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An Embarrassing Paper Mario-related Story


PostZordem
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Hey there, everybody. Today I'm going to tell you all about a rather foolish event that had transpired between both the Paper Mario series and myself.

Around 2012-2013, Paper Mario Sticker Star was coming out, and having played a good bit of Paper Mario 64 on the Wii's virtual console as well as Super Paper Mario, younger me wanted to play the newest game in the series (at the time). I had seen the trailer for Sticker Star, which looked pretty solid given that I hadn't played many RPGs outside of Mario and Luigi and Paper Mario at the time. I had also looked up an image in relation to Paper Mario, which was an image showing the town of Petalburg, along with Mario with one of his recruitable allies behind him. Now of course, Petalburg is a town in TTYD, not SS, but little ol' me believed that Sticker Star WAS The Thousand Year Door for some bizarre reason. I hadn't played TTYD at the time, so I actually believed that image was from Sticker Star. Once I got Sticker Star, I ended up being very disappointed because there were no partners, the battle system heavily relied on stickers that could only be used once for the most part, no level ups, and the fact that you need to hold onto a very specific sticker at certain points in the game in order to progress. Needless to say, I didn't like the game and never got around to completing it. So, yeah, because I had seen an image of TTYD on the internet, younger me got more hyped up for SS than I should've been, and it only led to more disappointment. Since then, I've played through The Origami King (skipped Color Splash) and finally got around to playing the actual Thousand Year Door, which I've just started with pretty recently. It's a very fun game, and unlike Sticker Star, it didn't disappoint me. I'd rank it just behind Super Paper Mario, which is my favorite game in the series. 

Now, that's my tale of a silly event that occurred involving Sticker Star and past me. It may not be the most embarrassing thing ever, but looking back on it, I have no idea what in the world younger me was thinking. 

So, now I ask this question: Have any of you reading this ever mistaken one game for another and expected something completely different from what you got? Or am I the only one who's ever made such a childish mistake? (If it's just me, than I'm totally going to have a discussion with my past self over this. Probably over some tea)

 

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Way back in the early 2000s, I used to think Conker's Bad Fur Day was a sequel to Twelve Tales: Conker 64. Then I learned TTC64 was reconfigured into CBFD, and shortly after that Rare had been bought out by Microsoft. Needless to say, I was bitterly disappointed. To this day, I lament that Rare made the decision to turn their cute, fun-looking platformer game about a squirrel and his chipmunk girlfriend into a cynical, disgusting mockery. I used to blame Microsoft for that, but later came to terms with the fact Rare made that decision years before the buyout - and may in fact have contributed to Nintendo deciding to sell off their share. Rare gave up on their colorful world full of spirit and bastardized their own creation just because some critics dared to call their squirrel game "just another kiddy mascot platformer".

CBFD may be the crowning example of "a game everyone likes to rave about that I really hate", because for me it represents Rare's fall from glory, not to mention everything I hate about "gritty" video games and video game critics.

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Sort of.

Like many non-Japanese fans of the series, my interest in Fire Emblem began when Marth and Roy appeared in Super Smash Bros: Melee. I head never heard of Fire Emblem before then, but I quite enjoyed playing as Marth, though he wasn't my primary fighter. Nevertheless, I liked the two enough that I wanted to experience playing them in their native environment. And so, I was excited when I heard that Nintendo would be releasing Fire Emblem internationally in 2003. I could finally play as Marth and Roy in an actual Fire Emblem game!

Bear in mind, however, that I knew nothing about the series at the time. From the few screenshots I saw in pre-release material, I assumed it was going to be a hack-and-slash top-down adventure game, something like the original Legend of Zelda on NES. But at the very least,  I knew Roy was going to be in it--who else could that red-haired sword-guy in all the advertisements be? 

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Yeah, count me among the "maybe Eliwood is Roy?" theorists of the mid 2000s. Didn't help that I didn't finish the game to see that scene with Roy. Sure Eliwood was missing the bandanna. But even if you showed me FE6 Roy's sprite I'd immediately point out he doesn't have a bandanna either. Wasn't until I arrived at this site, saw the artwork with that blade, that I realized the mistake. 

Another mistake, that I'd surely chalk up to youth was Pokemon Leaf Green on my brand new, hand me down GBA. I guess I had just never heard of the concept of a remake. It was a pre-internet world for me, still. So the only gaming news I was exposed to was in magazines. You have in big bold letters "Return to Kanto on GBA", and I don't see anything amiss. Probably a sequel. Gold and Silver let you explore Kanto, fight the same bad guys. Every Zelda game has you saving Zelda in a place called Hyrule. Nintendo games are just kind of like this. And if I did know the concept of remakes, why go to the trouble with a game you can already play on that system, released just five or so years ago? You might say the name should have tipped me off, but I'm sure back then I would have countered "okay, but Ruby and Sapphire. That's even more similar to red and blue". Anyway I wasn't too terribly disappointed by the experience. And I would eventually check out Ruby version so no harm done.

Edited by Zapp Branniglenn
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On 5/1/2022 at 1:39 AM, CyberZord said:

So, now I ask this question: Have any of you reading this ever mistaken one game for another and expected something completely different from what you got? Or am I the only one who's ever made such a childish mistake?

I one asked for "Gex" as a gift, and got the original side-scroller rather than the 3D "Gex: Enter the Gecko" that I really wanted. It doesn't help that they were both on PS1.

 

On 5/1/2022 at 12:09 PM, Zapp Branniglenn said:

Yeah, count me among the "maybe Eliwood is Roy?" theorists of the mid 2000s. Didn't help that I didn't finish the game to see that scene with Roy. Sure Eliwood was missing the bandanna. But even if you showed me FE6 Roy's sprite I'd immediately point out he doesn't have a bandanna either. Wasn't until I arrived at this site, saw the artwork with that blade, that I realized the mistake. 

How to alleviate any confusion:

Roy is a red-headed noble boy from Pherae, in Lycia. His closest allies include Marcus, Merlinus, and the heir to House Ostia. His signature weapon (aside from his Rapier) is the Binding Blade, which shoots blazing fireballs at his foes.

Eliwood is a red-headed noble boy from Pherae, in Lycia. His closest allies include Marcus, Merlinus, and the heir to House Ostia. His signature weapon (aside from his Rapier) is the Blazing Blade, which has no fire-related properties or attributes.

There, now you'll never mix them up again!

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When I was at a summer camp when I was younger, someone told me there was a Paper Mario game on the N64. I thought that couldn't possibly be true, because if it was, why wasn't The Thousand-Year Door called "Paper Mario 2"?

Until Awakening released, for some reason I thought Lyn and Ike were from the same game, probably because of a Super Smash Bros. fanfic.

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