Paper Mario

I was going to start my series of rants - I mean posts - on Open Source software today, but last night I took a look at the Wii online store and discovered that on Monday Nintendo finally released a decent role-playing game. For only 1000 points ($10) I got myself a copy of Paper Mario. It is about bloody time that a good RPG was released on the virtual store. Lets just hope that this is the start of a trend and many more good RPGs will be released for the virtual console.

Some people may not be familiar with the Paper Mario series. It is the follow-up series of games for a game known as Mario RPG. The Mario RPG was a game that took the Mario Brothers universe into the realm of Role-playing games. Of course, the Mario universe has been expanded into a wide variety of other genre of games.

The first impression of the game is pretty good. The RPG elements consist of Hearts (HP), Flower Power (Mana), and Badge Points. Badges represent your special abilities, which you not only get to choose, but can change at anytime. When you gain enough experience to gain a level you choose which of the three things you wish to improve. Combat is menu driven, though have an arcade timing test that gives you extra damage or reduces your damage. I will try to have a full review later.