Awesome, fantastic work as always Mike. Hope Dweck doesn't kill you just for writing about her on a video game website. [Name drop to prove I listen to your podcast]
Heads up about the limited uses each move has: while it's super annoying for the single player experience, limited uses of moves is actually pretty key to the balance of the moves in competitive Pokemoning. It's not the MOST important thing by any stretch; in fact, it's definitely low on the list of priorities when determining a moveset, but for the moves with lower PP, like 5 or 10, it does come up sometimes that they'll run out of uses in a fight if you're not careful.
The bonus stars only became bullshit because they started randomly picking which ones they dish out at the end. They used to always be the Minigame Star, the Coin Star, and the Happening Star, which you could at least plan around. Now the 50 turns leading up to those stars were still bullshit, but man, seeing them be randomly determined on top of all that nonsense is infuriating.
I'm worried that Paper Mario is slowly becoming Sonic. Where every time they announce a game, the fans (myself included) will get excited and think, "Hey, maybe this is going to be the one! Maybe they'll make the Paper Mario game we want this time!"
And then it comes out and it bad, because of course it is.
I guess there's only been two and a half games that could point to this being a trend (I personally like Super Paper Mario) as opposed to Sonic who has a decades-long history of that cycle.
Also the fans were preeeetty down on this game the second they saw footage of it, so maybe it won't follow that arc just because they're not going to be immediately fooled by a trailer. But if the next one they make has a trailer that points out the inclusion of partners and an actual level-up mechanic... I'll be on board right there, and I'll probably buy it no matter what the reviews say. This one, though, I'm not going to.
@rasrimra:I really don't know where that person is coming from, either. The only point they made that stands is that it's been a bad year for Nintendo.
I actually think Super Paper Mario is a really great game. It's just a different game than the first two entries. That said, Thousand Year Door really is an achievement and I wouldn't feel weird about it making it onto a list of the greatest games of all time. Like, games. Of all time. Not RPGs of all time. Not games of that generation. It's seriously that good.
Sticker Star was a game that made me unbelievably unhappy. Like, there were aspects of it that were fine, I guess, but man. I was totally open to the idea of changing up Paper Mario. I liked Super! But that game was a huge bummer. And as good as they can be, the Mario and Luigi games have never done it for me the same way that those first two Paper Mario games did. They're good. I just like the way the Paper Mario games are structured much, much more, and traversing the overworld and the style of puzzles and the slightly different tone to the writing... There's enough of a difference there to me that I enjoy more than the Mario and Luigi games.
From what I've seen in the comments here, though, it looks like this game isn't nearly as much of a bummer as Sticker Star. I'm really reluctant to go anywhere near it, though. Sticker Star hurt me bad. My decision to buy a 3DS was based on the fact that the next Paper Mario game was being made for it. (Thankfully, that wound up being a good decision in spite of Sticker Star.)
I feel kinda bad only talking about the older games here, but they're so much more interesting than the interpretation of Paper Mario has been for this game and the last one. And... I mean, I guess Nintendo is kind of obstinate about stuff, but maybe someday they'll reverse the decision they made about not making Paper Mario the way they made the first two.
Also, as was stated by someone else in these comments, and HD remake of Thousand Year Door would be preeeeeeeetty incredible. I'd also just love it if the GB guys had an excuse to play it. It's a really long game, and I can't expect the guys to find any time for it when there are new releases constantly coming out, but a remake would make it possible. Seriously, they all need to at least see the Glitzville section. It's such an amazing sequence, and lines up so perfectly with the staff's interests and the style of humor they appreciate. I would love see them react to it. It's so good.
I really enjoy the way story is told in Magic: The Gathering, and would love to see more games attempt to use a similar approach to narrative design.
It's actually kind of similar to the way story plays out in games like Gone Home; you're seeing bits and pieces of narrative that are told out-of-sequence, and each little discovery you make gives you more of a sense of the larger story.
The story bit you showcased in the article is a particularly great one; Anguished Unmaking is a brilliant card on so many levels. The art is beautiful, the flavor text is evocative, and the actual mechanics of the card contribute to the story it's telling.
Man, Yuri is the fucking best. That stuff that happens in his character arc that I can't spoil because it's the goddamn best? So good.
Also nice to see a list like this where Lloyd doesn't get immediately shit all over; he's apparently pretty unpopular from what I gather. His whole "idealist" thing rubs people the wrong way. I think I was just the right age for it when I played the game for the first time back when it was originally released. I was around eleven. His "why can't we all just get along?" speeches resonated with me back then, as cliched as I'd probably see them as being now. God, that game is thirteen years old.
Seeing this list has made me realize how badly I need to play Eternia, though.
Oh, and if you want more characters that would be interesting to place on this list, Legendia has some really cool stuff in it, in that regard. Every single character is given special attention for long portions of the game, and it's pretty cool. I don't know what the general concensus is in regards to the quality of that game or its characters, but I wound up getting really attached to most of them. Also might be another case where my youth played a role in my affection for it, but I have no idea. Literally no context. I only played that one once, when it was released, and have seen none of it, nor any conversation about it, since. It was my first exposure to the incredibly cliched anime romantic line, "Can we stay like this... just a little longer?" That I now realize is said in about a kajillion anime-style things. I thought it was deep then. I was also probably like thirteen. I don't really remember.
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