Super Paper Mario: Mario Hamster
By Shaun Hatton - September 11th, 2008
A few nights ago I tried to get back into playing Super Paper Mario, which I hadn’t previously finished. I started off from the beginning and got to Chapter 2-3, in which Mario “accidentally” breaks a vase and then has to pay it off in rubees. Mario’s currency of choice, the coin, is just not good enough so in this level players need to earn rubees.
There are a few ways to earn them. The first of which is a room where you hit spark blocks to generate energy, and you get one rubee for each time you hit a block. If you get 100 rubees, you can buy information from another prisoner/slave on how to get to a room where the rubees are earned much faster.
After going to that room and earning 10,000 rubees by RUNNING IN A HAMSTER WHEEL FOR ABOUT TEN MINUTES, you can buy the password to the rubee vault from another prisoner. Once Mario steals all the rubees in the vault (and how ethical is that, really?), he pays off his debt and the chapter is closed.
Yes, I could have just gone online and searched for what the vault password was – but that wouldn’t be playing the game and getting the full experience out of it. And what one word sums up the experience of that level? Boring!
I nominate Chapter 2-3 of Super Paper Mario as one of the worst video game levels ever. What were the developers thinking? It was this level that made me turn off the Wii for the night.
Wait, I thought this one was an obvious meta-game thing — we just used an elastic around the controller to keep mario running in the wheel, and fixed dinner! AFAIK this is a common solution ;)
That is still boring.
My 360 died this week, and I still can’t bring myself to finish Super Paper Mario.
In fact, I haven’t even turned on my Wii in ages. I suspect i’m not alone in this assertion.
Bill, I feel exactly the same way. My PS2 even gets more play than the Wii these days… Anyone else seeing a problem here?
I see an obvious pattern: none of you has played the Naruto game for Wii, nor do you own the Harvey Birdman game.
Granted, but I do own Star Trek Conquest and Wintersports: The Ultimate Challenge.
Yep.
Ultimate.
Oh Star Trek Conquest - yikes! I now suddenly have the urge to play it, though.