Paper Mario Color Splash Review

A coloring adventure… with hammer blows!

Version tested Wii U.

One of the obvious, but too often forgotten things in life: to look too much towards the future you end up losing sight of the present. Here is the risk of Nintendo fans, who for too much talk and speculate and suffer for the new NX console, which is so desirable, forget that something beautiful is already under their eyes and it works very well even on the disdained Wii U. naturally of Paper Mario Color Splash, the ninth pearl coming to the current Nintendo home console, and that probably too few people will have the pleasure of playing. And they don't know what they're missing.

Paper Mario Color Splash arrives this October 7th to give a touch of color to our life: lost in the greyness of autumn days, it suddenly represents a serene and sunny summer breath. Excellent move not to publish it in the summer, since summer is needed especially when it is now over, or rather in the autumnal greyness. The fifth chapter of the famous Paper Mario series takes care of it, which with a sheet here and a brushstroke beyond presents us with a Kingdom of Mushrooms and very… light characters!

Damn Ciucciacannuccia

Oh yes, it is very difficult to pronounce: ciucciacannuccia, ciucciacannuccia. We also took a long time the first time. But don't you think it's a very nice word? Besides, what the hell is a sucker? We soon find out with the new adventure in which Mario, Princess Peach and the Toads find themselves on board. It all begins when a strange postcard is delivered to the castle ... because the postcard is a poor unfortunate Toad who has been bleached and on which they have affixed a stamp! But the Toads are not postcards, and who could have had such a bad idea, that of mailing a poor mushroom after having discolored it? Princess Peach decides to investigate, and (of course) takes our hero with her.

Mario and Peach arrive in Porto Prisma, the tourist resort of the Mushroom Kingdom from which the poor victim was sent. Here they discover an abandoned environment where everything is rather suspicious. Where have all the Toads gone? Why is there no one in the city? Why are there white spots everywhere, in a world where up to the last detail is rigorously and very festive colored? And why has the fountain of the Color Stars dried up? The puzzle is soon revealed: a mysterious enemy has sent his army of Shy Guys to suck the colors out of all things using special weapons: very dangerous straws. Hence the name of ciucciacannuccia, yes. Mario will have to embark on a new adventure to bring all the stars home, recolor the world and save the Toads. Without risking being burned, frozen, wet or discolored. Because he too, like everything else, is nothing more than a slip of paper.

Mustache Fights!

If you ask ten people what kind of game Paper Mario Color Splash is, you'll get a variety of unsettling answers. A platformer? An action game? An adventure? A GDR? Let's do this: all the answers are right, because Paper Mario è all these things put together. An action and adventure game, of course: it is not for nothing that there is a story to be faced in which you will explore various levels, one at a time and all at the same time on their own and in thematic connection between them, until you reach the end of the game. You will eliminate enemies, you will fight, you will unlock skills and upgrades: it is a full-fledged adventure, and there is a lot of action. But these elements alone are not enough to tell us what Paper Mario is.

One of the predominant mechanics is that platform. Paper Mario is officially a Super Mario, but less canon and more innovative. Levels are tackled by jumping here and there, even over enemies, and the warheads against the cubes release game items that can be used in combat. These are platforming sessions in all respects, the platforms are there and how scattered in all the levels, but the dose is less massive than the canonical episodes of the series. The sector relating to exploration and combat certainly has a prominent place.

Jumping on enemies is possible, but the gameplay experience doesn't stop there. Paper Mario Color Splash is in fact a full-fledged RPG with turn-based combat, but we could define it as a simplified RPG for use and consumption by players of all ages. Let's dispel the myth that this is a game for children: with all the blows that the enemies throw at you, children are just a slice of the audience. Once you have met an enemy, you move on to the combat phase: you can also enter it by hitting an enemy from behind or by being hit by him, in the first case you start with a bonus, in the second with a disadvantage. The battle phase is managed in turns: first ours, then that of the opponent. It attacks by selecting one of the playing cards in our possession (they can be found in the levels or can be purchased from a shop in Porto Prisma): the attacks range from unlikely jumps in the head to flowers of ice and fire. Once the paper has been selected, it is colored (consuming ink, Mario's “power”) and then it is “thrown towards the TV” using the gamepad. The game animations do the rest, with some possibilities left to the player (pressing A while mario jumps on the enemy, you can perform bonus attacks). Then it's the enemy's turn, where the only thing possible is to parry the attack, with the right alertness, decreasing the damage suffered. If Mario loses all life points, it's game over. But the difficulty is never excessive.

Mario has only one weapon, aside from the advice of his trusty companion (a can of paint). It is a rainbow hammer, a hammer capable of both striking and coloring the parts of the world that have been discolored by the bad guys. The color is not eternal, and constitutes the "fuel" of the weapon: once finished it will have to be reloaded. Which is very simple: every single element of the game world exudes color, so you just have to hit everything at random and collect the droplets that have fallen to the ground. You can also hit your friends: at most they crumble a little!

Love that only Nintendo can give

Talking about it seems almost superfluous: when it comes to technical realization, graphics and sound care, Nintendo spoils us like crazy. There are really rare titles in today's videogame landscape that offer such richness, care and attention to detail: there is not a single detail, only one, in the game world that is out of place, not a quote, not an image. , not a note, nothing. From Toads that barely wrinkle, lightly, when you hammer them, to streams made entirely of cardboard, to clouds in the sky held up by strings of string, Paper Mario Color Splash will enchant you even just looking at it, without even needing of playing. A quality that only the world of Super Mario seems capable of giving. There are no delays whatsoever, the only waits are those between one level and another. To be slightly slow, if anything, is the combat system: but by choice, not by consequence, a choice that goes perfectly with the intuitiveness and immediacy of the mechanics. The music is very pleasant and relevant, you will find yourself looking for them on Youtube after the first two hours of play, and perfectly accompany with their magic a world that is already magical in its own right.

A positive note also with regard to the linguistic sector of the title. Paper Mario Color Splash is completely in Spanish, but that's not the point: there are many games, and often translated with their feet by people who do not know why they do the job they do. Translation of Color Splash, on the other hand, not only is it excellent, but manages to keep all the wit and wit of the original. There have never been any Toad pranksters like this time: they don't seem to miss the opportunity to joke about you and them. Same thing for the enemies, the incomparable "I whiten you like a sheet!" shouted in battle, as well as many other phrases that we leave to you the pleasure of discovering.