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 Paper Mario is the second RPG featuring the well-renowned Nintendo character Mario. This game is significantly different from its predecessor, Super Mario RPG, putting more focus on timing your attacks and giving Mario the brunt of the gameplay in battle. There are eight partners that join Mario throughout his adventure, each with a wide variety of abilities both within and outside battle. But what stands out most is the game's aesthetic, which appears as a story book (thus the Japanese name "Mario Story") and plays with the idea that this version of Mario and the Mushroom Kingdom are, well, made out of paper. All these factors create a unique and innovative game that happens to be one of the crown jewels of the Nintendo 64 and an all-time favorite of mine. This Let's Play will be screenshot with numerous music links and GIFs, plus the occasional video or two. I plan to show off as much content as I can as long as it won't drive me crazy. I'll go into what I love about this game as well as any flaws and whatever other interesting facts that relate with this game. If you prefer video LPs, Faceguy and Wogturt have done video LPs of both this game and its even more-amazing sequel. TAG SPOILERS. I can and will strike you down if you break the thread's one and only rule! My Twitter account will contain links to my updates, in case you don't bookmark this thread.         
Mega64 fucked around with this message at 01:42 on Mar 1, 2017 |
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Feb 5, 2017 19:05
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| # ? May 2, 2024 14:33 |
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Reserved.
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Feb 5, 2017 19:06
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDKHXOQbjoc Here is the introductory video for this game. If you don't want to watch it, here's a brief recap:  Story of the Stolen Spirits There's a place called Star Haven ruled by seven Star Spirits that holds a Star Rod that grants all wishes. See if you can find the common theme between these names.   Bowser appears to ruin the day because of course he does. So guess what we'll have to do. Main Title The title screen! This game was developed by Intelligent Systems, who've developed a boatload of various Nintendo games, most notably the Fire Emblem series as well as the later Paper Mario games. Fun Fact: This game was released exactly 16 years ago today in North America. I didn't really plan for that, but it works out well! There's also an attract mode that shows off gameplay, but I won't show that off since that's my job! And also because it's a bit spoilery. File Select  If you're familiar with the game, you'll probably notice the font is different. That's because I really hate the game's actual font and made the effort to change it myself so you can actually read what's going on. If you're not interested in the technical side, feel free to skip the following paragraph. There's a great incomplete texture pack located here that was an attempted effort to add HD textures to Paper Mario. The font itself is pretty nice, and it's pretty simple to insert into Project 64. Except I'm using the Wii emulator Dolphin to emulate the VC version of the game because N64 emulation is simply that bad. These textures are still compatible, but they use different file names. Thus I had to dump the textures from the VC version and manually rename every texture from the HD version to the corresponding VC version texture. There's white and black versions of each character, so in total there's around 150 textures I need to do this with. It took me a couple hours but I still feel it was worth it because I really think the default font is completely terrible. That said, the texture pack was a work in progress so there might be a few weird letters with some minor artifacting (capital O and W stick out for me) as well as some general sizing weirdness (lowercase U stands out next to lowercase T, lowercase I has spacing issues). I may go back to tweak these later, but probably not.  I go Mario because I'm lazy and that's what I usually use in these games. I don't think it really matter anyway. Mail Call! This first update alone I've already broken my personal record for most GIFs in a single update. So yeah, expect lots of them, this game has some great animations.   Luigi, oddly absent from Super Mario RPG besides a small cameo in the ending, doesn't really have a big role in this game. He's much more entertaining in the sequel since by that time Nintendo finally got Luigi's personality down pat. It'll still take the Mario & Luigi games to make Luigi a proper playable RPG character, though.   All right, let's see... Princess Peach's Theme  Many guests from distant towns are hoping to meet you. The artifacting here is the emulator, which acts kinda weird once it loads the white letter textures. The cramped sizing is the textures I used, but generally this isn't an issue in regular dialogue. Otherwise, Peach is throwing a party to boost foreign diplomacy and enhance international relations. It's mainly an excuse to get a preview of the various locales Mario will be visiting throughout the game. A Party at Peach's Castle  Warp Pipes are abundant and serve as screen transitions between geographically-diverse locations. Mario and Luigi live off by themselves, so it makes sense they'd have a warp pipe connecting their home to town.  Though sometimes Mario gets stuck and regrets his life choices.    Otherwise, an automated walk to Peach's castle. Don't worry, we'll explore town in due time. For now, let's focus on the party.  At this point, we've got free control.  If you press (A) in front of the door up there, you can open it.There's a lot of NPCs around here, and of course I'm going to talk to all of them. Every. Single. One.  Even the ones that don't really have anything useful to say! Luckily there's only this guy and one other.   I'll bet you could hear some stories about places you've never been to, huh?As I said, this party is kind of a preview of the places you'll be visiting. It's a pretty clever way to introduce to players the rather expansive world in Paper Mario.   He's come all the way from the Shiver region, which lies far to the north of here.Important toads have punny names that all end in the "T" initial. This toad is "Russ T", while the Toad next to him is "Frost T". I'd mock this but I plan for all my update titles to have paper-based puns so, uh, I'm not exactly one to criticize here.   Mario, please come visit us in the Shiver region someday!Sounds like a plan.   I already ate way too much... I'm taking a little breather. Yes, I made individually distinct character portraits for every single toad variation. This is what happens when you're on your 20th or so Let's Play and keep pushing yourself to be better, you invest more and more time in more and more pointless tasks.  This is the other "useless" toad, but that's not a fair assessment. This toad is a guard and greets people, his role is very important and he takes it seriously, whether it's a commoner toad, a distinguished foreign emissary, or the nation's greatest hero. If anything, this toad guard is by far the most important person at this party. So please think of this toad guard the next time you want to write off a game NPC for being useless. Thank you.   She's been restless... hee hee hee... How cute...Mario games have always been kinda hands-off as far as any potential Mario/Peach relationship. It makes sense because these games are aimed at kids and adults alike, and it'd be kinda weird to incorporate an intense relationship in a series known for being light-hearted and whimsical. I do think the way Nintendo handles it is a bit weird, but then they rarely deviate from the "Mario rescues Peach" narrative anyway. Still, this game probably comes the closest of any Mario game to implying there's something more between Mario and Peach and, well, unsurprisingly it doesn't go anywhere.   Oh! By the way, Princess Peach has been waiting for you.For someone dedicated to hosting parties, Peach doesn't really want much to do with them.  All but one of these doors are locked.  If you're not next to someone, pressing A makes Mario jump. There's some platforming aspects in this game (you can walk on the banisters for instance), but it'll take awhile for them to develop and of course it won't compare to your usual Mario platformer.  This game does have 3D backgrounds that move around at times to adjust the player's view, and that's always a neat-trick when used with the characters' paper dimensions. The bottom door leads to the kitchen.   You may not know this, but I cooked all the food for this big party. I made all of my most delicious dishes! But... Oh dear... I got so into my cooking that I used up all of my ingredients! Now I have to go shopping!It's pretty impressive for one toad to make all the food for a party this large.  I hope that someday I get good enough to cook food as delicious as Tayce T.'s. Cooking is always something I want to get into more but end up too tired and lazy to do. But then that's true of pretty much every hobby I try to get into. I don't know how I managed to do Let's Plays as long as I have, honestly.   I wish I could stay here at Peach's Castle forever!There's quite a few representatives from the Shiver region, including this fellow.   She must be a bit tired.Through this door is the other half of the party.   It's good to see you here. When you're around, I feel like our kingdom is secure. Yep, our future looks bright!For the sequel, this guy would get replaced by Toadsworth, who himself kinda fell off the map after the Gamecube era. I mean, I'd feel bad for Toadsworth if he weren't so one-note. That's still one more note than this generic fellow, though.   This castle is really lovely, isn't it? Truly gorgeous. So cool and comfortable... I even got a chance to talk to the beautiful Princess Peach. What an honor! When I return to Dry Dry Outpost, I'm going to tell everyone about it.So already we have an ice town and a desert town. I mean, it's a video game, you've got to have all the staples. The sequel does a more impressive job shaking things up, though.   Everyone I've met in this town seems incredibly nice. I think I'll make this place my home away from home.Outside the castle is Toad Town, and this mouse is correct in how nice everyone here is.   There're so many folks here, I can't keep track of them all. How embarrassing. But yeah, we'll explore quite a few more locales beside those three.   She's such a lovely lady... Whoever she loves must be very special indeed... It's definitely the best place for a date. Trust me. Maybe you ought to, you know, ask the princess to go there...Why is everyone so obsessed with who Peach is interested in dating? Imagine if we did that in the real wo--ohhhhhhhh. Oh dear...   This is currently my favorite NPC.   Ohhh... I just had the honor of talking with Princess Peach! What a wonderful lady she is!I believe this is the first Mario game that actually has "good" versions of enemy staples like Goombas and Koopa Troopas. I like the idea myself, adds a lot of NPC diversity without having to make up new races.   My goodness, look at the time! I have to go shopping for souvenirs with Frost T.!That's four reps from the Shiver region now. We won't even be going there for a good while!  There's a door upstairs that we need to take to advance. And since we've talked to almost everyone in the room now...   So many guests... My heart's been beating like a bass drum ever since this morning... The game does some clever things with dialogue boxes at times. Though usually I'm spamming A to skip through the dialogue since I'm a fast reader.   That's it! That's every NPC! I've talked to everyone in this castle except for... Princess Peach's Theme I was just resting a bit. It gets tiring, greeting all those guests out there! Nobody will bother us here. Shall we relax and chat, just the two of us? In case it hasn't been made obvious by now, Mario is, as usual, a silent protagonist in this game. I get the feeling Peach doesn't really care right now, though.   Sounds like a good time to get started on the game's conflict! Bowser Takes the Castle  ...I must say, it's pretty impressive Bowser managed to build a giant version of his clown car under the castle and lift the entire thing up into the sky. The Star Rod must be powerful indeed!  That's a pretty swank set-up, alright.   Peach is still trying to grasp what exactly happened. She's been too busy panicking over the shaking castle to really notice the castle being lifted to the sky, remember.  And it's time for one of the coolest music themes in the game. Bowser's Theme ...Bowser! But this can't be! It was you who made the ground shake just now, wasn't it! Whatever did you do?  Yeah, that was me! I've lifted your castle up into the sky! It's sitting on my castle now! Weren't expecting that, huh?  Ha! Not really! I expected you to turn up, right on cue. You're just as annoying as ever. Unfortunately for you, there's nothing you can do this time. Haven't you learned your lesson by now, Bowser? True, true, I have had my problems in the past... But this time is different! OK, tough guy! Let's go!  Our first battle in the game is against, of course, Bowser.   I'm not going into the battle system today since for now we can only do one action. This is a plot battle, pure and simple.  So we get a few rounds of combat alternating between this...  ...and this.  After three attacks from Mario...  But today, your pathetic little attacks won't beat me! This fine piece of work has the power to grant any wish in the whole wide world! And when I use the Star Rod to increase my strength, even you can't beat me, Mario!I didn't alter any colored text since the regular text was enough effort as is, so consider it an opportunity to bask in the terribleness that is this game's default font.   Bowser's been buffed.   Bowser's offense has tripled, while Mario's has been nullified. This...isn't good.   This really isn't good.  It's not even worth my time to toy with you anymore, Mario. It's time to end this!   Game Over.   I finally did it! I beat my old rival Mario! Yessss! Congratulations on your victory, Your Viciousness! That's why you're the King! As long as I have this Star Rod, everything I wish will come true! No one can stop me now!    Title Crawl  Bowser has defeated Mario and once again kidnapped Peach. How is Mario going to come back from all of this to defeat a seemingly-unstoppable Bowser?  Follow this Let's Play of Paper Mario and find out! Mega64 fucked around with this message at 18:39 on Feb 12, 2017 |
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Feb 5, 2017 19:05
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Paper Mario 
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Feb 5, 2017 19:23
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One thing I like is how the layout of the castle foyer is basically identical to how it was in Mario 64, albeit squashed a bit shorter.
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Feb 5, 2017 19:31
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I'm looking forward to this one - I've never played Paper Mario, but I've heard it's pretty much a sequel to Super Mario RPG - and I just finished re-reading that LP.  Hopefully you enjoy doing this one, Mega64 - I've liked many of your other LPs (finished and not.)  I'm surprised they reused the Star Rod, but not the Fountain of Dreams (even though they lampshaded that) - that'd be an interesting crossover.
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Feb 5, 2017 19:34
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A very good game. Good luck fixing the rest of that modding to replace the regular font with Hey Gorgeous (no, I'm not kidding, that actually is the name of the font TTYD uses for dialogue), should you decide to do so.
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Feb 5, 2017 19:33
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This was one of my favorite games on the N64. Looking forward to the rest of this. The only real problem I have is that the spacing for the font is a bit wonky in places, but it's more readable than the N64's version at the very least.
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Feb 5, 2017 19:53
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You know you really love a game when you can hear all the music and sound effects in your head from these screenshots and gifs.  I look forward to this LP! Paper Mario is truly one of the best games out there, shame how bad its recent entries have become thou.
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Feb 5, 2017 19:55
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This game is great. I'd probably put it in the lower tier of Mario RPGs but it's still one of my favorite all-time RPGs.
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Feb 5, 2017 19:57
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I was enjoying your Manas LP, but this is a good replacement! I love this game to death!
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Feb 5, 2017 21:38
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Great game! But I'm afraid that with the weird spacing and the artifacting, your replacement font currently annoys me way more than the original font ever did.
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Feb 5, 2017 22:19
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Carbon dioxide posted:Great game! But I'm afraid that with the weird spacing and the artifacting, your replacement font currently annoys me way more than the original font ever did. I'm still trying to figure out alternatives since I'm not 100% happy with it either. The main problem is it's kinda time-consuming work to tweak the font, time I don't really have much of and would be better spent recording gameplay and writing updates anyway. I've got a possible idea that'd take awhile to do, but no promises I'll get it done or if it'll work (and even if I do, it might take several updates before I finish it and get it up).
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Feb 5, 2017 22:30
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Oooh, I never got around to playing these, so I'm looking forward to it.
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Feb 5, 2017 22:42
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The font looks fine to me. By the way, this is your requisite reminder that you can upload MP3s to lpix now. No need to use tindeck.
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Feb 5, 2017 22:54
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:By the way, this is your requisite reminder that you can upload MP3s to lpix now. No need to use tindeck. Only if the tracks are less than 10 MB, which is actually pretty low when it comes to music. Though in Paper Mario's case, none of them go above that limit.
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Feb 5, 2017 23:10
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:The font looks fine to me. I went with LPix for my last LP but I don't think it works with iOS, plus I use enough of baldurk's bandwidth as is. I'll likely go with LPix once Tindeck inevitably craps the bed.
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Feb 5, 2017 23:39
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I like how sticky tape has doomed the universe. That stuff never gets on well with paper.
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Feb 6, 2017 00:28
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Paper Mario is one of the single greatest RPGs ever made. I love this game so much I replay it every couple of years just for kicks. I look forward to seeing your interpenetration of it Mega.
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Feb 6, 2017 00:58
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Paper Mario cribbed a lot of stuff from Super Mario RPG in a good way: they go whole-ham on the core concepts of the game/Mario setting and it is amazing. Another reason not to gripe about the Toad's punny names: they've got a lot of clever phonetic puns and they all make logical sense (of course the Mayor of the Cold City is going to be Frost T. Of course the chef is going to be Tayce T. etc.)
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Feb 6, 2017 03:09
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EponymousMrYar posted:Another reason not to gripe about the Toad's punny names: they've got a lot of clever phonetic puns and they all make logical sense (of course the Mayor of the Cold City is going to be Frost T. Of course the chef is going to be Tayce T. etc.) They ran with this, and did such a good job that I find I don't like Toads without pun names. Toad. Toadette. Yellow Toad.
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Feb 6, 2017 03:20
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Paper Mario rules and I probably like it better than Super Mario RPG just for Paper Mario having a consistent footing in the Mario Universe and using established species rather than having wild poo poo like cloud people and shark men and like, all the enemies in SMRPG. Almost all Mario RPGs rule tho. also the letter size and the kerning in that new font is so loving over the place that it looks like all the textboxes are ransom notes, with the letters cut out of magazines
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Feb 6, 2017 04:04
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Moltrey posted:Paper Mario rules and I probably like it better than Super Mario RPG just for Paper Mario having a consistent footing in the Mario Universe and using established species rather than having wild poo poo like cloud people and shark men and like, all the enemies in SMRPG. Almost all Mario RPGs rule tho. If the copyright of SMRPG original characters wasn't held by Square Enix, Mallow could well be everyone's favorite character in the Mario universe by now.
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Feb 6, 2017 07:39
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I was never someone who played Super Mario RPG (I was only 4 when it came out) and I only played the handful of Mario games I liked, so I went into Paper Mario as a kid with very few prior expectations. It absolutely blew me away, and the sheer scale of the game for an N64 RPG is impressive as hell. I can't think of any other N64 game that holds up so well in 2017.
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Feb 6, 2017 14:07
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As a kid I used guides a lot to find my way through games. I think one of my biggest (and most inconsequential) regrets is using them as extensively as I did for games that to this day I love, like Ocarina of time and Chrono Trigger. Paper Mario is the first time I ever said to myself "No, I'm not using a guide, I'm beating this on my own." To this day completing it is one of the most satisfying memories of my childhood.
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Feb 6, 2017 16:17
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Carbon dioxide posted:If the copyright of SMRPG original characters wasn't held by Square Enix, Mallow could well be everyone's favorite character in the Mario universe by now. Nintendo bringing back fan-favorite SMRPG character Geno just to be a minigame tutorial guy in Superstar Saga is super funny to me
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Feb 6, 2017 17:41
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The first two Paper Mario games are probably my favorite games from my childhood, and though I played them in reverse order thanks to never having an N64, the first one was just as good. Man, I love these games.
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Feb 6, 2017 18:04
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 Preliminary test looks good. Definitely not perfect, but honestly this is probably going to be the best I can work with. Certainly looks better than the other font! My work process involves first ripping the text textures, then resizing them to 64x64. Then I use the Hey Gorgeous font from TTYD over them and try to match the letter best I can, opting for matching from the bottom-left corner. Then a simple border, and there we go. Just got to do that for 70-something characters (and invert colors for the other type). It's still not perfect, as the o and d touch (and I'm sure the o would touch the left character as well if it was wide enough), the T is weird since it's a lot shorter than PM's base font T and doesn't really match well at all, and I could probably lower the y a pixel (which I'll probably go ahead and do after this post), but it's still looking much better than the other font I was using. I'll probably run with this and try to get this all done tonight, which means hopefully I'll get an update up around Wednesday with the new font. The things I do for this dumb hobby.
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Feb 6, 2017 22:58
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Please share a zip of your final font as well, it would be nice to have when replaying the game. Edit: In dolphin.
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Feb 6, 2017 23:29
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That looks significantly better. Much less distracting.
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Feb 6, 2017 23:32
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SystemLogoff posted:Please share a zip of your final font as well, it would be nice to have when replaying the game. Planning on it!
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Feb 6, 2017 23:46
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 Holy crap I think I've done it. Still some minor nitpicks here and there (mainly some spacing issues and capitals and numbers being smaller than in PM64's font) but everything's leveled besides being maybe a pixel off here and there and it actually looks good now. At any rate, I'll go with this for the next update and fine tune it as I go. Once I'm happy with it, I'll post the zip here. I may also try to go back and replace the images from the first update at some point with the new font, possibly this weekend? Maybe now I'll actually try to get some gameplay in for the next update! Aiming for Wednesday, small chance of Tuesday if I'm driven enough.
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Feb 7, 2017 01:37
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Does your spoilers rule also count for easter eggs, you already missed one I think.
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Feb 7, 2017 02:33
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As long as everyone tags spoilers, I don't care too much. I mean, don't get carried away and start talking about the ending right now of course, but as cool and clever as this game is it doesn't exactly have many plot twists. As for easter eggs (or anything else in general), if I missed something feel free to let me know! If you're not sure, you can tag it to be safe, though I'm not going to probate people for borderline stuff like that. Also, as usual, I'm definitely welcome to people pointing out any mistakes I make, whether stuff like typos or getting facts wrong or whatever else.
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Feb 7, 2017 02:44
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I like this game a lot, though I'll blaspheme and say that I actually prefer two of the mario and luigi games (#1 and #3) to any of the others.
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Feb 7, 2017 04:10
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I also love the Mario & Luigi DS RPGs myself, I always thought Paper Mario was more of a party game than an RPG? Of course I didn't get into Paper Mario until the later games so it'll be interesting to see this one unfold.
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Feb 7, 2017 05:03
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GeneX posted:I like this game a lot, though I'll blaspheme and say that I actually prefer two of the mario and luigi games (#1 and #3) to any of the others. Same but SMRPG ranks above those two for me. Though I still think M&L3 is the overall best one. Best story, best gameplay, best gameplay variety, best music, and best challenge.
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Feb 7, 2017 05:09
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Dariusknight posted:I also love the Mario & Luigi DS RPGs myself, I always thought Paper Mario was more of a party game than an RPG? Of course I didn't get into Paper Mario until the later games so it'll be interesting to see this one unfold. Paper Mario and Paper Mario: Thousand Year Door are very clearly traditional turn-based RPGs (with some twists to make them more interesting). What makes you think it's a party game? Are you thinking of Mario Party perhaps?
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Feb 7, 2017 07:06
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Mega64 posted:
Sure it's only the text but I've seen projects to give this game HD textures for like, what feels like a decade at this point, and you fixed the atrocious text in a let's play update. Incredible. And a good example of how awful the compression on the font looked originally: 
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Feb 7, 2017 07:18
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Carbon dioxide posted:Paper Mario and Paper Mario: Thousand Year Door are very clearly traditional turn-based RPGs (with some twists to make them more interesting). What makes you think it's a party game? Are you thinking of Mario Party perhaps? I could have sworn one or two of the later Paper Mario games was almost nothing but minigames... but maybe I am mixing it up with Mario Party.
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Feb 7, 2017 08:19
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