A frustrating and disappointing experience that discredits the franchise.
Mario and Luigi Paper Jam is a bad game. Not bad in the sense that it is broken or unplayable, but in the way where the gameplay mechanics, story, and the overall experience are sub-par. If this game was its own thing with an unique IP and such, this wouldn't matter as much. But since it is a Mario and Luigi game, a certain level of quality is expected.
There are some major problems with the gameplay in this game, and their workarounds for them should have been seen as a red flag to the design team.
To start off, this game includes a 'easy mode'. Which by itself isn't a bad thing per say, but when you feel the need to include a easy mode in your game that isn't a challenge base game, it should be a clear sign that something is wrong. Instead of designing a well crafted gameplay experience, they threw in a mode that simply added power to the player characters and made the enemies weaker. And while this allows the player to brute force their way through the game, it does not solve the actual problem with the gameplay.
One such problem is that the timing for attacking and dodging are baffling and feel haphazard. To workaround this they included an emergency block system where the player can hold down the X button to have their characters just stand there and block. And while this is a useful mechanic, it is also a sign that they kind of gave up. If a core mechanic of a game is to take action, and you feel the need to include the ability to not take action, then things are in a bad state.
Lastly, they added a way to buff your character by using battle cards. And while buffing the player characters is useful in boss fights, for the most part, it is a pointless system that doesn't add anything new or enjoyable to the experience. There is very little difference between using a battle card to give the player characters +20% damage, compare to using a spell in another game to do the same thing.
The game's story has an interesting premise that gets wasted since they don't fully explore it beyond using it as a setup. The journey in the game is largely forgettable as your group of characters go from grass fields to a desert, caves, island, forest, snow covered mountains, and finally a castle. These areas and the story in them aren't bad, they are just bland and minimal.
Overall the game felt like a con. One that I pulled on myself. I really enjoyed previous games in this series, so I had a fool's hope that this game would suddenly get better at some point. Sadly it never did. During my time with it, I found myself putting it into easy mode, use the block mechanic about half the time, sticking to the basic special attacks since I could never pull off the mechanics for the later ones, skipping through dialogue, and often feeling frustrated after playing it.
Mario and Luigi Paper Jam is a bad game that has sour me on the entire series. And I don't know if I'll pick up the next one, cause of how bad my experience was with this one.