Nintendo recently released Paper Mario: Color Splash on the Wii U. It was a game that had some solid feedback from the gaming audience, and now some people are curious when Nintendo might consider making another one. So when will a new Paper Mario game come out?
According to an interview that producer Kensuke Tanabe had with Game Informer, which was picked up by Nintendo Everything, he explained when we might next see a new Paper Mario game,
Personally, I don't give much thought to how we are leaving old methods behind in any series, not just Paper Mario. I always prioritize thinking about how we can build new methods and new elements. Of course, there were some series where we have not made big changes to the systems, but sometimes that's because we feel as though these systems haven't been perfected yet, or the gameplay can be expanded even further. We felt both of those things in Color Splash. However, I do feel as though we reached the end of where Color Splash is headed, so if we get the chance to continue the series, I think we'll want to create a Paper Mario with a different system.
That seems like a definitive response in regards to the game series being at the end of its run for now. Paper Mario: Color Splash ended up receiving decent critical remarks from the video game review circles, but according to Metacritic the user score was actually a tad lower than the critics' scores.
The biggest drawback for most gamers was that the gameplay felt uninspired for them, and it seemed like there was nothing really new added to the overall experience, which dampened the experience for some people.
The interview contained some other interesting bits of information, such as Tanabe explaining that the reason they didn't revisit some of the older characters from previous Paper Mario games was that they were given instructions from Shigeru Miyamoto to focus on characters within the Mario family. Hence, this is why the story mostly revolves around a series of unfortunate events involving various Toads and both Mario and Princess Peach. Peach, in particular, gets quite a bit of screen time next to the various Toads that Mario encounter throughout the game.
The reason that aspect of development was interesting for this particular Paper Mario title was because the lack of characters and the reliance on the Toads was a complaint frequently made by people who thought that the game lacked variety when it came to the NPCs.
It's always a tough balance to consider when the boss gives you specific instructions and the fans are expecting something else. Even still, Tanabe and the rest of the crew working on the Wii U exclusive managed to churn out a game that a majority of people seemed to enjoy, so if they are going to leave the Paper Mario series alone for a while then at least it's being left on a fairly positive note. Despite some of the complaints about the lack of NPC variety and having somewhat uninteresting gameplay, Paper Mario: Color Splash was regularly praised for being a bright, easy-going, well designed turn-based RPG.
