Forefront 6: Paper Mario: Color Splash

- allerede skrevet en del ting om.
Kig på decision making process måske, scores fra de andre spil, kig på kritikken af sticker star, både fra reddit og metacritic (critics og users), og begrund at Paper Pirates bør findes!

The post today will be about Paper Mario: Colour Splash.
I've already written a lot about this game I feel, so this post will be a bit less research-y.
It's no secret that the first two Paper Mario games were the best received, with Sticker Star especially being unpopular with fans, who took issue with the fact that all of the things they loved about the initial two games - partners, story and new characters, were all removed. When the trailer for Color Splash was revealed earlier this year, many fans were again let down because, seemingly, Nintendo had not taken the criticism of Stick Star to heart, and so the trailer showcased the same resource-based combat system, the same lack of partners, and no new characters at all. Things got even worse later when, in subsequent videos, all that was shown was different colours of Toads.

With the ongoing criticism, I feel like I should take a step back from the game, design-wise, and instead have a look at the Games Art side of it, because the game is gorgeous - the textures are incredible, and the sense of colour and style that Nintendo is famous for is indeed still there. Everything looks like it has been literally crafted out of paper, and in that sense, the game takes after Yoshi's Wooly World, wherein everything looked like it had been made out of wool - a game that was also praised for its art-style.

However!

I acknowledge that the game is gorgeous, but ever since I saw the initial release, something in my subconscious mind was telling me something was wrong, and that message has finally been delivered to the conscious level of my internal structure: the game looks so good, that it actually prevents immersion - I will elaborate.
When I play RPGs, I do it to immerse myself in a story-world, and to go exploring, find rare items, make digital friends and so on. I can climb mountains, cross seas, and battle beasties to my hearts content. Games are meant to trick you into believing their story-world is real, and that you are in it, as an actor. We've seen this evolution for over 20 years, as graphical fidelity and believability has improved, and now with VR as well.
However, and this without having actually played it, I see something wrong with Colour Splash - how can I immerse myself in a world, when the world so very clearly shows me that it is fake? Graphics in the old days were limited, yes, but after a while you became immersed in it - a green sphere could be a tree-crown, and you'd learn to accept that it was a tree-crown, and all the green was soft leaves. I cannot do that with Colour Splash, because I know the leaves wont be soft, because they are made of cardboard - everything is. It doesn't feel like going on an adventure, it feels like moving a character around world I made in my basement and that, to me, impedes immersion. It doesn't feel real.

That is why I have decided to lean away from Colour Splash as graphical inspiration for my game - I appreciate the craftmanship, but it would be the wrong choice to try to emulate something similar. I much prefer the art style of, say, Thousand Year Door, and so, as with all other aspects, the first two Paper Mario games will remain the graphical inspiration.
I have searched for other 2D/3D cartoonish partner-based RPG's, but I have yet to find any.

This was a much longer post than I had anticipated, but I hope my point came across.

Till next

Sources:
Paper Mario: Color Splash. N/A. Wii U[Game]. Intelligent Systems, Nintendo.
Metacritic. 2016. Paper Mario: Sticker Star for 3DS Reviews - Metacritic. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.metacritic.com/game/3ds/paper-mario-sticker-star. [Accessed 02 September 2016].
TechRadar. 2016. My hopes and fears for Paper Mario: Color Splash | TechRadar. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.techradar.com/news/gaming/my-hopes-and-fears-for-paper-mario-color-splash-1316789. [Accessed 02 September 2016].