Paper Mario: Color Splash Short Review

Paper Mario games used to be better. Not to say the newer ones are bad, but they aren’t as good as the first three. After Super Paper Mario, the series just went downhill with the 2012 installment Paper Mario: Sticker Star. That game had a shallow plot (especially for an RPG), pointless and unfun battles, confusing puzzles that required sites like GameFAQs to find out, no characterization at all, and it was just a bad game to play. Thus, when Paper Mario: Color Splash was announced and shown, people were horrified. Why, you may ask? That is because everything in the game looked like a rehash of Sticker Star. So since it looked like Sticker Star 2, most people were not interested in Color Splash.

Now the game is finally out (even though the whole game was leaked by Nintendo on accident 2 weeks earlier), and the verdicts are finally in. Surprisingly, the game got a good verdict, with a 78% on Metacritic and a 7.3 on IGN. Some people liked it, while others despised it. What do I think? I think it’s pretty good! No joke, I’m actually having a good time with it.

The story is pretty basic. Peach and a Toad bring Mario a letter on a dark and stormy night, which turns out to be a colorless Toad. Mario notices on the Toad’s head that it has the symbol for Port Prisma, and thus, Mario and company (except Luigi, unfortunately) embark on another quest. It is a tiny bit more complicated, but that’s the basic gist of it. Mario also befriends a... talking paint can. Yeah, a paint can, who gives Mario the power to paint with his hammer. But this character is actually fleshed out as a character, unlike Kersti from Sticker Star, who was (pardon the pun) a flat character, and was boring. So at least there is more character in the characters. The graphics are amazing. You can see all the fabric and materials on the characters and objects. Probably some of the best on a Nintendo console to date. The gameplay is basically the same as Sticker Star’s, but there are changes made to make it miles better. These include: rewarding you with hammer scraps, which fills up a meter that increases your total paint supply, a lot more cards to use than stickers from the previous game, having boss battles not be completely reliant on using a certain Thing card to beat it solely, and having a battle spinner which gives you a card in case you run out. These changes make the battle system infinitely better than Sticker Star’s. Also, the overworld and regular levels are more varied and have much to do than Sticker Star’s levels and overworld. Even the puzzles aren’t as bad, as not only are the spots where you have to cut out more obvious, but the Thing objects are easier to claim and if you’re stuck, you can talk to the Know-It-All Toad, who knows what Things to use in bosses or levels, which is a lot better than Sticker Star’s intrusive, confusing puzzles. The music is excellent, and the sound effects complement the game’s style well. The difficulty level is pretty good so far; not too easy, but not too hard.

However, the game’s not perfect. There’s a level, Kiwano Temple, which is very tedious and dull to play, and that for me lowers the score of any game that has it by some points because it’s a pace breaker. Also, the game could’ve been better if it had a better story, and a battle system akin to Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door.

In conclusion, Paper Mario: Color Splash is an enjoyable time to play, even though the story isn’t as good as the first three installments, and the gameplay is refined to make it better than Sticker Star’s gameplay. So, on a scale of one to ten, I would give it a 9/10, which is a high recommendation.
                                   9/10
                    High Recommendation 

Radical feminist(s?) who complain about a man who doesn't want to see Ghostbusters 2016. Must be Friday.

I am not against feminists. I think that trying to get more equal rights for women is a great thing to do. What I don't like however is the radical men-hating Tumblr-based "feminists". They think that every freaking thing is sexist even if it isn't at all. Case in point, people who hate on the Ghostbusters (2016) movie. (NOTE: I thought the movie was just OK, but I can see what people didn't like in it.) That group of people thinks that people who don't like it are bigoted jerkholes who have no respect for women, when they could hate it because the humor isn't good, the special effects are bad, the plot is bad, or any number of non-sexist stuff.

That brings me to James Rolfe's "non-review" of the movie. Now, I know you might be thinking, "Isn't this old news by this point?" Well, yeah, it is. But since the movie is actually out now, I figured that I should give my two-cents on these two articles I found. The first one I found is from the website called Pajiba. Here's the link.

The title of the article is all sorts of dumb. Internet Men Are Being Butthurt Baby Children About 'Ghostbusters.' Must be Tuesday. First off, you're saying this like it's a thing you see everyday. If you are, you're spending too much time on Tumblr, because I've never seen anyone talk about the video until much later, probably around the time the movie came out. Second, I don't think that having an opinion about a movie that you don't agree with is being butthurt. Last, why did you say the plurals men and children when you only talk about James Rolfe in this article? Oh, wait, the author talks smack about Donald Trump at the end and somewhat praises Hillary. Please don't bring politics into this. More on that later.

The image is just as stupid. It's a poorly photoshopped image of the movie's logo with a man with multiple chins looking constipated. It looks really stupid and immature on the author's part.

James Rolfe, the Angry Video Game Nerd, decided the world needed to know his reasons for not watching a movie.

Um, the Internet is full of people showing their opinions of stuff. Heck, you're stating your opinion about his video right now.

You don’t need to watch it. I’m watching it for you. You owe me for this.

...what? Why are you saying this as if you were talking to him in real life? Why are you watching it for him if you don't care about him? To tell him how good it was? Why do you say "You owe me for this" if you want to see it? Ugh, that was unnecessary and stupid!

For starters, he pronounces it “REE-view” and puts the emPHAsis on the wrong sylLABle which is not a great beginning.

Why are you complaining about the way he said review? You can say it either way. This doesn't have anything to do with feminism, so why bring it up? To make him look bad? Also, nice job stealing a joke from TV Tropes.

She then goes on to portray James saying that nobody wanted the reboot as being sexist, when he meant that nobody really wanted an all-female Ghostbusters, as in they didn't think about it. She also calls the nobody in this case "buttholey internet manchildren." What're you, like 6? What kind of person says "buttholey" unless they really don't want to swear? Before you say, "maybe she's like that", NO, she isn't because she uses stronger language later in the article, so why censor yourself?

She then actually agrees with how James wanted a proper Ghostbusters 3, but then gives three reasons why it couldn't be made, which are how Bill Murray didn't want to be in third Ghostbusters, Harold Ramis being dead, and, for some baffling reason, gives her most important reason as how some people wanted an all-female Ghostbusters. So Ramis being dead isn't the main reason why Ghostbusters 3 wasn't made? Huh?

She then mentions James' quote on how he didn't live to see it, and says "Harold Ramis DOES NOT deserve to have his wishes, hopes, dreams or opinions brought into this." First off, it was Rolfe who said that, not Ramis himself, and second... is it just me, or does that quote sound... um... insensitive to anyone? I dunno, it might be the wishes, hopes and dreams part of it that rubbed me the wrong way.

Then, she mentions how James said it's one of the most celebrated franchises, with her saying that means they also like the second movie. Um, have you considered that maybe, just maybe, he was talking about the original and The REAL Ghostbusters cartoon? Because liking a franchise automatically equals liking the duds, right?! She also states that people only like it for nostalgia. Maybe some actually enjoyed it and have *GASP* AN OPINION!!! *THUNDER AND LIGHTNING* Something that you, clearly, don't understand.

She then moves on to how James complains about how the title suggests that it's a remake of the first. She makes fun of how he said the reboot "completely disregarded the original films completely".  (her words, not mine or James'. Read a thesaurus!) This would be valid... IF THE FILM WAS OUT BY THEN! It wasn't, and everyone thought it would be a remake, even though it ended up being a reBOOT, and unless you work at Sony or you read an early script somehow, then there's no way YOU could've known either! Reminder that this article came out in May 17, 2016, and James' video a day earlier, which meant that it would be 1-2 days for the second trailer to come out and 2 WHOLE MONTHS for the movie itself to come out!

I'm done now. He's a chodeface.

EW! That's not something a professional would say at all! Ugh, that sentence made me cringe hard. Thanks, but no thanks.

Then, for absolutely no reason whatsoever, she decides to mention how Donald Trump didn't like the idea of Ghostbusters (2016). WHY?! WHAT'S THE POINT?! Oh wait, she uses this as an excuse to mention the main actresses of the movie and Hillary Clinton, and how they guest-starred on The Ellen Show. For no reason other than... um... I guess the fact that they're women and that it's slightly connected to Ghostbusters (2016), I suppose?

The other article (Link) which was written by a woman who mostly writes about naked celebrities or sex scandals or something along those lines, (If you're a feminist, then why do you do clickbait articles of naked celebrities, INCLUDING women, you hypocrite?) I'm gonna briefly skim over, because I'm honestly getting kinda tired. Basically, the author praises James' opinion, but then mocks him and the original movie, but praises him in a sarcastic way, then misconstrues James saying that Sony is banking on the Ghostbusters name for it also meaning that the BTTF sequels and James Cameron are bad, (HUH?!) and then ends with her wondering if James did a similar review for Jem, but finding out he didn't. I have a feeling it's probably negative, though. The only things I can comment on before I have an aneurysm are the BTTF quip, which is just confusing and doesn't relate to the thing James said at all, and the thing about the Jem movie. Maybe he couldn't do a video like that because it was WAY more obscure than Ghostbusters (2016) and how it practically had Invisible Advertising, except for a couple of TV adverts and one movie trailer that you were forced to watch online, or maybe HE DIDN'T GROW UP WITH THE SHOW! Also, you saying he "didn't have a childhood" is pretty funny considering YOU MADE FUN OF THE ORIGINAL GHOSTBUSTERS IN THIS SAME FREAKING ARTICLE YOU HYPOCRITE!!!!! Ugh, I need to rest, so this is farewell for now.