Releasing into an end-of-year games rush lousy with first-person shooters and other gritty fare, Paper Mario: Color Splash is a charming, genuinely funny palate cleanser that — in its own way — matches many of its more realistic contemporaries when it comes to amazing graphics.
Travelling to faraway Prism Island on a mission to restore missing colour to the famously polychromatic resort, our hero befriends a sentient paint can and arms himself with a paint-spewing hammer. If you hadn't guessed, paint is kind of the theme of this game.
![Paper Mario exists in a world of cardboard and crafts.](/web/20161027152631im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/s/4/j/7/r/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gs8yu4.png/1477274976407.jpg)
As fans of the series will know, this is not your standard run-and-jump Mario adventure. Paper Mario takes the emphasis off reactive skill-based play, instead interpreting the familiar characters and mechanics of the Mushroom Kindgom into a whimsical, narrative-heavy experience. At the same time, the game is a light play on the Japanese RPG, with enemies defeated via turn-based battles rather than by merely jumping on them as you pass.
After the game's setup and tutorial, most of your time will be spent exploring the various areas of the island (which are connected by an old-school overworld map) to collect paint stars. Each one opens up a new area, but you'll need to solve secrets, best bosses or complete some esoteric task to get them. Many stars will be unobtainable until you activate something in a later level, and you'll be travelling back to areas you thought you'd already completed frequently.
![Secrets and hidden spots to colour in abound on Prism Island.](/web/20161027152631im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/s/9/0/d/s/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gs8yu4.png/1477274976407.jpg)
Color Splash keeps the established offbeat aesthetic of the series, with all characters presented as 2D paper cutouts that can crumple, float, get soggy and slip through small cracks, but otherwise talk and act like regular folks. With the extra level of abstraction afforded by the fact everyone is both a character in the Mario universe and a piece of paper, the game is free to poke fun at the tropes and conventions of more traditional Nintendo platformers and video game culture in general.
The overall story is predictable, but the situations Mario gets into — between filling desaturated spots with his hammer, collecting battle cards and fighting enemies — are frequently hilarious, incorporating everything from ghost-filled hotels to rock-paper-scissors tournaments.
Literally everyone has some humorous one-liner to throw at you, and for the most part the game is very well written. Nintendo fans will get a kick out of a multitude of in-jokes and witty references to other games, although most gags are purely situational.
The charm is boosted by some very endearing visuals, with an incredible attention to detail in bringing the paper world to life. Big elements like buildings are made up of corrugated cardboard, while objects in the sky — like clouds or airships — bounce along suspended by shimmering fishing line. Funny touches like a character getting slow and desaturated when wet, or having a stamp permanently attached to the back of their head after being folded up and mailed, are great.
![Battles rely on colouring and playing battle cards.](/web/20161027152631im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/s/9/0/d/f/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gs8yu4.png/1477274976407.jpg)
My main criticisms of the game have to do with the battle system. Mario needs to play battle cards from his ever-growing deck in order to perform moves like stomping or whacking with his hammer. It's an interesting system that makes good use of the Wii U's touchscreen controller, but a lot of it is rinse and repeat.
Pressing buttons at just the right time to boost attacks or defend yourself keeps you engaged though, and the need to manage your more powerful cards and make sure you're stocked up makes for some tough decisions. Attempts to spice up the battles are totally hit and miss, introducing an element of randomness to the stoushes and overall progression — meant to keep things accessible and exciting — that means you're sometimes penalised for things beyond your control.
![Like <i>Sticker Star</i> before it, <i>Color Splash</i> takes place in a series of areas connected by a map rather than ...](/web/20161027152631im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/s/9/0/d/t/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gs8yu4.png/1477274976407.jpg)
It's also disappointing that the style of battle never really fits in with the rest of the game. It could be replaced with direct real-time attacks or any other system and the main appeal of the game — exploring a beautiful diorama-like world and grinning at the hilarious and incongruous characters that live there — would be exactly the same.
Luckily, with the exception of a few frustrating sequences to do with Mario's ability to turn real world "things" into one-of-a-kind battle cards, the fighting system is not bad. It's just a bit out of place.
With the Nintendo Switch on the horizon, Color Splash is likely to be something of a last harrah for the under-appreciated Wii U hardware, and while I have conflicting feelings about the battle system I'm happy to say it's a fantastic and eccentric celebration of all things Mario. Warm, genuinely funny, great to look at and with a surprisingly funky musical score to go with it, this is a swan song worth unfolding.
Paper Mario is out now for Wii U.
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