I decided to put in a pre-order for Super Paper Mario anyway despite using the reserved cash for my printer last time (tight student budget). Again, I opted to pay the extra 99p for 1st class delivery but unlike the time with Trauma Centre SO, I wasn't so lucky this time. Instead of arriving on its release day yesterday, it arrived this morning instead. Still, I can't complain though since the Gameplay site does say 1-2 days and it kind of breaks even with my last Wii game purchase arriving early.

Only spent around 30 minutes to try out the game today and I like the gameplay so far. I never played the Paper Mario games on the GC but I like how they've mixed in a small amount of RPG element into the classic series of platforming Mario games complete with HP, speaking to NPCs, entering buildings, purchasing and using items. So coins matter now and so does your score because it's your XP now before you level up!

Flipping between 2D and 3D is fun too in many scenarios such as being too small to jump over incoming giant rolling boulders. All I had to do was flip to 3D and I could avoid them more easily. The same ability can be used to discover hidden items and passageways too which is great!

As for Wii specific features, you're playing the game with the Wiimote only holding it sideways just like "Charge!" in Wii Play. It has a bit of the old NES pad feeling playing this way. You can also point to the screen and a circle of stars will automatically appear, allowing you to click on objects for hints or reveal hidden ones with the help of your first Pixl called "Tippi". Shaking the Wiimote when you just finished jumping on an enemy allows combos to be pulled off for more points.

Read More >>>What I didn't like was the only way to enter a new file name is via the D-pad and not the usual onscreen keyboard way. It's as baffling as some DS games that do the same thing. Fortunately in this case, you only have to do it once or at least that's what I think.

The dialogue and scenario's have also been really cheezy so far. In fact, it's actually so bad that it's funny in just a few places such as when the NPCs are explaining the controls, "You might not understand but the others watching us will know." You can find a brief summary of the story on Wiki. To be fair, the Mario games never really did have much dialogue or exactly have a good setting for a story so, the script I can ignore for the most part.

Glitch Found in PAL version?

And since I haven't played it for long, I haven't quite reached the part where there's apparently a glitch affecting some PAL copies of the game. From what I've read, this glitch causes the Wii to freeze in chapter 2-2 when you go off to search some rooms then return to talk to Mimi. Fortunately, the solution is simple. After returning from the room with spikes, find and use the key without speaking to Mimi or, try temporarily changing the language option to German.

I hope I don't have the glitch on my copy of the game... I wonder if Nintendo will recall the games since this is a serious glitch.

The villain's Count Bleck this time and Bowser actually becomes one of the playable heroes.

Not really related to Paper Mario but I wonder if Gameplay's trying to cut back on costs? They have always used the coloured receipt in the background but today's receipt was in plain monotone.

I'm going to have to play this after I'm done with Persona 3 and Crisis Core. Already 50 hours into Persona 3 but I think it's going to take a good several more hours before I can finish it and watch both endings.

TBH, Persona 3 was a surprise game that I came across after pre-ordering Paper Mario. I had always liked the looks of the MegaTen games but never actually had the chance to play one until the GBA version. Even this I only played it for a few hours before I got bored. However, after getting into the free MMORPG version and my brother got Swap Magic installed I thought I would try this latest title out and it's very good. It's an RPG with some unique rewarding features to it. If I hadn't tried this game out then I would probably have finished Crisis Core by now and then spent my hours today playing Paper Mario instead ^^;

In any case, that's a good few games to keep me busy during my freetime. I will probably post some more detailed impressions of the games sometime in the future.