Developer: AlphaDream
Publisher: Nintendo
Original System: 3DS
System Played On: 3DS
Rating: 4 stars
On November 15, 2023, I defeated Bowser and Paper Bowser, thus finishing Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam on the Nintendo 3DS! During my playthrough, I leveled up Mario & Luigi & Paper Mario to level 38, and I rescued all the Paper Toads, and I did it all in 35 1/4 gameplay hours over a span of 2 1/2 months.
To quote the Simpsons & Family Guy crossover: "Yay! A crossover always brings out the best in each show! It certainly doesn't smack of desperation, the priorities are always creative, and not driven by marketing..." This sarcasm accurately portrays how crossovers seem like a good idea, but too often they rely on the marketing of the crossover itself than actual good writing. I am glad to report that Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam does not fall under this category. Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam truly wants to explore the idea of what would happen if the characters of Mushroom Kingdom would meet their paper equivalent. The writing was on point. More on that later.
The most notable thing that a Mario & Luigi and Paper Mario crossover brings to the table is a third member to the party - Paper Mario. Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Insider Story had Bowser as a third playable character, but Bowser play was asynchronous with Mario & Luigi play. Mario & Luigi: Dream had a team of Luigis playing with Mario in Dream World, but it was more like the Luigis were powering up Mario than actual playing alongside him. The last game to really have more than 2 playable characters was Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time, which included Baby Mario & Baby Luigi. With 2 games between Partners in Time and Paper Jam, more party members felt fresh. Paper Mario wasn't just another member of the party, though. He had some unique properties. He can make up to 6 copies of himself, which get destroyed before Paper Mario loses health. Naturally, to balance things out, Paper Mario has less HP. Of course, feeding Paper Mario enough heart beans can get Paper Mario caught up. Just in case gamers struggle with Paper Mario having fewer hit points, Paper Mario has flutter jump to dodge enemy attacks. Naturally, the developers accounted for this, but it's still an advantage, nonetheless. Paper Mario copies also come in handy for the attack. Instead of the usual double jump Mario & Luigi can do with a timed jump attack, Paper Mario can do a jump for each copy, up to 6. Of course, the developers accounted for this, making Paper Mario's individual jumps less powerful, but again, enough pow beans and equipment can bump that up quite a bit. Paper Mario's hammer attack also comes with a benefit. With up to 6 paper copies, Paper Mario's hammer can attack up to 6 enemies at once. It's nice to have a basic attack that can attack multiple enemies. He even comes with his own special attacks called Trio Attacks. As the name hints, it requires all 3 party members to execute. All these characteristics of Paper Mario play into his paper attributes, characteristics and personality well. The only one thing I don't get about Paper Mario's RPG battles is that his input color is yellow! I think it would have made more sense to make his color blue. Not only because of R-G-B, but because they all blue overalls!
The one paper aspect that I don't get was the papercrafts. The papercrafts replace the Bowser battles from Bowser's Inside Story and the giant Dreamy Luigi battles from Dream Team. To some extent, I get the Bowser battles and the giant Dream Luigi battles. They show off the hardware capabilities of the 3DS: the vertical 3DS gameplay, the touch screen and the microphone. The papercrafts use none of these. The gamer holds the 3DS horizontally, not vertically. The player puts his inputs with the buttons, not with the touch screen or the microphone. Therefore, I don't understand why this is in the game. Perhaps its intention is to give the gamer a break from the RPG gameplay, but I came here to play an RPG! Maybe the developers needed a break from designing an RPG to design some other game play. Whatever the reason, I just don't understand it. This is the bad, if not the worst part of the Paper Mario series (or at least the latter part of the series)- distracting from the RPG with different gameplay.
Another gameplay mechanic that distracts from the RPG gameplay is making the papercrafts in the first place. In order to make the papercraft, Mario & Luigi & Paper Mario have to rescue Paper Toads. Sometimes rescuing Paper Toads means chasing and catching them, when other times rescuing Paper Toads means finding them hidden in an area. Sometimes the Paper Toads rescues requiring avoid enemies, and if you get attacked, you have to start from the beginning, while others have time limits. Some have both, while others have neither. Some are required to advance the game, while others are optional, but the optional have some good payoffs, like a Bros. attack. I rescued all the Paper Toads for these benefits, and I would recommend it, too.
I won't spoil the plot, but I will say it's not a McGuffin search. I can always appreciate it. The problem with McGuffin searches is that the plot ends once all the McGuffins are found. Without a McGuffin search, the plot always have the player guessing if the plot is resolving sooner than later.
I will spoil, however, the final boss. [SPOILER ALERT!] Ok, this isn't really too much of a spoiler because it's easy to guess. The final boss is Bowser and Paper Bowser. I will allow this because of the dynamic of Bowser and Paper Bowser teaming up for double the trouble. Something less expected is that, halfway through the battle, Paper Bowser turns into armor for Bowser. Again, the combination works, so I will allow it. Still, it on the easier end of boss battles. I only failed once before succeeding, and my one and only failure came during the Paper-armored Bowser, which they were kind enough to reset me to the beginning of the Paper-armor Bowser halfway point. This is a little disappointing, considering a lot of the other boss battles did take a few rounds to learn. On the other hand, the easiness of the battle made the battle feel very fair at all times [/END SPOILERS].
And with that, I have played and finished all 5 Mario & Luigi games, thus ending the Year of Mario & Luigi. Here's my ranking of the games within the series, from favorite to least favorite-
- Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time
- Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam
- Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story
- Mario & Luigi: Dream Team
- Mario & Luigi Superstar Saga
I will still say, however, that the best Mario RPG is Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars. Good thing it's received a remake, so that future generations can enjoy it with easier access to it!
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