I personally enjoyed this game. I'm not a longtime Paper Mario fan (more of a Mario and Luigi fan) but I decided to pick this game up. It started out pretty strong, and while the actual battles felt a bit too easy, the exploration aspects coupled with the gorgeous more than made up for it. But then, right about in the 3rd and 4th areas of the game, the battle system started to wear on me, so I used the "cheer" function in most of the battles. This worked all the way until the 5th area, where suddenly I found that I couldn't afford anything in the area, so i stopped using the cheer function. I felt like this is finally when the game got really good for me, and I would say the final 2 areas were amazing. But, I can definitely see why people didn't enjoy it, as the combat is the most "you love it or you hate it" battle system I have ever seen. I personally liked it after the aforementioned turning point in the 5th area, but, again, as I saw before that, it can wear on you, and I have seen in other reviews that it has. That's honestly why the reviews for this game are so diverse. I also think that this game is one that definitely needs a demo for people to see if they like it or not, as again, opinions are widely skewed on the game.