| Ulternia said: I loved Mario & Luigi: SuperStar Saga but I’d be okay with the franchise dying if it meant we got a proper Paper Mario again. |
Even when M&L and Paper Mario were good, they were able to exist alongside one another without hurting sales. It seems like Nintendo doesn't know what it is we liked about those games, because neither fills the niche that either used to fill. It's not like M&L is now Nintendo's Paper Mario or vice versa, both were story-driven Mario adventures with lovable characters and great humor, and each gave a unique twist to the turn based RPG mechanic that made it fun. Paper Mario had the partner system and the fourth wall breaking, and M&L had the ability to interact during your enemy's turn such that you could completely avoid the attack with enough skill. M&L still has some of that gameplay, but now focuses way too much on stupid special move and item based minigames. Paper Mario gave up the partner system altogether and exchanged fourth wall breaking for stupid paper gimmicks. Add to that the fact that the writing for both games has gone downhill, with less focus on interesting characters and simplified storylines, and all the games have now is the occasional flash of the old humor.
No, what both series need is for their respective developers, and Nintendo, to get their heads out of their collective asses, stop trying to "innovate" by changing what works just for the sake of changing, and start writing good stories again, with creative characters, not just Toads or the core Mario characters, and put the gameplay back to what made it great. Then we can have two great series again instead of two empty husks of what they once were.
