. The game was developed under the careful supervision of the “father Mario” game designer Shigeru Miyamoto, so its style in strict conformity with the original. First world plumber Mario appeared before the players in an isometric view using pre-ofrendering 3D graphics.
Such an unusual play came to the audience Nintendo fans like, so the release of its logical continuation was only a matter of time. It happened in 2000, when the light appeared the game Paper Mario. Its distinguishing feature was the unusual visual style: the entire game world was created entirely from paper and cardboard, the characters were completely flat in three-dimensional space, and all this together was skillfully used by game designers in the design of scenery and game mechanics. To date, she has already published four complete games in this “paper” role-playing series.
In 2003 was born the next branch of the branches of role-playing game series Mario. This time the main characters in the game became two, and for the dashing plumber was joined by his cowardly brother in the green hat is Luigi. The new series is called Mario & Luigi. At once it is necessary to say a few words about the developer who created this game. AlphaDream is a small Japanese Studio founded in Tokyo in 2000. From the first day of its existence, the Studio worked exclusively with handheld video game platforms Nintendo: first Game Boy Color, then Game Boy Advance then Nintendo DS and Nintendo 3DS. By the way, Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam Bros. for Nintendo 3DS console I’m going to tell today is the fifth game in the series, was working on specialists AlphaDream.
Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam Bros. is the so — called “crossover”, i.e. a game in which intersect two completely different worlds: flat paper from the Paper Mario and the bulk of Mario & Luigi. It begins with the fact that clumsy Luigi, trying to catch a brazen mouse in the Royal library, accidentally drops from the shelf a magical book from which in his world are hundreds paper of the Paper Mario universe characters. Not only do they include Goodies like paper Princess Peach and paper Mario, but traditional villains, such as paper Bowser and his evil army of carnivorous mushrooms Gumb.
It is very interesting to observe how in these incredible circumstances, meet the inhabitants of two different worlds, for example, are the main villains. They start pummeling each other in an attempt to get rid of the impostor, shouting similar insults both think alike with all their external differences. In Nintendo games, even these scenes look good without causing any negative emotions in the player, only causing him to smile. In the game you will meet extremely wonderful and very good humor. For example, when one volume the character first meets his paper counterpart, says: “You’re skinny like my life!”. Well how here not to be touched?
Mario and Luigi have no choice but to join forces with paper Mario to defeat the forces of evil and sign of Bowser with his army back to the magical Tome. The player will have to simultaneously manage all three characters, however the mechanics of the game does a winner, in my opinion. As it was in the game The Legend of Zelda: Tri-Force Heroes, which I told you about recently, is to combine the various skills of the main characters to overcome the obstacles in his path, solve puzzles and deal with the many minions of Bowser.
While traveling on the fabulous Kingdom do not forget that each of your three characters has its own button on the Nintendo 3DS. By Mario And Luigi, “B”, and paper Mario – Y. When pressing these buttons, you can jump to each of the main characters, but Mario, is she still able to apply various items like a hammer. If you sneak up on the enemy from behind and carefully hit it with a hammer, then the battle begins, in the beginning, which the enemy will receive damage from this attack. This will give you a tangible advantage. If you attack an opponent with a run – in battle is also reflected by applying a small damage to enemies.
The combat system will be familiar to those who’ve played previous games in the series. Everything is running in step mode. The player goes in turn for each of your characters, and then walks each of the opponents. The sequence of moves depends on the speed of the heroes and their opponents, as in any other RPG. Mario and Luigi can attack enemies by jumping on their heads or hitting weapons like hammers. You can also apply unique joint attack “doublets”, involving both brothers, a plumber. Time by pressing the correct buttons, you will be able to inflict impressive damage. Generally, in this game very much depends on your reaction and sense of rhythm, as most of the attacks are strengthened or weakened depending on, whether you just clicked the necessary button.
There is in the game and attack “the triplets”, which also participates in paper Mario. But do not be lazy before the first use of these powerful attacks, be sure to look in the game clue, where you can pre-rehearse their performance, so you do not make a blunder in a real fight. Also, be aware that each doublet and triplet requires the consumption of so-called “points of brothers” (ABOUT) that are in the game the analog of magical powers. These points if you run out, you will only have access to traditional, less powerful attack. To make up ABOUT the scale, use special items from inventory or find colorful block smashing which your characters will restore not only stock ABOUT, but also your health.
Unique skills of the characters bring into the game mechanics a lot of unusual elements. For example, paper Mario is able to squeeze into narrow passages and seek the treasure there, where you will not be able to get the usual Mario and Luigi. Paper Mario can turn into various objects like a paper airplane, which is very easy to run away from angry bosses, or paper in a tube, on which the brothers plumbers will be able to cross the abyss. Developers were given free rein to their imagination, so all those “design decisions” you definitely will not be bored.
There is also a system of “Combat cards” that during the battles the player can reinforce the key parameters of their heroes and weaken enemies. You can collect your own deck of ten cards, including unique, created using collection of Amiibo. However, I was unable to test this feature, as rash have installed giving me a digital copy of the game on the Nintendo 3DS, and the external NFC reader under my hand was not, although a few Amiibo and stand on my shelf. Quite inconvenient for those who have no console New Nintendo 3DS with a built in reader housing. But, of course, the game is wonderful without all of these extra features.
The most important advantage of paper Mario is its ability to copy itself during the battle. He, like the copy machine, creates multiple copies of his body, then all these copies add up in a thick stack, and during the attack of the enemy each copy deals the extra damage. It is critically important to Dodge enemy attacks, otherwise your copy will take damage themselves and die. To Dodge the attacking enemy, you need time to press the button corresponding to the character that has been made by the villain. You can not Dodge, but simply put a block button “X”, but in this case, the damage, albeit small, you can not avoid.
In the game there, and other attributes role-playing game, in addition to having turn-based battles. Each character has a number of parameters that increases with each new level. Among the characteristics of “health”, already mentioned “points”, “strength”, “defense”, “speed” and, of course, “the level of a mustache” heroes. Tillering and thickening mustache Mario and Luigi directly affect the number of successful attacks, so we can assume that the equivalent parameter is “luck”. There is also traditional shops where you can buy or sell items, clothes and weapons. To trade you will need gold coins, and especially rare goods sellers are willing to leave only for “points test skill”. These points can be earned by performing various tests during fights with opponents. For example, to perform a particular joint attack without a single error or Dodge enemy attacks 100 times.
I was very pleased with the scene in which you trust the management of giant papercraft-figure. Driving it, you will fight with the same huge papercraft-bosses. The bosses in the game are just wonderful, and each of them requires an individual approach. The game is very user friendly and is equipped with a very user-friendly encyclopedia where you’ll find the answers to any of your questions, and learn what you need to do for further development of the plot. Not to mention high-quality translation to Russian language, can boast far not all the major Nintendo projects. And it is especially pleasant that in Russia the game was released December 4th, while in USA it will appear only on January 22, 2016. Such attention of the Japanese to the European countries just makes me happy.
Pros:
- Favorite Nintendo characters in an unusual genre.
- Crossover of two completely different game universes.
- Friendly and understandable even to a child role-playing system.
- Great dialogues of characters and witty humor.
- The game mechanics are based on joint actions of the characters.
- The game is very accurately translated into the Russian language.
- Battle giant papercraft figure.
- Very convenient system of training.
Cons:
- If you don’t like JRPG, the game can quickly get bored.
- Not the most convenient use of Amiibo.
- The rhythm of the game very uneven.
Despite the fact that the game is unlikely to surprise with something new those who are already familiar with the series, Mario & Luigi and Paper Mario, it combines the best of both franchises. Yes, the rhythm Paper Jam Bros. sometimes a few sags. Yes, if you are annoyed with frequent turn-based battles with recurring actions, the game is unlikely to hold your attention for long. But the charming characters, great sense of humor, intuitive game mechanics, related to the reaction rate of the player, and bright attractive graphics do their job, so from the game with rare moments of almost impossible to put down. I give her 8 out of 10 points.