You can clearly tell that throughout my Internet life, I haven't picked up making web pages look good.

Everything on-screen except the plumber himself is an “original character”.

I'm happy that King Croacus in the centre didn't become a series mainstay. We already have to deal with Petey Piranha.

This was roughly how Intelligent Systems was treated when making Paper Mario: Sticker Star. Things have now changed.

Nintendo made a big deal about there actually being a story this time, such as not wanting to spoil the game's story.

Intelligent Systems knows EXACTLY what they're doing!

KoopaTV plans to document all of the Toads and their unique personalities when the game comes out.

Shy Guy will fight for you and be a meat-shield for you, similar to how I treated Flurrie in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door.

Special paint globs have that horizontal metre on the top left appear. Once it's filled up, your MAX paint increases.

This is the card-selection screen. There didn't seem to be obvious inventory restrictions, and two attacks are by default.

Is it possible to be able to tank being hit for 48 damage a turn and still win the boss battle without using the fire extinguisher?

“Morton is better than Morton! So says Morton!”

Ludwig hopes that Paper Mario: Color Splash makes Paper Mario great again. He'll be buying it. Not like there's anything else to get on the Wii U for the rest of the year. Follow Ludwig on Miiverse at NNID PrinceOfKoopas, because he'll be posting a dialogue dump for all of his lines like he did for Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam! And he makes good posts anyway. Paper Mario: Color SplashPaper MarioMiiverse

Is it a bummer that we won't have our imaginations captured by the lure of original characters (besides Huey, who is already looking a lot better than Kersti) in? Yeah, but consider that original characters inaren't always successful.The downside to making a new cast of original characters every new RPG is that they don't get to come back in the next game, with very few exceptions that you see more of in theseries. Some of these characters are based off of existingseries dudes, such as the Koopa Bros., Goombella, or the Underchomp. Others are totally new character designs, such as Tubba Blubba, Flurrie, or O'Chunks.I think there's a noticeable trend that, betweenand, as that trio progressed, it was focused more on the original characters than the guys based off the established world. There isn't a lot that's actually wrong with that, but you COULD call that theeffect. Nowis a lot less aboutand a LOT less aboutat its present point in the series than it was when the series first started. Instead, it's all about its convoluted plot with its original characters.Perhaps the guys at, or Shigeru Miyamoto, saw something wrong with that. So we gotandYou don't need original characters to create an original or interesting plot. The guys at Intelligent Systems will tell you that the restrictions on how they can shape the plot can actually fuel creativity. In the case of, those sudden restrictions created mid-project (when a “Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door 2” had its table overturned by Shigeru Miyamoto) depressed creative output and Intelligent Systems clearly failed to reach the challenge.This time?wasn't an edict ordered from above. Intelligent Systems came up with it internally. While at a celebration party. And very possibly influenced by alcohol. Now they're having fun with it. They are afraid of spoiling the plot ofand had an awesome introduction cutscene for it. By comparison, they never bothered to build upin any way, and no one cares if you spoiled its story. (Kersti dies in the end, but then comes back to life right after. Who cares?)The developer featured in Nintendo Treehouse Live, Risa Tabata, said: “I think this, more than any other one, has the craziest scenarios just come up out of the blue. [...] We just tried to put as much interesting events and fun stuff in this game as much as we possibly could.” That's very different than. There's also attention to detail everywhere in this game, especially the graphics.Frantic, crazy, funny action? That's classic. We're going fromwhere the developers were literally saying that you don't need a story and spoiling what might be the game's most entertaining moment to hyping up a story and not wanting to spoil it.That is a very different mentality shift. It shows.People also attackfor gameplay reasons. For one, they believe the gameplay is a photocopy of, which had a lot of gameplay problems. For two, because it's not like the oldgames.For the second point, people bemoan the loss of partners and badges. For the first one, people bemoan disposable-item-based gameplay and the lack of after-battle rewards.The lack of after-battle rewards is a total falsehood. You get these rewards: Coins (as you did in), paint that refills your metre (similar to overworld flowers for Flower Points in), paint globs that increase your paint metre when you acquire enough (experience points), and enemy cards. That last one has no equivalent, but it's this game's version of partners. They're just temporary (like a Pikmin) and probably a lot weaker than apartner, but likely comparable with apartner. ...Strictly in terms of gameplay.If you want to moan about lack of partners from a story perspective, you'll have to explain all of the deep character development for the partners you get in, and. I think, if you look back objectively, you'll find that there really was not much that most partners (besides Vivian — Rawk insists that this article is relevant to Vivian's development ) offered to make the story better. And they didn't actually develop all that much. Huey may be a Tippi-level partner in terms of story progression and development, except also with likability.Anyway, there will be multiple kinds of enemy battle cards, not just weak and worthless Shy Guys. Koopa Troopas and Buzzy Beetles are also confirmed, and having a generic Koopa Troopa is already better than having Koops.Let me explain the paint metre, because it totally changes how the battle system works. Paint, in battles, is basically an attack-buffing system that doesn't cost a turn and is individual for your attacks. You can buff your attacks with paint to make them more powerful and give them special effects. This decreases the amount of paint you have, obviously. It's... basically an added layer of Action Command, in that Action Commands also make your attacks stronger and make things have special effects, like splash damage on your hammer. Except this isn't reflex-based and is number-management-based.RPGs love their number-management. Good sign. The fact that you gain more maximum paint after enough battles is a sign that battles are not worthless — if you avoid battles in, you will be much weaker. You know, just like agame.Mario can perform multiple actions/cards per turn. Is there much of a gameplay difference between Mario using a Jump command and Goombario using a Headbonk in, and Mario using two kinds of Jump-based commands in one turn in? There are also double or triple attack cards that are three attacks in one card. And, is there much of a difference between equipping a Badge to use a special kind of attack inthat is a modification of a Jump or Hammer, and playing a disposable card to use a special kind of attack that is a modification of a Jump or Hammer inWhat difference, at this point, does it make? The Sound FX badges? ...Things like thebadge? Personally, I had a lot of fun playing Paper Mario WITHOUT badges . When I did use badges in other playthroughs, I didn't make badge-based strategies and invested my Badge Points in attacks like Quake Hammer. Yeah, it's a little different for, but you'll find a lot of functionality replicated and new functionality included where there isn't a replacement.And just because it's different, doesn't mean it won't be fun.I've heard a lot of complaints that “Things” are back. Those were the real-world sort of objects that were monsterously powerful as stickers in. You needed them to “solve” boss battles that were basically impossible otherwise, and also to solve overworld puzzles. But since these were disposable and also missable, people ran into problems. There was also an in-game sticker Museum that encouraged you to deposit new stickers there, so you wouldn't have them for the puzzles or battles unless you backtracked.See the screenshot above? There is a Fan card at the very left, a bit off-screen. At the right, there is another Fan card — a replica. We know nothing about replica Thing cards besides the above screenshot, but it proves that you can have more than one Thing card in your inventory at once. Whether replicas are exact copies or are weaker remains to be seen, but this already seems to solve a problem, does it not?All the Intelligent Systems team needs to do is make the overworld puzzles not totally weird that you have to look up the solution to figure out the team's logic. Also, make boss battles either possible without needing to use Things, or make them not a total pushover if you do use them. That's a balancing issue, though. Not a fundamental game design issue.At least, in the Treehouse Live segment they actually said, “this game does a great job of equipping you with the tools you need, and you need to instead of blindly charging into battle, think about what you have in your arsenal.” The double usage of the “need” may turn people off, but pros should consider it a challenge. After all, ifdidn't “need” characters or story, does“need” Thing cards to win boss battles?For a game that is accused of not having characters or story by detractors,is already doing a great job with its dialogue.never caused a huge commotion among social justice warriors with its very limited and okay writing, buthas. You need great, non-bland writing to do that. Social justice warriors demand blandness from artistic endeavours, so take their triggering as a good sign that Color Splash is a cut above its relatively bland predecessor ...Oh, and, y'know, the Koopalings are in the game. With apparently exaggerated personalities. I'm scared of what Intelligent Systems might do to me, considering they made my brother retarded. I hope they base me off of my writing here, not those creeps on Miiverse Here's the bottom line: The developers have learned some lessons from. This time, this is a project they WANT to do, not a project quickly put together because Shigeru Miyamoto threw out what they were working on up to that point. It doesn't need to beororto be fantastic....Uh... as for the validity of judging things by their first trailers? I'm not going to change that. Like President Barack Hussein Obama, marketing departments know exactly what they're doing.