The Story: Bowser takes the princess, Mario goes off to save her, Mario fights Bowser, Mario wins. BUT, this is NOT the plot. What happens next is a big part of the story. The ground begins to shake and a sword splits the sky through a giant star in the air and heads straght for Bowser's Keep, with seven Stars following it! When it hits the castle, Mario, Bowser, Peach, and all the Stars fly off in different directions, and that's where the actual game begins...

Controls: 10

They're a sinch! You get four buttons in battle, A, B, X, and Y.

A  lets you do a normal attack, nothing special about it at all, though all throughout the game you can buy or receive items that increase its power. And you want that power increased because the farther you go, the stronger the enemies.

B holds two options, defend or run away. Defending will reduce damage taken from attacks, and against one boss, you can reflect the attack back! Running away only works in some battles and it isn't guaranteed, so sometimes it isn't worth it.

X holds the items. There are many kinds of items. Some revive your downed allies, some recover FP (Flower Points), others recover HP, and some items cure you of anything odd about you or your allies (Mushrooms,
poison, muting, or scarecrow).

Y holds the special attacks. Everyone learns a new attack when they achieve certain levels, unlike Paper Mario. Plus you can get a lot of 'em too.

It sounds confusing, but it isn't. You can use one of the buttons during your turn for each member. One may do a normal attack, one may use an item, and another might defend or use a special attack.

Battle Mode: 7

It's a bit confusing so i took away a little. Some characters may attack first because of speed, or even go twice! And then there's the battle command. It's a bit easier to use than in Paper Mario. It'll sometimes give
instructions, but sometimes for extra damage and stuff press Y before it ends for extra damage, or if you're healing someone it'll bring back more HP. It's frusterating when you perform the battle command but it doesn't work.

Characters: 10

There's a TON of them. There are many kinds of enemies, and TONS of bosses. There are a lot of good guys to help you out, although some won't help until after you defeat them. Some characters have good
intentions even if it isn't the best thing, like Booster. I can't say more because it'll give stuff away, but let's just say Booster is really a good guy, even if he's holding someone hostage and doesn't know it. You get four other friends to help you, each with special abilities and different personalities. There's Mallow, Geno, BOWSER!, and Peach. I like Mallow the best! ^_^

Music: 8

The music is FANTASTIC! I simply LOVE it! The reason I took off a bit is because the major bosses don't have much of a variety of music; it's always the same, unlike in Paper Mario. The roads have two different tunes, and a lot of the caves (there's only a few) sound EXACTLY the same.

Levels: 8

Now I know Paper Mario isn't a sequel to Mario 3, as I always used to think. All of Paper Mario's levels were based off of this game. Toad Town Tunnels is Kero Sewers, Bean Valley/Nimbus land is Flower Fields/Cloudy Climb, Forever Forest is Forest Maze, Mt. Lavalava is Barrel Volcano, and Toad Town is the Mushroom Kingdom. It's a lot easier to get to previous levels in this game. I took off two points for a good reason: there really isn't a middle to the world. What I mean by that is there's a giant hole in the world and all the lands border it. Why couldn't they have put some of the levels withen it or SOMETHING?! It looks awful to see that giant hole when you check the map for reference, plus it's very weird.

Difficulty: 9

This is a HARD game. It takes cunning and power to defeat the bosses and to get from level to level. Plus, some of the enemies have instant death attacks!

Graphics: 10

It's 3D for crying out loud, a huge accomplishment for the SNES! When I first heard of this game, I instantly thought of graphics similar to  Mario 3's. When I finally began playing it, I was in insant awe. Sure they're not that great next to Maio 64 and other games after it, but graphics this good on this system is SPECTACULAR!

Replay Value: 10

I wanna play this game again and again! Sure it'll be easier since I know what to do, but it's great to do those levels again and do things you can only do once per game.

Fun Factor!: 10

FUN, FUN, FUN!!! And funny too. Team members may come out when you do certain things, and other funny stuff may happen. Plus the ending is heartwarming for me. I can't say more, or else the surprise will be taken away.

Overall: 10

This has GOT to be the best game ever! If Nintendo doesn't remake this, they're gonna get quite an earfull from me.

Recommendation: If you can actually FIND this game, get it. However, it's very difficult to come by since it's so dang popular. And I can now see why...

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