Mario & Luigi, Paper Jam - Nintendo 3DS

When Luigi accidentally opens a mysterious book hidden away in Peach's Castle,  he gets more than he bargained for when characters from the Paper Mario universe spill out of the pages and start running amok. Players must take control of the terrific trio of Mario, Luigi and Paper Mario to defeat Bowser and Paper Bowser and bring the Paper Mario characters back to their original world.

User Experience :
Contrary to the description this game is not a Paper Mario Game (So no it doesn't play like Sticker Star) and it is not a crossover game either in my opinion. This is a straight Mario & Luigi RPG game. All the game mechanics and style comes from that series while Paper Mario is more of a cameo appearance in the game.

This is the 5th game in the series (Superstar Saga, Partners in Time, Bowser's Inside Story & Dream Team), but none of the games connect so you can jump in here if you'd like. For returning players, they've made a few notable changes in this one coming from Dream Team (Which I think are actually positive)
-Tutorials are shorter and completely skippable
-No more gyro controlled minigames or attacks
-This game is shorter (about 30-35 hours long)

Other than that it follows the formula of the others as a turn-based RPG. You control Mario, Luigi and Paper Mario as they go on a journey to rescue Peach and Paper Peach (so typical mario story here). In combat you use a combination of jump attacks, hammer attacks and special bros moves that you learn through battling and leveling up each character. One of the reasons this is such a fun game is because unlike other turn-based RPGs, you're not just sitting there picking attacks and watching them play out. You have to execute the attacks yourself. So if you're doing a jump attack, you actually have to press the jump button or you won't do any damage at all. During enemy turns, you're to try to dodge and in some cases even counterattack an enemies move (by making the characters jump or move at the right time) Paper Mario sort of functions like a tool for Mario and Luigi to use. He can go flat and slide through narrow openings that the other two can't and can be folded into various objects like bridges and airplanes that help the bros reach new areas. Battle cards boost your attacks and stats (for example atk power 2x or restore 20% hp). This game does have amiibo support which add Character cards that pretty much perform the same functions as Battle Cards, just a little stronger. So if you have any Super Mario series Amiibo, tap em in but if not you're not missing much.

The story isn't as good as some in the previous series as it's pretty straight forward with no unique twists. And if you've played other games you'll notice there aren't any new characters or new dynamic areas introduced (like the dream world in Dream Team) in this entry but the dialogue is still entertaining and the game is fun to play (especially if you've never played a M&L game before( so if you're a fan of the series then this is another solid entry to add to your collection or if you're new to the series, this is a great place to start.

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