So, what do you think of the game?  I just put the lid on Chapter 1, and so far, it's been a sweet experience.  I was a tad put off by the gobs of text that you had to wade through just to BEGIN the actual playing proper, but at least the dialogue is of high PM-caliber.

The 2D-3D flipping is a lot of fun to use, and I couldn't help but say, "Ooh, clever!" on a number of puzzle occasions.  The end-of-chapter boss battle shows off the feature in dynamic fashion, and overall, it's just incredibly cool to see what's going on "behind the scenes" in the 3D dimension.

I do have two minor qualms that may become potentially bigger problems later.  The first is the use of the d-pad in the 3D world.  Is it just me, or is it needlessly difficult to move your character diagonally?  Kind of like you have to press down very hard just to get him to move.  Could this be a fault of the Wiimote itself?  I haven't played any other Wii game where you move diagonally with the d-pad, so I couldn't say.  The only thing I do know is that Nintendo has had a bit of a checkered history lately making a proper working d-pad on their systems. (See: certain GBA SP and DS Lite models.)

My other beef is the lack of an "Exit Stage" option.  I went back to play Chapter 1-1, and I noticed that you had to actually complete the entire section just to get back out of the stage.  This wouldn't be so much of a problem, except that immediately finishing the level takes you to Chapter 1-2.  Are you telling me you have to complete the ENTIRE chapter just to get back to the central hub area?  I'm not really warming up to the idea of wanting to play a particular section of a chapter, saving, then having to reset the game each time to get back to the central area.  Am I missing something?

Well put, Angela. Awesome game, and it's FINALLY here. I am very pleased with SPM, although I can't say I've had too much trouble moving around in 3D. I will say that I am going to have trouble looking at another 2D Mario game the same way, because I'm going to think there are coins and secrets hidden in the (nonexistent) 3D realm! I capped off Chapter 1 myself, and I'm ready to go on Chapter 2. I didn't start it last night because I knew I wouldn't put the controller down for another couple of hours, and this dude had to work in the morning.

At the beginning of the game that wizard dude gave Mario that special warp pipe. Have you tried using that? I think it's in the "Special Items" section of the menu.

A chapter is broken down into 4 sections.  Once you beat a chapter, you can select any one of the 4 sections to replay.  However, you must use the red warp pipe in the "important items" menu to exit a section early.  You are given this at the beginning of the game.

It took me a while to figure out how to beat the boss of 1-4.  There is certainly quite a bit of "oh, that's how I'm supposed to do this..."  There are some really interesting puzzles and boss fights to come.  2-3 and 2-4 were interesting.

I don't have too much trouble doing diagonal movement in 3-D, though analog would probably be better.  One thing that is awkward to do is the "shake the remote" after you stomp an enemy for extra points.   Otherwise, it's a very good game with a lot of witty writing.

Man, I'd completely forgotten about the Return Pipe.... Knew I had to be missing something.  *_*  Thanks guys!   

(....Why do Peach's grunts and yelps sound like a man's?)

This game is way too painful to play.  The d-pad on the Wiimote is terrible and the lack of classic controller compatibility is extremely disappointing.  Playing this game has really opened my eyes to the "Wii is a gimmick" argument.

I'm... no. That doesn't make much sense. The only "gimmicks" that the game uses the Wiimote for are 1) pointing at the screen to get information or find secret doors, and 2) shaking the Wiimote to get extra points when jumping on bad guys to get extra experience points. The second one is completely optional, and the first is used sparingly. So please explain the "Wii as a gimmick" argument; it seems the only thing this has "opened your eyes" to is that the Wiimote's d-pad is not to your liking. I've put almost three hours in so far, and I haven't had any problems with the d-pad; maybe the real problem is stemming from your thumbs.

I've never suffered from any physical problems playing games, but for whatever reason, I cannot play this game for more than an hour without starting to feel a sharp pain in my left thumb.  The pointer aspect for this game is pretty unnecessary and I believe playing this game on the classic controller would be more enjoyable and less strenuous as well.  As far as the gimmick is concerned, seems to me publishers are just adding features to Wii games that really are just tacked on and not really adding any value whatsoever to the final product.

Rent before you buy, spend your money on Dragon's Cruse.

I don't know about you, but this happened to me all the time in my younger days when I would play classic NES games for extended periods of time

Maybe Nintendo should have made the D Pad softer?

Has Nintendo ever made a "softer" d-pad on any of their consoles? I honestly can't remember.  That would help greatly, or replace the pad with an analog stick similar to the one on the nunchuck/classic controller.  Although, that would kind of negate the reason for having the nunchuck controller at all then.

Wait, you can shake the Wiimote to get extra points? How did you find that out? That wasn't in the instructions, was it? I wondered how/if they were going to implement the "do some action at the right time to do extra damage" thing.

As for the game, I had tons of fun playing through World 1. Angela, I agree with you about how difficult it seems to move in 3-D mode, though so far it hasn't bogged me down that much. The main gripe I have right now is that I'm just really not good at platformers these days, so I'm a bit worried about how well I'll do in the game. I hope it won't require you to do funky moves like in Megaman.

Nintendo's D-pads have always been a source of annoyance for me. The NES/SNES ones were great...I never had an issue with them and they're still the best I've ever used (especially the NES dog-bone controller). Then the original GBA came out and not only did I have to actually "mash" it (otherwise the system would just stop reading my movements), I couldn't pull off diagonals to save my life, literally. The GC one was the same make and to make matters worse, its' position on the controller rendered it completely useless. I like the low-sitting ones on the SP and especially on the original DS (the one on the DS Lite is small, but it does feel MUCH better than the crappy GBA/GC one). I haven't had the chance to test the Wii one.

I'm really surprised to hear SPM doesn't support the nunchuck or the classic controller. Not that it'll affect my buying decision greatly, but that did catch me offguard.

It's not in the manual because it is a "secret."  If you explore Flipside more (accessible by around Chapter 2 or 3), you eventually find a person who will tell you "stories" for 10 coins a piece.  One of the stories is the game tip: when you jump on an enemy, tilt the controller and shake it to get style points.

3-D is a minor problem since it is hard to tell where your character is relative to everything else.  There are shadows which help greatly, but against other flat enemies, the positioning is sometimes tough to gauge.

It might have been IGN or something; I didn't read the book.

Does anyone else think this game has an awesome OST? The underwater remix/theme is great!

I've played all of Chapter 1 so far plus the town stuff you do prior to starting Chapter 2, and I like it, but the pacing is WAY slower than I was expecting.  I guess I was expecting more of a regular Mario with RPG elements instead of a regular Paper Mario with action elements.  The puzzles are clever, but the copious amount of hidden stuff, while nifty, really slows the game down since you're constantly shifting into 3D and using the pointer to make sure you don't miss anything.

I agree that it's a bit awkward to move in 3D with the d-pad, but it's a minor concern.  If you're thumb is hurting while playing, you are using way too much force to push down on the d-pad.  Relax your hand and don't hold the controller so tightly.  As for Nintendo d-pads, I prefer the tighter, "clickier" d-pads of the GBA SP and original DS to the softer d-pad of the DS lite simply because it takes less pressure to accomplish the same task.

^  All the text in the game is a drawback.  I don't mind all the hidden stuff and back-tracking to an extent if they'd shut up a bit.

It wouldn't be a Paper Mario game without the text.  The writing is one of the best parts of the series.

Like XLord0007, I was also expecting a regular Mario side-scroller with RPG elements.  I think the use of 3-D is nifty and ingenious in some cases, though I did wish there was a power-up to extend the 3-D time limit.

I finished the game in about 18 hours.  Definitely shorter than the previous Paper Mario, but the previous game's long hours were padded up by RPG battles, so I consider these 18 hours to be the meat of this game.

So, I'm nearing the end of 4-4 and I am not having fun anymore. Am I the minority, or does this game start sucking after a while?

I'm just about at the same place, and I have to admit, my interest is waning some.  Dunno, the game just feels draining - due to the legitimate complaints already discussed in this thread.  But I really want to finish it..... I haven't gotten through a conventional RPG in an age, and this is probably as close as I'm ever going to get in doing so.

Bad things man, bad things!
I want to know why is it starting to suck? It sounded like your were having a blast at the start. Do elaborate...

-avatar!

Check your e-mail, man.

But to sum up for everyone else... I guess I'm just not the type of gamer who can play really fun things (ie - the actual platforming sections) for short spurts and then go through a lot of text and fetch quests to proceed the story so that more short-lived fun things happen. The 2:1 ratio of filler/dialog/fetching to platforming doesn't fly with me. A lot of other people are enjoying the hell out of the game, so it could just be my personal preference. If the game was structured so that it was like a more traditional Mario game (ie: chapter 1 goes to chapter 2 without the 20 minutes of crap in between) I'd enjoy it a hell of a lot more.

Did you enjoy New Super Mario Bros.?  Despite its map interface, the stages are all action.

I was kind of hoping for an Adventure of Link style of action gameplay.

YAY for goldfish's avatar.. the best DLR / VH album ever!!

unfortunately,, the Goin' Crazy video.. the most spandex ever...

YAY for vai's guitar back then!!

unfortunately,, vai started singing on his albums in 1996...

Absolutely. I like NSMB a lot, and I've even enjoyed Super Princess Peach. SPP is not very complicated, but it's fun... and that's all that matters.

The more I think about it, the more I feel that Nintendo overused the 2D/3D gameplay mechanic. It's like, every time you reach a dead end or need to figure something out, just switch to 3D and... oh, look! A pipe! A door! I think the constant accentuation on using that technique makes it a lot less interesting and it wears out its welcome quickly. Add to that the fact that the other characters are a nuisance to use (switch to Peach, fly over a gap, switch back to Mario, etc.). I feel that SPM's gameplay design should have been more action oriented, since it does have some really cool platformer segments.

The last few titles I've played have been killer7, Viewtiful Joe and God Hand, which are definitely more consistent in game-flow than SPM, so the overabundance of text and slow progression is pretty jarring. I also turned off SPM to play PN03 because I found that game to be more fun and engaging. Yes, I'm serious.

EDIT: And also, apparently I'm a Capcom whore. Four for four.

It looks like someone on GF has the same thoughts that I do:

http://www.gamefaqs.com/console/wii/review/R112777.html

Dude, welcome to every Mario Rpg game ever made.  Actually the original Mario Rpg was pretty solid (wow, I'm giving props to Square), but outside of that I have never been able to finish any of the other games.

I thoroughly enjoyed Mario & Luigi 1 and 2 and Super Mario RPG; I'll admit to never finishing any of the Paper Marios (yet), but Super Paper Mario could have really done without half of this babbling.  I've not played it in a while because I just don't look forward to it.

One big problem is that Mario is the only one who can go into 3-D.  It didn't give much incentive to use other characters, because there were enough times where you had to use 3-D.   So, I agree with you that some parts of the game made you use 3-D too much that you don't feel like using other characters.

You should play the first Mario & Luigi.  Really awesome game in just about every respect.