Paper Mario / YMMV

Individual games:

Audience-Alienating Era: It's generally agreed that the subseries started going through one with Sticker Star, which was a heavily controversial game for removing the story, exploration and RPG elements that made previous installments so beloved. Especially as each new installment carries interviews that explain why these changes have occurred; from implications of Nintendo wanting to streamline branding by having Mario & Luigi to be the sole "Mario RPG" series, to higher-ups explicitly placing restrictions on the creation of new characters for some reason. Sticker Star is definitely seen as the low point of this era, as while Color Splash and The Origami King are host to the franchise's staple writing and Scenery Porn, Sticker Star completely lacks them, in addition to having the most disliked gameplay in the series. Even as Intelligent Systems improves at finding workarounds, many fans deeply wish that all these arbitrary restrictions on the franchise's direction be removed and that the series return to its proper RPG roots.
Awesome Art: Starting with Color Splash, the art style and graphics of the games were given a massive upgrade, with more detailed texturing that made the characters look like actual paper, environments blooming with detail and color with little cute details like cardboard or origami to make the world look like a pop-up book, and overall become the definition of how an HD Paper Mario game should look like.
Broken Base: Exactly what is the Paper Mario series and what direction should it take? Fans of the original game and The Thousand Year Door generally subscribe to it being a story-heavy role player with a partner system, and an aesthetic that is distinctive but generally not obtrusive. Fans of Color Splash and the The Origami King say that the series is about funny jokes, witty writing, and routines centered around its aesthetic beyond just being a visual style. These two sections of the fanbase are infamous for their feuds, with fans of the older entries decrying later titles for having poor gameplay, lackadaisical storytelling, uninteresting characters, and attempts to fix what was never broken, while fans of the later entries saying the older titles are just subject to First Installment Wins and suffer from flaws inherent to most role-players that get completely ignored because of nostalgia. And heaven help you if you're in the Vocal Minority whose favorite in the series is Super and thus you fall into neither of these camps!
Complete Monster:
- The Thousand-Year Door: The Shadow Queen is an ancient demon who once decimated the town that would become Rogueport, reducing it to waste while spreading her evil worldwide. Unleashing her trio of dragon pets onto the world to end countless lives while using her Pit of 100 Trials to torture and kill anyone who defied her, the Shadow Queen was sealed away by four heroes, but only after cursing each of them to be trapped and corrupted for centuries inside the black chests. Upon being revived by Sir Grodus, the Shadow Queen immediately repays Grodus by nearly killing him, before possessing Princess Peach and using her body in a new attempt to bring destruction onto the world and either turn Mario and his friends to her side, or kill them all.
- Super: Dimentio masquerades as a humorous henchman under Count Bleck's employ, while secretly harboring more sinister designs. Dimentio manipulates every faction towards his ultimate goal to use the Chaos Heart to obliterate reality so that he could create a new one under his control. To this end, Dimentio brainwashes Fracktail and sends him out to be killed by Mario; experiments on his own subordinates with the brain-jacking Floro Sprouts; seemingly murders Mario and his friends by sending them to the Underwhere; and secretly implants a Floro Sprout within Luigi's mind to revert him back to Mr. L. After Count Bleck is defeated, Dimentio attempts to kill him, seemingly murdering Nastasia in the process. Dimentio seizes Luigi as his host in the final battle and, after his defeat, uses the Chaos Heart to try to destroy reality as an act of spite.
Contested Sequel: Every single entry after The Thousand-Year Door has been received like this at best.
- Super Paper Mario. While most people agree that the story is good, the removal of turn-based combat didn't sit well with a lot of fans, and there are lot of arguments about whether or not the gameplay is good. Many Paper Mario fans have embraced it since then, especially after Sticker Star came out, but there's still a number of people who dislike it.
- Some see Color Splash as a Surprisingly Improved Sequel that improves on the flaws Sticker Star had, proving that the new franchise direction could work and praising the comedic writing as being on par with the other entries. Everyone else just wants the series to return to the same gameplay as the first two games and will point to the flaws that Color Splash does retain from its predecessor.
- The Origami King was better received than its two widely despised predecessors, but it still caused a huge rift between fans due to its insistence on keeping several unpopular elements from Sticker Star and Color Splash while still refusing to go back to the series' RPG roots after so long. While no one's arguing that it still isn't quite as good as the originals, is it a good game anyway even with the direction it took, or is it almost as bad as Sticker Star?
Even Better Sequel: The Thousand-Year Door to the first game, thanks to taking most of the things that made the latter great and taking them up to eleven, resulting in what most fans believe to be the best game in the series, the Mario RPGs and even one of the best Mario games as a whole.
Fan-Preferred Couple: Goombario and Goombella have a large fanbase, due to both being the first partners in their respective games, being Goombas and being similar in personality.
Fandom Heresy: In some circles, it's treated as a serious crime to like Sticker Star or Color Splash, especially if one compares them favorably to The Thousand-Year Door or to a lesser extent, the original or Super Paper Mario.
Fandom Rivalry: One exists with Intelligent Systems' other big series Fire Emblem. Although Fire Emblem is that studio's personal franchise and predates the first Paper Mario game almost by a decade, a number of fans are bitter at the attention and prioritization that Fire Emblem receives from both Intelligent Systems and Nintendo over Paper Mario ever since Fire Emblem: Awakening's release and success. Paper Mario fans lament that their series is a Cult Classic like Fire Emblem once was and could be just like it, but Nintendo never markets it the same way and thus leaves it in the dust. Fire Emblem fans fire back by saying that their series is still considerably niche and is at least of a more consistent quality than Paper Mario has been in years. The fact that both series have heavy divides over what direction their franchise should or shouldn't take is of no help.
Fanon Discontinuity: Due to their highly controversial status and several inconsistencies among other games, most fans would rather pretend that Sticker Star and (to a lesser extent) Color Splash never existed, which is allegedly reinforced by certain plot points in Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam. Likewise, many fans of the first three games just pretend no games were made after those.
First Installment Wins: The first game and The Thousand-Year Door remain the most beloved games in the series to this day, as they're the only ones that haven't had any major controversies and most fans still think about them first whenever someone talks about Paper Mario. Every new game after has been a hotly Contested Sequel at best and panned to kingdom come at worst, with Super Paper Mario being arguably the lone exception to the rule thanks to it having the most beloved story and characters as well as retaining other elements outside of gameplay that made its predecessors so beloved, but otherwise the point still stands.
Franchise Original Sin: Several criticized elements in Sticker Star were present in previous installments, but due to Sticker Star's minimalist storytelling and lack of creativity, these elements ended up being Flanderized and, surprisingly, much less enjoyable.
- Sticker Star takes the idea of "paper-thin characterization" to its logical conclusion by including excessive self-aware humor about the characters being paper, visual gags like characters stacked like sheaves of paper, or having various models become bent or creased. Truth be told, the characters and setting played with the paper theme from the beginning — North American ads for the N64 game featured Bowser dangling Peach above a paper shredder, The Thousand-Year Door had Mario fold himself like origami as a power, and Super Paper Mario featured Slim, who allowed Mario to vanish by turning 90 degrees (such that his thin side faced the camera, which made him invisible). The first few games were considered charming and clever for their use of the paper theme, but Sticker Star's explicit comments on it caused many fans to view it as irritating, in addition to them implicitly not being continuous with Mario's other adventures (earlier games' paper style could just be seen as an Art Shift, but when the style is central to the story like it is in later games, it becomes harder to reason that the paper characters are the same as their non-paper equivalents).
- Sticker Star's conflict of "Bowser kidnaps Peach again" received criticism for being overly simplistic, despite the original Paper Mario 64 having the exact same premise. The 64 version, however, took time to characterize both Peach and Bowser and was packed with characters and enemies of all shapes and sizes. Sticker Star, on the other hand, is so bare-bones that it ignores Peach's existence for most of the game, gives Bowser no dialogue to let his hammy personality shine through, and every enemy and character are depicted with their modern designs — even the King Mooks are just shiny Giant Mooks. The only creative variety you will encounter in the world around you is Kersti (a stand-alone character) and a few Toads with different colored spots.
- Paper Mario characterization has never actually been that complex or involved. The partners you received, if they had character arcs at all, usually had them concluded by the time they joined up with your party, and their contributions to the story were mostly generic reactions filtered through their respective Character Tics. NPCs outside the Hub World also had generally limited dialogue only slightly beyond Welcome to Corneria levels. Super Paper Mario and Sticker Star suffered by not even rising to that level: SPM's non-Tippi partners had only a paragraph or two of total dialog on encounter (though this is offset by the main controllable characters, who do have varied responses in cutscenes), while Sticker Star only provided you with Kersti; Sticker Star further tripped up with its hub world inhabitants, who were all singularly obsessed with stickers and paper, where their predecessors had unique lives and affairs of their own. Color Splash actually moved back towards the characterization levels of previous games to the point Huey, the resident Exposition Fairy, is in the running for one of the most characterized partners with Tippi and Vivian, but Color Splash retains other unpopular elements from Sticker Star, so it still has much to overcome for that recognition.
Germans Love David Hasselhoff: Americans and Europeans love Paper Mario; in Japan, its country of origin, the series is not nearly as popular.
Hype Backlash: A mild backlash against both 64 and The Thousand-Year Door began occurring around the time of Origami King's announcement and release, due to how some people perceived fans of the former two games to be elitist in their views regarding Origami King and that those fans complained too much about changes being made before they had a chance to play the game. Likewise, the praise Origami King garnered after its release also got a substantial backlash from longtime fans who perceived any sort of improvement the game offered as little more than a half-measure, and its fans only liked Origami King out of spite for the old games and their fans.
It's Easy, So It Sucks!: A very common complaint about Super Paper Mario and Color Splash, mostly because they barely focus on combat at all and thus nearly all of the enemies and bosses are very simple to defeat, as well as the fact that you have access to very overpowered tactics that take away all of the challenge.
It's the Same, Now It Sucks!:
- Probably the biggest point of criticism directed at Color Splash is the fact that it follows on the same formula as Sticker Star, which is the least liked game in the series.
- Ironically, this was also Miyamoto's reaction to Sticker Star during development, feeling like it was a "3DS version of The Thousand-Year Door", which is what led to the final product and a lot of controversy.
Magnificent Bastard:
- 64: Lady Bow is the aristocratic ruler of the Forever Forest who seeks to rescue her fellow Boos from their former bullying victim, the ghost-eating Tubba Blubba. To that end, she lures Mario to her mansion and tests his abilities with a variety of traps and puzzles. Upon his victory, Bow congratulates the plumber and reveals that she is holding a Star Spirit hostage, forcing Mario into an alliance to take down Tubba Blubba. Even after their success, Bow remains unapologetic for tormenting Tubba Blubba, yet promises to stop for the sake of her people, before releasing the Star Spirit and joining Mario's party to continue adventuring.
- The Thousand-Year Door:
  - Ms. Mowz is a coy, flirtatious Badge thief who regularly breaks into places to steal Badges, then sells them at her own store, the Lovely Howz of Badges. Running into Mario multiple times while infiltrating dangerous and heavily guarded locations, Ms. Mowz takes the time to steal kisses from him and give him advice before escaping each time. Posting an anonymous request at the Trouble Center, if Mario takes it she sends him to find a cleverly hidden Badge before revealing that she hid the Badge to test his abilities and decides to join his party, using her item finding and thieving skills to help him in his adventures.
  - Pirate King Cortez is the scourge of the Pirate's Grotto, and keeper of the fifth Crystal Star, attacking and shipwrecking all who come near Keelhaul Key with his Ember army, including several innocents. Cortez prepares traps in Pirate's Grotto to stop any intruders, complete with bone-chilling warnings. To even get into the Grotto Mario needs the jewel Flavio's father stole from Cortez several years ago. Helping to stop the X-Nauts in an Enemy Mine with Mario after he is defeated with his army, Cortez is a frightfully competent pirate king.
- Sticker Star & Color Splash: The Host Snifit is the charismatic head of Snifit or Whiffit, a game show that rewards winners with crucial items and punishes losers with death by poison gas. Introducing himself by holding a piece of Wiggler hostage, the Host Snifit forces Mario into four life-threatening rounds of Snifit or Whiffit to entertain the audience, before respectfully freeing the Wiggler segment when the plumber wins. Returning for Snifit or Whiffit: Seabed Edition, the Host Snifit, now guarding a Paint Star, welcomes Mario back before subjecting him to another seven, increasingly difficult rounds of his show under the threat of drowning to death. Despite his loyalty to Bowser and willingness to kill Mario, the Host Snifit nevertheless remains friendly and always honors his word.
- The Origami King: Scissors is one of King Olly's Lieutenants and the main guard for the final streamer. Having taken over Bowser's Castle, Scissors is first introduced cutting Bowser Jr. to pieces. After Mario and company fix Bowser Jr. and subsequently invade Bowser's Castle, Scissors ends up creating Handaconda to kidnap most of Mario's allies, and later a Paper Mistake Buzzy Beetle to impede him further. Finally battling Mario head on, Scissors sheathes its scissor blades and only unsheathes once Mario proves a challenge. A literal pair of scissors in a world of paper, they are dead serious in their mission to destroy Mario and help Olly conquer the Mushroom Kingdom.
Mis-blamed: Shigeru Miyamoto for the longest time has gotten all the blame for the series' Audience-Alienating Era, everything to the story, characters and the combat system, and this is one of the biggest reasons of why he's accused of being anti-story. While his philosophy of keeping things simple has a shred of truth, the ignorance has lead to people forgetting that Intelligent Systems were the ones who developed the games, most of all Kensuke Tanabe, who produced the game; despite the fact that he was the one who ignored the game's existing fanbase to among other things, drastically alter the combat, remove the Star Points and level system (there were no Star Points in Super, but the game still kept a level system, as the characters level up with a higher score, increasing their max HP and attack power on alternating levels), only replaced by items that increase Mario's max HP, and make all the NPCs generic Toads. Granted this may have something to do with the fact Tanabe keeps saying that he wants to follow Miyamoto's advice (with it being clear he took it too far). When Origami King was released, an interview with Eurogamer showed a lot of details that changed everything: ever since Color Splash, Intelligent Systems had complete control over the direction of the series, and character designs had to be reviewed by their IP teams and pass a strict test, which explains why almost every friendly NPCs in the last three games of the series are generic Toads, and only in Origami King there were at least unique outfits per character, and even in the Iwata Asks about Sticker Star, while Miyamoto wasn't very impressed with first prototype, thinking of it as a port of The Thousand-Year Door because it lacked something to stand out from it, the second prototype, which put more emphasis on the stickers and made them the focal point of combat, didn't leave him a positive impression either, as he thought that it was boring. Both these evidence also mention that Miyamoto took a look at the builds a couple of times, but there were never specific change requests. This means that Miyamoto barely had a role in the series, especially post-Sticker Star, and even with Sticker Star was being developed, he only gave two advice, focusing more on using pre-established Mario characters and simplify the story, as he thought that the game would be fine without having a plot as deep as the three games before it, and this means that outside of those two suggestions for the 2011 build of Sticker Star, he had no role in the series, the developers just went too far with that direction, and one of the things that people hated the most about the new direction of the series, especially with Sticker Star and Color Splash, the combat system, was kept in despite the criticism from Miyamoto, who is well known for being the man who puts a large focus on a fun gameplay. Even then, Miyamoto recently explained in an interview that he doesn't want Mario to be cast too rigidly, as he doesn't want to cramp his style by the need of keeping consistency at all costs, which he previously tried. After the interviews for Origami King came out, however, it was clear that Miyamoto was barely present and Intelligent Systems was refusing to come back to the original style with the excuse that it would get stale despite the fact that it was only used in two games, unlike the Mario & Luigi series, which always kept a consistency in its gameplay despite the new mechanics, which left many angered at the developers for persisting in using the new experimental direction of the series that alienated the fanbase.
Old Guard Versus New Blood: A rare case where the New Blood is mostly comprised of the development team rather than the fanbase. Starting with Sticker Star, the series has drifted away from both the standard RPG gameplay (or in the case of Super, 2D platforming with RPG elements) and in-depth storytelling to become a series that prioritizes both experimental gameplay systems that try to defy standard RPG conventions and minimalist plots that focus more on telling jokes. The Old Guard barely receives anything resembling recognition, whereas the New Blood amongst the fanbase wouldn't begin to fully take root until The Origami King was considered a Surprisingly Improved Sequel to Color Splash.
Sacred Cow: In the eyes of most fans and classic RPG fans, The Thousand-Year Door, being just as acclaimed (if not more so) as it was upon release. Super Paper Mario is also entering this territory thanks to it being Vindicated by History after Sticker Star's release, with fans claiming it to have one of the best stories in the Mario franchise. This also applies to Paper Mario 64 as well, for establishing what would make The Thousand-Year Door so beloved (and of course, for being a very good game on its own right).
Self-Fanservice: A lot of the Partners from the first two games are prime material for undergoing Moe Anthropomorphism at the hands of the fandom, with popular candidates for humanization and sexualization being Bombette, Parakarry, Lady Bow, Goombella, Vivian, and Ms. Mowz.
Sequelitis: A very common reaction when it comes to the later games in the series, with the worst offender being Sticker Star, which is widely seen as the worst installment in the series for a multitude of reasons, like the Excuse Plot (in a series renowned for excellent storytelling), the total lack of original characters and its unintuitive, consumable item-based battle system.
So Okay, It's Average: While some fans don't exactly hate Sticker Star and Color Splash, they don't love them either, and most fans would consider them average and unremarkable games at best. Super Paper Mario's gameplay could also be considered this, mostly because of its easiness and the fact that it hardly requires any strategy beyond using the Goomba Stomp unlike the previous games, although many fans agree that the excellent writing and story make up for the gameplay.
Tainted by the Preview: Color Splash, big time. The moment it was announced that the mechanics would be like Sticker Star's, almost everyone hated it. Even after later trailers revealed that it would at least fix some of the most glaring problems that Sticker Star had^note
That One Level: Chapter 2 in the first five games can get annoying pretty quickly. In Paper Mario 64 and Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, it's because of the enemies getting noticeably stronger than they were in Chapter 1 without Mario having much of an advantage to match; in Super Paper Mario, it's because of Merlee's Mansion being tedious to get through (especially 2-3), not to mention having one of the biggest doses of Nightmare Fuel in all of Paper Mario; in Paper Mario: Sticker Star, it's because the levels tend to be The Maze, at least one of them has some borderline-Guide Dang It! moments, and the boss pretty much imprints upon you the game's (commonly pointed to as being flawed) Thing weakness system for the bosses. In Paper Mario: Color Splash, there's Mondo Woods, a level which contains huge enemies that can eat chunks of your HP, Marmalade Valley, which ends on a section which can give you a Non-Standard Game Over (fortunately there's a Save Block directly before it), and Kiwano Temple, a Temple of Doom filled with deadly spikes that do 12 damage (when you only have 75 HP) and a timed section at the end that leads to a non-standard game over should you fail it (which is also preceded by a convenient Save Block).
They Changed It, Now It Sucks!:
- The series gradually moving away from its RPG beginnings since Super Paper Mario and especially Sticker Star did not sit well with fans, to put it mildly. It doesn't help that originally Paper Mario was supposed to be a sequel to Super Mario RPG right down to being called like that before copyright issues caused the name to get changed, and Mario & Luigi going in limbo from its developer AlphaDream going bankrupt in 2019 effectively means that there's no dedicated Mario RPG series anymore, as Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle and its sequel were RPG games, but they were their own thing due to being a crossover duology, and ever since Sticker Star came out, the series abandoned every trace of the RPG elements that made it so beloved, including EXP, thus removing the incentive for battles. The RPG style was instead replaced with different, overly simplified combat systems that were either poorly designed with their limited space and making every attack a finite resource (Sticker Star's sticker mechanic), clunky and frustrating (Color Splashs usage of cards, which has the same problems as the stickers from its predecessor but take a long time to prepare and use them while also not being very well balanced, which makes the game too easy) or because they are too skin-deep (Origami Kings ring system, which no longer makes attacks a finite resource and gives the combat a bit more strategy with the way the enemies have to be positioned, but it's repetitive, surface-level and overly lenient when it comes to misplacing enemies, with a lack of depth that leaves it underdeveloped and prevents it to reach a level of complexity that makes it interesting). Even though Super had a platform-RPG hybrid gameplay that may not be for everyone, it at least had a deep story that fans loved, and the gameplay still kept RPG elements like the EXP in form of points, all of which was removed from the games after it. Because of this new direction, only Mario & Luigi was left as an RPG series, but after its developer filed for bankruptcy, the Mario franchise has no true RPG series anymore.
- To put it in perspective, Paper Mario 64 and Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door are widely regarded as excellent games (especially the latter), while Super Paper Mario was rather divisive when it came out due to its completely different formula, but became Vindicated by History thanks to its excellent storyline and characters and especially because of its very polarizing successor, which is widely considered the weakest entry in the series and it isn't especially helped by the equally polarizing Color Splash, thanks to being reminiscent of the former in many ways.
- The news that the games can no longer have variant designs on existing characters like in the first two games (apparently enforced since Sticker Star) has also not gone over well with the fanbase as they liked that the Toads and enemies weren't all similar to one another and made the worlds feel more exotic. Many complain that stripping them of unique designs robbed some of the personality of the series, especially considering Paper Mario is meant to be a spin-off from the mainline games, and by the time Origami King was released and only gave a few distinct outfits to some Toads, the fans were annoyed by the series' overall lack of originality, especially since every other Mario game on the Nintendo Switch had a larger amount of original characters, had no issues with creating new original designs and different costumes for the characters and addressed the criticism over something that fans didn't like about their predecessor, with the interviews in particular highlighting how the developers of Intelligent Systems had complete control over the creating direction of the game.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
- Go on any message board relating to the series and expect to see something about how it was a massive shame that the partners from the first two games never returned for anything later on in the series. This goes especially for the massive fan favorites such as Lady Bow or Vivian.
- Interviews with the modern Paper Mario developers have increasingly implied that they are forced to only use main-series Mario characters since Sticker Star, but this raises the obvious question of why they don't use more obscure or unique characters and NPCs from the series' history instead of using just generic male Toads and that's it. Mario games have introduced multiple non-Toad NPCs and unique characters/enemies that haven't been seen in a long while, but aside from a handful of examples in each game, the developers continue to dig from the same Goomba/Koopa/Toad well instead of putting in other characters like the Penguins or the Piantas. Notably, despite being released after Super Mario Odyssey and its host of new NPCs and enemy types, the most recent non-NSMB entity in The Origami King is Stingby, from almost a decade before the game's release.
Tough Act to Follow: The series greatly suffers of this. Both the first game and The Thousand-Year Door are highly regarded RPGs, with the latter in particular being declared as the very best of the series. Since then, none of the games have attained the same amount of praise. Super Paper Mario is considered a step down in terms of gameplay but still has a highly regarded storyline. Sticker Star, however, is often called the worst of the series due to its lack of plot and highly unintuitive gameplay (ironic in that Miyamoto made the developers change it from the previous one to keep from growing stale, though he disliked the later prototype with the stickers too, saying that it was boring) on top of Color Splash following the previous games' steps. But still, especially given that Sticker Star was a highly polarizing game and Color Splash follows the same formula (which is intended to be the new standard), it's safe to say that the series won't get away from The Thousand-Year Door's shadow anytime soon. The Origami King plays with this in that it easily surpassed Sticker Star and Color Splash in terms of fan reception in spite of being forced to follow the design philosophies of those games, but plays this straight with the original first two RPGs of the franchise.
Vindicated by History: Super Paper Mario got a lot more respect after Sticker Star was released when people focused on the detailed plot (especially compared to other Mario games) and the gameplay being better than that of Sticker Star. The focus on platforming gameplay still causes a major Broken Base, but the story is now largely regarded to be on the same league as the first two games.

YMMV / Paper Mario

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