Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam

Genre: Turn-Based RPG / Action-RPG

Players: 1

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Review:

Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam is an RPG with Action-RPG elements released on Nintendo 3DS in 2016. The fifth game in the Mario & Luigi series of RPGs (and the final completely original game in the series), this game features a crossover with the Paper Mario franchise, with a magical book causing a multitude of paper versions of various Mario characters to spill out into Mario’s normal, non-papery world. When Bowser and Paper Bowser join their forces in an uneasy alliance and kidnap both Peach and Paper Peach, Mario and Luigi team up with Paper Mario to head to the rescue.

I’ll note that I say that this is a Mario & Luigi game and not a Paper Mario game, and this is because most of this game’s gameplay and game mechanics follow in the direct footsteps of the prior Mario & Luigi game, Dream Team. This is not to say that the Paper Mario series is an afterthought here – not only is the game’s entire plot based on the mixing of that game’s world into this one, but you also see many elements of Paper Mario filter into this game as well.

Most notably, you have searches for hidden paper toads, which as always makes for some creative and playful use of the fact that these characters are paper-thin, bendable, and foldable. Sadly this is not a constant element in the game, and seems to be more of a focus in some areas than others, but it’s still a fun distraction when it comes up.

You’ll also have occasional papercraft battles, that have you piloting a giant papercraft Mario statue up against massive papercraft Mario enemies. These sections are wonderful conceptually, but in practice they’re overly simple and repetitive.

Probably the biggest element of the Paper Mario games to filter in here is the presence of Paper Mario in your party, and Papery enemies to fight. This game still uses timed attack button presses in the normally turn-based battle, and while Mario and Luigi have slightly different timing, Paper Mario is a completely different character altogether, and he has some unique abilities of his own as well, such as a “copy” ability that allows him to gather together multiple copies of himself to multiply his (otherwise weak) attacks and act as added barriers of protection. Meanwhile, paper enemies have different attack patterns than their standard counterparts, injecting even more variety into combat. Overall, this makes for some fun additions to the Mario & Luigi gameplay.

Unfortunately, while there are some new elements here, this game also seems to have ditched some of the customizability that made Dream Team so delightful. You can no longer choose bonus stat increases at level-up, and the prior game’s badge system is gone too, with players simply earning new “bros” moves at specific points in the story. Perhaps the game’s creators felt like managing all of this stuff for three party members instead of the prior game’s two would have been too much, but it’s still disappointing to see this element discarded.

On the bright side, this game gets a lot of mileage out of the drama and comedy that unfolds (ha) when these two worlds collide, as each of the worlds’ denizens is shocked at discovering their counterparts. The paper characters are freaked out by how “round” the normal world’s people are, and the normal world’s people are surprised at the versatility of their flat counterparts. And of course, it’s interesting to see how the game’s more central characters get along with their direct counterparts – the Marios each having their own different version of silent protagonist, the Peaches getting along swimmingly, the Bowser Jr.’s each delighted to now have a partner to scheme with, and the Bowsers only barely tolerating each other as they struggle to be the one in charge. Seeing how these characters interact is one of the greater joys of this game.

To showcase these new flat characters, the Mario & Luigi series’ visuals have gotten an upgrade as well. While the non-paper characters are still represented by well-animated 2D visuals, the world they explore is now fully 3D, and actually pretty strongly resembles the colorful art style in Super Mario 3D Land. This works really well for the game, and helps to give the paper characters extra dimension as they spin, bend, and fold in the 3D environment.

I suppose I should note that this game also adds Amiibo support, but that support is overly-complicated and provides minimal benefit for the trouble of scanning in Mario series figurines, and it’s actually insulting how at times it not only demands specific Amiibo figurines, but more than one of them. My advice to you is not to worry about this element of the game, it’s not worth the trouble.

In the end, while I still do wish that Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam retained more of the great gameplay and customization of the earlier Mario & Luigi games, this is nonetheless still a delightful RPG, and the interplay between this series’ characters and their Paper Mario counterparts is excellent, making this game a must-have for fans of either series.

tl;dr – Mario and Luigi: Paper Jam is the fifth and final game in Nintendo’s Mario & Luigi RPG series (with real-time Action elements) combining the series with Nintendo’s other Mario RPG series, Paper Mario, with paper versions of Mario characters from those games spilling out into the normal Mario world, making for a lot of fun interactions between the two worlds’ characters. This game sadly does away with some of the nicer game mechanics of the prior Mario & Luigi game, Dream Team, but it is nevertheless an excellent RPG, and a must-have for any fans of either Mario RPG series.

Grade: A-

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