#his hyperfixation is feudal japan and samurai

[dumbassalex]

Wolverine(2003)#1 is so funny actually because most of the issue you spend hearing about Logan from a young girl that's working at the diner and is Logans neighbor.

And she keeps calling him Mean Man because she doesn't know his name, but like...Logan spends the whole issue reading books at the diner while drinking coffee, reading books at home and drinking beer, or going to bars and getting into fights, every single day, the same routine, each day a new book. Like there's something so "neurodivergent person trying to dissociate through fiction" coded about it (also why i wouldn't be suprised if Logan started reading fanfiction, especialy about stuff he's passionate about) and about Logan.

Also his living situation is really interesting, because in the issue it's literaly a blanket, a lamp, beer and BOOKS in a small apartment with a bathroom, a short hallway, a window and a heater.

Btw the books we can see him read are Smoker by Greg Rucka, Walden by Henry Thoreau, Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk and some Edgar Allan Poe book (seeems to be Raven by the cover), for those wondering what he reads.

Also funnily enough he gets called "Mean Man" but genuienly has a single conversation where he's pretty nice even if dissmisive and outside that just doesn't talk to anyone and looks grumpy all day, yet she calls him that based on vibes. (Logan and his autistic struggles fr)

[radramblog]

SPM

According to my list of topics, I should talk about Super Paper Mario. Fair enough, I really enjoyed that game as a kid. Slight problem, though, is that I haven’t played it in at least a decade, and definitely don’t have time to pick it up right now.

(shit how did i miss that IS worked on this?)

So what the fuck do I, of all people, have to say about this game in particular?

When my family got our Nintendo Wii, we did end up getting a fair few games with it. Living in Malaysia meant that after we got the thing modded we could have it run the counterfeits and burned discs that flooded the country’s market in the late 00s, so there was plenty of cheap options to pick up- I’m pretty sure I’ve still not played half of the Wii discs we have.

As you may guess, not a lot of them stuck. Super Smash Brothers Brawl was one of them, obviously, as well as the Guitar Hero games. The Lego games (Batman, Indiana Jones, and Star Wars) were pretty big between my brother and I, and there was obviously Mario Kart in the mix somewhere. Funnily enough, I don’t think I ever actually finished Super Mario Galaxy, and I barely touched the sequel, and regrettably we never owned Twilight Princess, Metroid Prime, or Return to Dream Land. What I’m getting at is that I didn’t really experience the full might of the Wii, because I was too busy hyperfixating on a few specific games. And playing the DS.

So where does that leave Super Paper Mario? It definitely fell into the latter camp. I think the thing that drew me to the game in the first place was having thoroughly obsessed over New Super Mario Bros when that game came out- I have distinct memories of huddling up with that game at a mate’s place just passing back and forth trying to beat 8-1, trying to stay quiet so we wouldn’t wake his parents up. Kid me wanted more Mario, and New Super Mario Bros Wii was still 2 years out, so SPM was the first console Mario I actually got to dive into. And obviously, it’s a bit different.

Super Paper Mario has a lot of things other Mario games didn’t. A real plotline, complete with cutscenes and dramatic turns. Dialogue, and a lot of it, and all of it wittily written to give the game a great comedic tone. It has RPG elements, it has puzzles (which I was a big fan of), and it had the ability to play as Bowser. What wasn’t to love?

It does kind of go beyond that, though. Just about everything about SPM’s design is unique, and also, really freaking good. As an example, while the idea of a lot of platform games is for each set of levels to have a theme, each of the eight worlds in Super Paper Mario (save perhaps the last one) has multiple aspects to it to make sure everything stays fresh. World 1 is the traditional Mario field level, but eventually you pass through a desert town and into a huge temple. World 3 is a homage to gaming’s routes, with its pixelated landscape and enemies, but also has its plot and final level centre around playing fun at the nerd culture that would obsess over details like that. World 6 appears to be a Samurai/Feudal Japan world, until it fucking ends in one of the bleakest scenes in any Mario game, ever.

Oh yeah the plot of this game gets surprisingly dark. The cute style used means that the writers were able to intensify the game’s creepier elements without bumping the rating up, and they make full use of that. The noises made by the World 2 boss when her true form is revealed, the part of the game where you quite literally end up in hell, not to mention everything to do with the river Styx equivalent. I have no idea how they got all that under the radar, frankly.

I’m not going to act like this game is perfect, though. I recall trying for 100% completion until I eventually realised that collecting every single trading card and making every single recipe was basically just pointless busywork- honestly, once the game’s story ends, there’s not much reason to keep going unless you’re really keen on grinding through the Pits of 100 Trials or Sammer Kingdom Challenge. The mechanics can be a little wonky, and some levels can get pretty confusing, and it does have the early Nintendo console release issue of awkwardly (but mandatorily) cramming the console’s gimmick in- you literally cannot play this game without a Wiimote, even if you’re in postgame and don’t need Tippi’s advice. But I do think the game is genuinely excellent despite all this. It’s funny, it’s fun, and while it’s not as consistent, it’s probably overall more interesting than most 2D Mario platformers in my opinion.

However, this isn’t the viewpoint most people talking about this game have, to my knowledge. I believe most of the people you see online talking about this game are those who played the original Paper Mario or its beloved sequel before coming around to this particular entry, and as such were probably disappointed by a lot of the changes made to its formula. Every other Paper Mario game has ben a JRPG, as opposed to the hybrid system this game goes for, and that’s going to be a serious point of contention for long time fans. And my understanding is that The Thousand Year Door would have been a nigh-impossible act to follow for any game, major changes to the gameplay or not.

Because I have a different entry point to the series, however, I don’t see it the same way. Super Paper Mario is Paper Mario to me, especially since I still haven’t played any of the other games. And I think that’s something worth noting when more divisive topics come up- it’s a microcosm of the value of perspective in debate. I’m not going to judge someone for really not liking this game, because there’s a really solid chance that it just wasn’t what they were looking for in a Paper Mario game, same as I wouldn’t judge someone for loving the Star Wars prequels because those were the Star Wars movies of their childhood. Which, thinking about it, is also true for me. How you came to a game like this I think defines a lot about what you take from it, and I guess I’m just lucky enough to have been coming from the right angle for this one.