Super Paper Mario

Maybe they should have called it Super Meta Mario. After all, few games have ever deconstructed their medium more — and I don’t mean by merely acknowledging its videogame-ness (as Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door was wont to do) or referencing past titles (most modern Nintendo games boast the odd nod to the company’s original NES era). This third entry in the Paper Mario series is meta in game design itself. In past entries, the long-suffering Italian was a paper-thin plumber in a 3D world. This time the game abandons most of its RPG origins (most thankfully its turn-based battles but, alas, not the endless text) to go even further back into old-school side-scrolling platformer, not that different from last year’s DS hit New Super Mario Bros. Except when it isn’t. See, our two-dimensional Mario has the ability to slip back and forth into the third-dimension to avoid enemies, find treasures, crack puzzles and discover hidden passageways. Nintendo is answering those burning questions about what may have been a foot in front or behind Mario while you were jumping over those spiky boulders and spinning fireballs. But for all the game’s stoner-philosophical implications, mostly SPM is impressive for adding a fun new twist to a supposedly played-out format.