I wouldn't say conflicted, but so far actually liking Paper Mario The Thousand Year Door -- I think.

[Tanooki]

Went flea marketing today, found this dude selling GC games on the cheap, bagged Paper Mario to honestly flip so I could get more Transformers.

I have no idea what the hell motivated me to do it, but I didn't just start up the game and flip it off after 5min to make sure it was fine, I kept going. Suddenly I think I was like 3 hours into it. I cleared the prologue and all of chapter 1 and parked it barely within the 2nd chapter.

I loathe and despise the original one because it was rigged for failure unless you were VERY good at timing because they'd cap you at health forcing you to be very good using the timed defense. Now this game has it too, but they have all these interesting badges that can negate some damage or help if you're critical I'm finding. Also the timing isn't so nitpicking nasty, it is if you B button to superdodge(which counters for 1 damage) but on regular that 1/2 damages it's not hard to nail it down often enough. The story seems amusing enough, the helpers aren't useless wastes of space like the old game, it's actually quite interesting.

Is there anything I should be aware of going into it further where I may hit a problem? Can I bore myself to death staying in an area and re-loading monsters so keep leveling up if I wish, or is it rigged to cap out like the N64 game did? I never got more than 2/3 through the old original before I got fed up with it. I don't want to blow that kind of time, but if this can be enjoyable like Mario & Luigi was on the GBA I'd be interested in continuing on.

I'm going to cross post this on another forum as I'd like to get opinions/help figuring this out.

[badinsults]

I never found that the timing mechanism was that hard in the original Paper Mario. If you can't get it, maybe you just need more practice.I thoroughly enjoyed Thousand Year Door, but I didn't think it was particularly challenging.

[Leo_A]

I never quite got a grasp on timing, and think I only got killed by one boss in Paper Mario 64.

Was probably my best Virtual Console purchase to date. I ignored it when it was new since it was a RPG and I had never played one. But broke down, downloaded this, and loved it. Still haven't really ventured outside of Paper Mario and related Mario rpg's though.

I'm surprised with my novice rpg skills and the easy time I had of it, that you had any trouble (Maybe I got lucky with badges?). But at least the sequel is working out for you.

[Niku-Sama]

hah! irony
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWl8HJwp7Tw

[Tanooki]

Hah love that video, hitler mario misinterpretation. Good info in that video just as some side things on localization and lost but found data.

I hit the old Paper Mario quite a bit, I just couldn't nail the timing well enough not to get killed not even by bosses but out in the wild as far as I got. That's when I hit the wall trying to level up and it would always spit out 1 star (needing 100 to level up) which is where I just stopped.

As far as this newer title goes, haven't gone back, I got things going on but I will. I'm working on a 1330+ piece LEGO at the moment (Volkswagen T1 Camper Bus) which is barely over 1/2 done. I kind of have to go between things picking which each night.

[FieryReign]

Never had a problem with Paper Mario and I suck at rpgs with turnbased stuff. I'm always going for offense and power, can't help it. Not game where you can be cheap and just simply go grind to get past a tough part. That's lame and would reduce it to typical rpg bore. It requires some actual gameplay timing and skill.