Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam

The Paper Mario series went downhill with the likes of Sticker Star, and I felt Mario & Luigi's Dream Team was fairly uninspired. I tend not to like the idea of a crossover, but the concept could have brought a lot of charm and freshness to the series. In reality, we get a cookie-cutter plot of saving the Princess and going through Bowser and his minions.

The world of Paper Mario is contained in a magic book in a neglected room within Princess Peach’s castle. Luigi clumsily knocks over the book, and blends the two worlds together. Part of the initial humour is the character’s reactions to their doppelganger. After the initial shock, the character’s work together and the plot never develops.

I think the generic Toads are better characters than the pseudo-French, block characters of Dream Team. There's far too many of them though. I think it looks nicer than Dream Team, with vibrant and sharp graphics. I think the dialogue is probably marginally better, but it doesn’t live up to the standard in the old games.
Both “Paper Mario” and “Mario & Luigi” are quite similar since they are both humorous RPG's with turn-based interactive battles, and the use of abilities to navigate the world. In battles, it is about rhythmic timing of attacks and studying enemy animations to know when to press a button dodge or counterattack.

Cards are added to the battles after 5 or so hours into the game. You have a deck of 10 cards, with up to 3 cards in your hand. These cost Star points to activate and can be used before your turn. Once you deplete your deck of 10, then it is reshuffled. If you don’t want to use a card, you can “flip” it, which discards it.

Your attributes increase when you level up. You don't get to choose an attribute to boost further unlike Dream Team. When you rank up, you can choose a perk. You can gain extra equipment slots, boost certain attacks, gain extra attribute boosts when levelling and more. Some perks are restricted to one character only, so if you choose HP up with Luigi, then the Marios cannot choose this.

At many points of the game, you are blocked from proceeding unless you complete the mini-games involving Toads. The objectives can vary, but often involve finding hidden Toads in a limited area within a time limit. Sometimes you have a time limit and are interrupted by battles. If you run out of time, then you have to play again. When these sections can last 20 minutes; it is extremely tedious.

When navigating the world, you can press X for all 3 characters to jump. If you want to make them jump independently, Paper Mario, Mario and Luigi are mapped to the Y, A, B buttons respectively. You can run by holding X. This is good for covering ground, and is necessary when you are required to catch fleeing Toads.

There’s two types of boss battles. Ones that use the standard battle system, and Paper Craft battles. The standard battle system can be really tough because when the enemy has low health, they attack more frequently, use different attacks, and do more damage. It's a good idea to heal just before they go into this “rage” mode, but it's guesswork since they don't have a health bar. Having to replay the boss fights are annoying because they are really long. This is often unfair, and you end up requiring a few attempts. Some bosses have a healing ability, often healing if you don’t attack them in the correct way. E.g. maybe there are two enemies but you have to defeat both within a turn of their partner falling; otherwise their partner revives them.

The Paper Craft battles are really dull. They often involve slowly moving around an arena, pressing one button to charge-attack. When they are knocked over, then you aim at them, and press another button to stomp them. You will usually have to repeat 3 times or so to defeat them. Often the Paper Craft battles have multiple stages to them, so you will repeat this process against many enemies. You need to stop and recharge your energy. This involves moving over a charge pad and playing a rhythm mini-game. This takes far longer than you would expect.

Just like Dream Team, Paper Jam is held back by repetition and general tedium. If it was half the length, then it would be far more enjoyable, but everything is dragged out as long as possible, with a basic story tying it together. It probably is around 10 hours shorter than Dream Team, but it is still too long at around 28 hours.