Matt Furman

An expansive backdrop is not enough to save this game from the utter pointlessness of getting drawn into hundreds of battles that offer no rewards, no progress, no xp, no leveling, and no useful upgrades. Yes, coins are everywhere, but there is almost zero significant use for them, and you accumulate tens of thousands over the course of the game with no useful purchases to make. There just simply isn't a reason to want to grind the battles, and once the ring system is learned, they become highly repetitive and monotonous. The true game play worth experiencing is in everything BUT the battles, yet the battling is a constant and nagging interruption to the narrative. In any real RPG there is a reason to want to battle despite the grind, because each bit of xp marks real progress toward increasing strength. In this game, the only joy to be found is in avoiding the battles and running through the story like a read-through. So here is my question: if Nintendo is dead set on the Paper Mario series now appealing solely to casual gamers by excluding the deeper RPG elements that they deem "too complicated" for breezy dabbling, then WHY include a battle mechanic at all? Turn based battles are a massive centerpiece to the RPG genre, but the absence of a leveling system means they have NO purpose or utility. There is so much potential here, and SO much feedback leading them to understand that TYD was the zenith of the series, and yet they ignore their own player base with more zeal at every installment on some bizarre quest to reel in non-gamers with inert game play and a complete and utter absence of difficulty whatsoever.