Actually, there is. I really can picture people having problems with the game if they decide not to battle, since your paint limit would be extremely low. I'm not a fan of the combat system, but you have at least one reason to battle. One more than SS xD.

Well, there are the hammer points, which I think was better that I increased it over the time of playing the game. The ice and fire flowers eat up a lot of paint, and there were times I would run out of it.

I found the battle system to be fun, minus kamek coming in to mess it up. I hated those moments. >: T Aside from that, there were some real fun boss battles as well.

I just find it downright hilarious that Nintendo made this to advertise Color Splash

As if comparing the game to an actual success will magically garner sales.

The thing is, Paper Mario was an RPG series, was successful as an RPG series, and was immensely praised as an RPG series. Wanting to shake that up a little is fine and great, and I get that. You don't want to make the exact same game in a different locale. It's why we got Super Mario Sunshine instead of a standard platforming followup to Super Mario 64. It's why we got the Galaxy games instead of using mechanics too similar to Super Mario Sunshine. It's why we got Super Mario 3D World at all. The difference between Nintendo experimenting with their core Mario games and Paper Mario is that they experiment incrementally with platformer Mario. We don't get anything too drastic, with key gameplay components finding their way into each iteration and with the core gameplay staying relatively the same. The New Super Mario Bros bit would have surprised me, but it was cheap and easy enough until it started getting stale for everybody.

With Paper Mario, Nintendo thought they should avoid making another somewhat challenging RPG on the Wii and gave us Super Paper Mario to appeal to the more casual audience. An understandable move, and forgiveable as a single entry. The fact that they didn't bother crafting a Paper Mario to appeal to their existing fanbase was a little bit irksome, but hey, they offered a chance to redeem themselves with the 3DS. Then they decided to just toss out the rulebook and make a random game while slapping Paper Mario on it to try to get sales on their soulless craptastic game. Did they learn from that mistake? Sort of I guess? They at least got the world bit back to around TTYD standards in Color Splash, but they decided one of the critical complaints of the panned Sticker Star, the combat, was totally okay and brought it right on back in a slightly tweaked way.

Experimentation should be gradual, and huge experimentation should not use IPs existing in a different genre to try to push sales on an iffy idea. That is a waste of a formerly popular IP, slowly pushed towards the grave by Nintendo's hand alone, and leaves Paper Mario with no real identity. He's just another Mario getting tossed into whatever weird idea Nintendo comes up with that another character doesn't really fit.

Your words have nothing to do with Color Splash. I bet you never played it.

The Wii U is deader than dead so why would people spend 60 bucks on it's last game?

I don't get these responses of Color Splash being terrible. People who have played it said it's pretty darn good. Maybe not as good as TTYD, but not something to ignore or put down. Even GameXplain praised the game despite its flaws (and hating Sticker Star) and recommended it. You don't have to agree, but you can at least take their opinions into consideration since they actually played the damn game.

It's like Star Fox Zero. Some don't like it because of the controls. I personally do and thought it was a solid game. It's unfortunate that it has low sales but alas it's the way it is.

Then you got games like Tokyo Mirage Sessions, which has been positively received but still has low sales. Why aren't people playing that game? Because it's not what they want?

Why is it that it has to be "do what we want or bust" kind of mentality? If it was like that, we wouldn't be showering love to games like the Wind Waker, Metroid Prime, Wii sports, etc.

There are probably a lot of factors on why Color Splash isn't doing well, but being received as a bad game isn't one of them when it was received favorably by those who played it. Maybe it'll be considered a great hidden gem one day like Captain Toad, Tokyo Mirage Sessions, Mario and Sonic at Rio, FFV, and a few others on Wii U.

Really guys? I think just one look at TMS should tell you why that game didn't sell lel. I almost didn't buy the game because of that, though it is thanks to hearing how good it was that I eventually picked it up. So yes quality isn't everything for a game's sales, but for Paper Mario, being a well known long established series that actually got advertising, it has to be a big factor since why else? You guys say it isn't a factor but don't give an alternative explanation. Wii U is dying sure, but if people really wanted the game, they'd buy it, but they don't and well the only reason I see and hear for that be quality. That's definitely the reason why I'm not buying it and I'm sure you'll get the same answer from most everyone else.   

Sticker Star did have reasons aswell, the issue is that the stuff you get from battles can be obtained by other means. It's the same deal in Color Splash, hammer points are essentially just more paint which is already plentiful in the field. You can beat the game without picking up a single hammer point, so for the sake of time and resources you're still better off avoiding battles (well that, and because this is by far the worst battle system I have ever seen in a videogame, but I digress). 

Hooray, I'm a cool kid!