Paper Mario: Color Splash
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Paper Mario: Color Splash is an action-adventure RPG game developed by Intelligent Systems and published by Nintendo in 2016 for the Wii U. It is the fifth game in the Paper Mario series, and the last Mario game to be released for the Wii U.
Plot
Mario and Princess Peach receives a letter from Prism Island that is actually a color drained toad. To find out what's going on, they sail to Prism Island with another Toad to investigate. Upon arriving at Port Prisma, the three travelers find the town deserted and notice colorless spots and objects.
Bad Qualities
- Many of the same problems present in Paper Mario: Sticker Star are present here, such as the poor combat, lack of original characters, and a shallow story.
- Battles still lack EXP.
- Huey, while more likable than Kersti, is just the same as the aforementioned character from the previous game as he acts as your only partner.
- For every Koopaling boss battle, you need to find a certain thing in order to defeat the boss, but you never get a hint on what the thing you need is unless you go back to Port Prisma and talk to the Know-It-All Toad who will give out a hint on what the thing is. Even then, his hints are very vague.
- For Morton, you need a Fire Extinguisher.
- For Iggy, you need a Bone.
- For Ludwig, you need the Balloons thing.
- For Wendy, you need an Instant Camera.
- For Larry, you need a Cork.
- For Lemmy, you need a Disco Ball and an Ice Pick.
- For Roy, you need a Washing Machine.
- Additionally, you might need to have several things to defeat the boss (like the steak boss) and you might not know the order.
- If you don't have the specific thing needed to defeat a Koopaling, then the battle against them will become impossible as all of them will use an attack that will either defeat Mario in one hit or an extremely powerful attack that they will use over and over again.
- There are no save files, meaning you'll have to completely erase your game data in order to replay the game from the beginning.
- Forced paper puns, which for the most part, aren't really funny.
- The cards are a very annoying way of battling as not only are they gone after one use, but you have to go through a long process in order to use the card.
- The friendly NPCs are still mostly Toads.
- As the title suggests, the game's focus is all about colors and paint, which while it might sound good, can get tiresome trying to repaint the entire world.
- The Shy Bandit is very annoying, as he will remove paint from levels the players have been to, forcing them to backtrack and re-paint the unpainted spots.
- Sometimes he will spawn very far away from Mario on the map, making it nearly impossible to stop him.
- Just like the River Twygz Bed pard in Super Paper Mario, the part where you encounter and fight a bent Shy Guy with Psycho like music is very disturbing and also feels very out of place in Mario related media, these parts would have been fitting for a horror game at least.
- Even worse is that just like Super Paper Mario, this game is rated PEGI 3, when games like Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury, which was rated E for Everyone in America, was rated PEGI 7 due to Fury Bowser's design and the violence in Bowser's Fury.
- Kamek is similarly very annoying, as he will either flip Mario's cards, take all but six of Mario's cards, or turn all of his cards into one specific type, and will disable fleeing. This can easily cause cheap deaths.
- He will still do this even after the player defeats him, which doesn't make sense.
Good Qualities
- Painting the unpainted spots scattered throughout the world can be enjoyable, and encourages exploration.
- The story, while not great, is somewhat original.
- Other than the previously mentioned paper puns, the humor is done well.
- Huey, as mentioned in WIS#3, is more likable than Kersti, in fact, his sacrifice was executed better than Kersti's because unlike her, he actually doesn't come back.
- Amazing graphics that captures the paper aspect perfectly.
- The soundtrack is pretty catchy.
- The Koopalings make their debut in the Paper Mario series.
- There are some unique worlds.
- The paint hammer is somewhat reminiscent to EXP as you can hold more paint as you collect more paint blobs.
- At Green Energy Plant, you can find a reference (possibly a callback) to Super Mario Bros. 3.
- "MORTON? MORE LIKE... LESTON."
Reception
After the game's teaser trailer dropped, it was met with widely harsh criticism from fans of the first 3 games, who criticized it for it's similarities to Sticker Star. However, among release, the game was met with mixed to positive reviews from critics, and mostly mixed reception from Paper Mario fans, with the game being criticized for repeating a lot of the same mistakes that Paper Mario: Sticker Star made. Despite this, it is widely agreed upon by critics and fans alike that this game is an improvement over Paper Mario: Sticker Star.
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