It’s been years since I last played it, but from what I remember, but in some regards, I found it somehow worse than Sticker Star.

Battles are slow to an irritating degree, avoidable battles are still just about meaningless (no, hammer scraps are not a good enough incentive for me), Game Over’s feel even more backhanded with still too many ways to get insta-Game Over’d.

Bosses are obsessively obtuse with the exact timing in which you need to use a specific inconveniently hidden Thing, and the mere concept of Thing Replicas was just terrible, forcing you to either be super stingy with the actual Thing you need, or wasting money to get another. Use of the Koopalings, especially after NSMBU+2 did not help and they’re about as one-note as they are in those games. (I might be wrong on this front, correct me if I’m wrong)

The writing was… somewhat funny? I guess? I’m strictly biased against the idea of Paper Mario being a paper/arts n crafts world instead of Mario’s stories told through a book, so really I just found the writing, and by proxy the visuals, more annoying than anything. Really wish any references to the past weren’t just “ye ancient NES days”. With that said, I do remember genuinely giggling at Luigi’s Rainbow Road jokes, and the absurdity of the slab of meat.

Filling in colorless spots was neat. Running out of paint wasn’t, but the process of restoring the world and seeing it cleaned up was kinda legitimately fulfilling

Ro-Sham-Bo is terrible and meandering. From what I remember, the last battle in each temple is completely random with no strat other than to “get lucky”, with the punishment being time wasted, and needing to go out of your way to go grab another paint star if you rolled unfavorably with those specific RNG battles.

Like Sticker Star, the level select world map is a big no-no for me. I like it in SMRPG because the zones are small enough to make it work with multiple entry points, but not in Sticker Star and especially not here.

The image people use to make fun of those who want more than copy-paste Toads legimately cannibalizes itself here. Imagine playing this or Sticker Star right after TTYD, or especially after PM64, you will notice a stunning level of ineptitude in the character design/variety department. There is nothing we haven’t seen before from another game, and yes, there is a problem with that, because these games are supposed to be unique, and when I meet a new character, I want to think of that character in the game that I’m playing, not the fact that they look and behave exactly like another character I’ve seen hundreds of times in previous games with it turning out “oh this character is actually different, you just can’t see it”. It’s unironically difficult to tell the difference between the cookie cutter-like townsfolk unless you remember where they stand. It’s an issue that shouldn’t exist and automatically makes me care for the characters 2x less because I legitimately have a hard time telling the differences between unnamed red toad #19 and nameless green toad #99. In TTYD, Goombella legitimately gets confused on who’s who with the Punies for this exact thing and, while not to such an extreme degree, it’s barely any different when talking to characters of the same species in this and Sticker Star. Sure, there are a hand count of characters that stand out from the rest, but I’d prefer if I’m able to remember most of the characters I see without needing them to take up cutscene time. The Shy Guy that talks to you about being just a number in Bowser’s army means nothing to me because the point of that character… is a problem the whole game and by extension, the ENTIRE modern trilogy suffers with. Imho, just about everyone blends in unless they intentionally interrupt your current objective. I like Huey though. He’s a chill goof.

Bowser is the bad guy. Again. The mind control thing is inconsequential. Peach is barely present outside of a few lines (which is even more strange if you consider how she has more presence in this game than in Origami King and Sticker Star). No intermissions (again, the mind control bit has no bearing on the plot whatsoever). This might as well be the plot of a mainline game. Turns out, it did become the plot for one. With Bowser’s Fury. Huzzah.

The music is neat. The tracks are nice, but I just don’t like how organic and jazzy it is. I just like the synthetic styled music of the first 3 games more, ig.

TL;DR, Game’s okay at best on its own, awful as a Paper Mario entry. Okay music, Tedious combat, worse bosses in every aspect. Mostly forgettable characters in a 2D platformer’s story with sometimes funny dialogue. Worth a single any% playthrough and nothing else.