We went to the Nintendo Preview Event recently to check out some of the upcoming Nintendo games. We couldn’t play them all but we’ve seen some interesting new things. Paper Mario: Color Splash was demonstrated during a behind closed doors session and it looks very promising for the Paper Mario fans.
Story
We have seen fragments of the story so far and it’s shaping up to be another classic yet comical Mario story. It all starts on a dark and stormy night when both Peach and Mario receive a mysterious letter. In this letter is a Toad drained of its colors. The Toad asks for help and demands Mario and Peach to travel to the Prism Island to solve the mystery and fight off evil. Once arrived, our iconic due meets the mysterious 3D talking paint bucket called ‘Huey’. If that wasn’t strange enough, they hear a scream and meet with a Slurp Guy that’s coloring Toad and transforms Huey into a 2D object. This marks the start of another adventure where Paper Mario and Huey team up to fight evil and bring back color to the island.
During your quest, you’ll meet up with a lot of Toads. Since the latest Paper Mario game on Nintendo 3DS, those guys seem to have become the new stars of the Paper Mario universe. Talking to them results in funny conversations however. We’ve seen the host talking with several Toads throughout the demo and it happened more than once that everybody broke down in laughter. The humor is sharp and will result in a lot of smiles while playing. You can complete the game without talking to every Toad on your screen but you’ll miss out on some of the better jokes for sure.
Color the world
Besides the jokes, the biggest selling point of Color Splash is the Splash hammer, a new weapon that allows Paper Mario to bring color to the world. The paper world is filled with uncolored spots, by coloring them; you’ll gain more coins or other useful items. Coloring doesn’t stop there, however; it’s also needed for the renewed combat system. Unlike other Paper Mario games, you’ll fight with cards this time. Before you can use a card, you’ll need to color it. The more you color it, the better it is. Coloring demands ink and this can only be found in the world, by discovering secrets or defeating enemies. You’ll always need to keep an eye out for your ink meters, however; since you can’t win a battle without ink.
Color me excited
The attack cards featured some similar attacks like the jump or hammer smash but some more exotic cards like a Fire Extinguisher were also ready to be activated. These cards are called ‘Things Cards’ and offer some weird yet very powerful attacks. The way Nintendo created the scenery around them while using them is just brilliant. The Fire Extinguisher, for example, transformed the battlefield into the top of a building on fire in a big American city. It’s great to see this kind of creativity and we’re sure a lot of gamers will want to find out what the Things Cards have to offer.
Gorgeous paper world
Besides the battles, the paper world itself looks very impressive. Paper Mario certainly is a franchise that benefits from extra horsepower. The paper world is really created out of paper and cardboard. At one moment we passed an ocean that consisted out of different layers of paper on top of each other. Different shades of blue formed the paper ocean and it looked impressive without a doubt. This is just one of those examples but the world itself is very bright and colorful, it’s fun to look at and I guess it’s even more fun to play it.
The extra layers also result in a new power called the cutout power. This transforms the world into a flat world that’s visible on the Wii U GamePad. As the name of the power already gives away, you’re able to cut out certain pieces of the world and jump to the newly created location to solve certain problems. Can’t pass that gap and there’s no bridge nearby? Use the cutout power. We haven’t seen it a lot in the demo but it sounds like an interesting new gimmick.
It’s in the details:
One thing’s for sure, it’s all in the details in this game. A lot of details are in the conversations and the developers aren’t afraid to mock other games or popular events that are happening in the world. Besides that, you can use your Splash Hammer to troll the Toads and paint their heads in a random color. Painting a paper Toad red has some intentionally dark humor around it and that’s just what it makes it even better.
Besides this, the way the health of Paper Mario and his enemies depletes isn’t measured with a boring bar. Instead, the color of the character will disappear the weaker it gets. Wondering when that boss will finally go down? Watch the lack of color on the character and you’ll know how much longer you’ll need to survive.
Early conclusion:
Based on the details and the amount of jokes the developers have put into their game, we’re convinced that this game isn’t an easy cash-in but can actually be one of the better recent Paper Mario installments. There are some gameplay elements that got us worried, the Toad hide and seek mini-game returns, but at this point, we still want to give the game the benefits of the doubt. We can’t wait to see more and try it for ourselves.
