Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam
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Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam (known as Paper Jam Bros. in Europe) is a role-playing game developed by AlphaDream and published by Nintendo, released in December 2015/January 2016 for the Nintendo 3DS. It serves as a crossover between that series and the Paper Mario games, introducing gameplay and design elements from both series, and is the last original game in the Mario & Luigi series to be developed by AlphaDream before their closure in 2020.
The game was followed by Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga + Bowser's Minions two years later in 2017, in terms of remakes, while a direct follow-up, Mario & Luigi: Brothership, will release on November 7, 2024.
Plot
Story
While being with Toad on attic and finding Luigi accidentally knocks a book which contained characters from Paper Mario, who are released immediately (most notably Paper Mario, Princess Peach and Bowser with his son), and the Bros. from "real world" come to castle to see Peach with her "paper" counterpart and a lot of Paper Toads, who are scared (most of their friends are stolen by "real" enemies like Goombas or simply don't know what to do there). Going to rescue the mushroom people, the Bros. encounter a horde of Paper Goombas, and after their defeat, Paper Mario comes in clutch, so they are teaming up with the latter. While the 8 Toads are rescued, both Bowsers kidnap Peach Duo, and Bros. should rescue them by going through a lot of locations and some situations in their way (most of them are fighting bosses and helping to characters like Toadette).
Gameplay
As previous Mario & Luigi games, Paper Jam is a turn-based role-playing game, which is a crossover between Paper Mario: Sticker Star, containing some elements from that game, most notably Paper Mario (who moves when player taps the Y button), acting differently in comparison to the Bros. such as being able to copy himself, go through narrow gaps and perform Trio Attacks (he and the Bros. will go to "paper" dimension and perform an attack, there are five of them). Progressively, the player also learns some moves: Trio Drill, Grab and Drill, which consists of pressing buttons A, B and Y in order and choosing a move with the R trigger.
The Giant Battles also make their return from Dream Team and Bowser's Inside Story, but instead of traditional console tilting scheme (a giant boss and a giant character are present on their respective screens, in Dream Team you could choose in whatever direction you could tilt your 3DS), you attack an enemy Papercraft with yours and vice versa at the same time.
Why It's a Paper Jam
- As the title suggests, Paper Mario makes his debut in the Mario & Luigi series, and he can perform a variety of unique moves and abilities in the field and battle that are unique from the real Mario Bros. (such as floating whenever he jumps to dodge obstacles and copying himself to increase the number of attacks he can make, but he is also more vulnerable to fire due to being made out of paper).
- Besides the usual Bros. Attacks the real Mario Bros. can do, Paper Mario is also able to initiate Trio Attacks that transform the enemies into paper and allows the three of them to do various actions against them, such as the Trio Racquet, Trio Whirligig, Trio Shuriken and Trio Meteor.
- While on the topic of Bros. and Trio Attacks, Trio Shuriken, Toad Trail, and Mega Thwonk are some of the best ones.
- Although some sprites and 3D models were taken directly from previous 3DS Mario RPG's (such as Dream Team and Sticker Star), there are many new ones as well, and in general the game's design is just as fantastic as previous Mario & Luigi games.
- As always, Yoko Shimamura composes an excellent soundtrack for the game, with some of the great tracks being "Mixed-Up Scramble" (the battle track), "Time's Running Out" (time-based and Nabbit missions), "Springtime Breeze," "Falling to Pieces," "Double Bowsers!", and "Big Bang (boss theme)."
- Even better, once you complete the game once, you gain access to a Jukebox and see Paper Luigi as an Easter Egg napping, along with various other reactions for different tracks.
- Paper Jam has more bosses than Dream Team, and their abilities are similar to ones from previous games (e.g. King Boo acts similarly to Dark Star from Bowser's Inside Story and King Bob-omb is essentially the second stage of Pi'illodium from the previous game), although a few of them use the player's tactics against them, such as Paper Petey Piranha stealing Paper Mario's Copy Block to make copies of himself, Larry and Ludwig use their own Battle Cards against the player with their Dark Star Points, and Shiny RoboBowser using his own version of Paper Mario's Trio Attack Hammer.
- While on the subject of Shiny RoboBowser, he is considered to be one of the best bosses in the series thanks to his attacks, large health pool and epic music track playing during the boss battle.
- Just like the Giant Battles before them, the Papercraft Battles are creative and fun to fight (this time holding the 3DS horizontally rather than vertically).
- As usual, there are many funny moments in the game, such as the two Bowsers arguing with each other, even after they kidnapped the Peaches, while the Bowser Jr.'s befriend each other, or when Luigi tries to hug Paper Mario but accidentally crumpled him doing so.
- The story, while following the typical "Peach gets kidnapped when something interesting happens, so Mario and Luigi must save her" plot, is more complex than one would expect in a Mario & Luigi game with many twists to keep it interesting.
- The Lakitu Info Center provides several quests for you (a majority of them are required to proceed), such as finding and chasing down Paper Toads (although these quests, and the Paper Toads themselves, have a lot of problems; see BQ #2), catching Nabbit to receive Bros. Attacks, defeating certain enemies such as the Koopalings or Bowser, reaching the goal before a Yoshi does, and answering trivia questions.
- If you complete enough quests, you are given certain cards (there are 70 Medals one can obtain, 26 of which are in Hard Mode, which are harder than the ones you completed), and once you complete all Paper Toad quests, you will obtain the Trio Meteor.
- The Battle Cards concept, taken from Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door and two previous Mario & Luigi games, is handled as well as it was previously: by successfully performing attacks, the player is given Star Points, which are then used for the Battle Cards themselves. Each card does a specific action, such as restoring 40% of Paper Mario's BP or negating damage from enemies during critical moments.
- Paper Jam also brings several changes to the traditional Mario & Luigi RPG's core gameplay mechanics:
- You can block enemies' attacks by holding the X button, similar to the first two Paper Mario games.
- The tutorials are entirely optional, unlike the previous games, and can be accessed from the Guide in the Main Menu.
- There are seven ranks as opposed to the usual five, the two new ones being the Boomerang Rank (obtained between Levels 12 and 18) and Leaf Rank (obtained between Levels 27 and 35).
- A lot of UI has been improved, such as health icons and animations when starting a battle.
- You can now speed up cutscenes by holding the R button or tapping and holding the icon on the Touch Screen. This was added to address the criticism of being unable to skip cutscenes and other unnecessary information.
- Some Bros. Attacks that appeared in Dream Team reappear in this one with a few changes made, including:
- Mario's 3D Red Shell costs 3 BP instead of 4.
- Bomb Derby (also used by Mario) costs 7 BP rather than 9.
- Luigi's Fire Flower returns to its gameplay from Partners in Time and Bowser's Inside Story (repeatedly tapping the A or B buttons rather than timing your presses) and costs 3 BP instead of 5.
- The Dropchopper (also used by Luigi) no longer requires gyro controls to use (instead using the Circle Pad), despite still costing 7 BP.
- While on the topic of Bros. Attacks, several more were added alongside Trio Attacks, including Drill Shell, Rocket Blast, Toad Trail, and Mega Thwonk.
- Just like the previous two games, you can refight bosses in the Battle Ring, the last of which is Dry Bowser.
- This is the first game in the series to include Amiibo support; you can use any compatible ones (including Mario, Luigi, Peach, Toad, Bowser and Yoshi) to create new Battle Cards.
- Many of Paper Jam's character weaknesses were improved upon, since AlphaDream wanted a third character in battle, so they included Paper Mario to not make the story too big, and it worked pretty well (for the most part, at least).
Bad Qualities
- Somewhat misleading title: Though the idea of mixing Mario & Luigi and Paper Mario together is a good one, the elements from the latter series are mostly inspired by Sticker Star (which is considered the weakest Paper Mario game), and rather than making a crossover with major elements of both franchises such as antagonists (e.g. Shadow Queen, Cackletta, Fawful, etc.), the only major Paper Mario-related things included in the game are the characters and paper theme.
- Paper Toad Missions, such as finding them or making a group, are usually very annoying because the player must finish most of them to proceed, and the Paper Toads themselves run around in fear due to them thinking Mario is a monster and/or one of Bowser's minions. You'd expect that Peach or a Lakitu would tell them this isn't the case and he is there to help them, but it ends up not being the case.
- Missed opportunities:
- Paper Luigi does not appear in the main story once, being reduced to appearing at the Jukebox, which makes the European title Paper Jam Bros. look incorrect as a result.
- Almost none of the events of the previous games from either series are mentioned, save for Starlow and some bosses from Sticker Star appearing. While this can be seen as wasted potential, the excellent writing of Paper Jam gives the game a unique identity. Overall, however, it feels more like a standalone title rather than connected to any of the previous Mario & Luigi or Paper Mario games.
- For unknown reasons, Beanish people (who appeared in every prior game in one form or another) do not appear in this game at all; this is the only game in the series to have this distinction.
- The premise of the game is that Luigi knocks over a special book that happens to contain Paper Mario's universe; this is baffling because it was never mentioned anywhere in the Paper Mario series that it took place inside a book, but rather centered around stories from a specific book.
- What's also confusing is that Paper Mario wasn't established to be a separate character from the real Mario in previous games, along with with Paper Peach and Paper Bowser. In fact, Mr. Miyamoto himself stated that Mario and Paper Mario were supposed to be the same character.
- Controlling three separate characters with their own buttons at the same time can be confusing, but luckily you can press X to use the Trio Jump, then hold it to use the Trio Rush.
- There are a lot of glitches and out-of-bounds clipping, making Paper Jam the most broken Mario & Luigi game. While some are considered "good bad bugs," such as the ability to complete the game more quickly, others are more game-breaking and can softlock the game.
- The fact that Paper Jam can be completed in under an hour if you know what you're doing doesn't help either.
- Like Dream Team and Bowser's Inside Story DX, this game runs in 30 FPS instead of 60, which can be uncanny (though this can be justified since your 3DS can overheat).
- Battle Cards, while great (read WIAPJ #7 for their good sides), are broken once you obtain them, most notably ones that lower the enemy's level by 5 or 10, raise the EXP given by foes in 1.5x+ times (it can be justified since the cards make the level earning easier), and the game itself is really easy in comparison to Partners in Time or Dream Team.
Reception
Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam received generally positive reviews from critics, holding an aggregate 76 score on Metacritic and having generally favorable reviews[1]. Nintendo Life gave[2] the game 8/10, praising the mechanics and core gameplay, but saying that "Paper Jam's simplicity that makes it a great starting point and an easy recommendation, but also holds it back from taking full advantage of more dimensions than ever before", and criticizing a lack of interesting locations and characters. An other publication Nintendo World Report[3] gave it 7.5/10 rate, mentioning the Papercraft battles, funny dialogue and the battle system as pros, but the cons consist of Paper Toad missions and story.
However, the reception from average users was rather mixed-to-positive than positive, having the score 7.4 on the Metacritic: the players were disappointed by the story, hit-or-miss implementation of Paper Mario, locations and some Paper Toad missions, but appreciated the design part, soundtrack, battles and minor improvement over Dream Team.
Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam sold about 50,000 copies in Japan during its first several days of release, which was under a half the equivalent for its predecessor, selling around 1 million coies worldwide as the end of 2019, becoming the worst-sold non-remake Mario & Luigi series game. An edition of the game bundled with Mario Kart 7 sold an additional 2,400 units.
In the E3 2015 trailer[4], it was said that Paper Jam was scheduled to be released on Spring, but it was released by December[5] in most countries. Going further, Paper Luigi was planned[6] to be in game, but the idea was scrapped because it could be harder to control four players simultaneously; there also was said that the game was planned to have a big story with characters from both franchises (Paper Mario and Mario & Luigi, respectively), although in the final version focuses the showdown between major characters.
Trivia
- Most of in-game characters from "real" world (as Starlow and Bowser) are 2D sprites, while the flat paper characters are 3D models.
Videos
Provided ID could not be validated.
References
- ↑ Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam for 3DS reviews - Metacritic
- ↑ Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam Review (3DS) | Nintendo Life
- ↑ Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam Review - Nintendo World Report
- ↑ Nintendo 3DS - Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam E3 2015 Trailer
- ↑ Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam - Just the Fax Trailer
- ↑ Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam Developers Discuss the Game's Development - Nintendo Life