I've been playing Super Paper Mario on this, and the limitations of the controller are really becoming evident. The simplicity of the thing was the big selling point, but I never bought the argument that controllers with two sticks and eight buttons were so complicated as to be intimidating.

Paper Mario is not a technically complicated game. But the Wiimote clearly does not have enough buttons to control it. The game resorts to extreme artifice to preserve sufficient variation in the things you can do to build interesting levels and puzzles, while accomodating the spareness of the Wiimote.

For example, there are four playable characters. Each character has a special ability. Mario can turn the 2D screen into a 3D plane to reveal hidden things and maneuver around obstacles. Peach can float over long gaps that other characters cannot jump across. Bowser can breathe fire and Luigi can do a high jump. The characters are always available and can be switched at any time, but you have to go to the menu screen and switch characters to do it.

If that were the extent of the issue, it would be okay, but the abilities available to the character are also limited to one at a time, and require a trip to the menu screen to switch between them. To perform basic mario actions, like picking up an enemy and throwing them, or doing a butt-stomp, you have to select the "pixl" character associated with that action on a menu, and then use a context sensitive button to perform the move. It doesn't take terribly long, but it is clear that, on a traditional controller, these attacks would not need to be mutually exclusive. They don't seem to be exclusive for any gameplay reason, since they are all available at any time. It just seems like associating the attacks with the pixl characters and sending you to the menu is a crutch for the controller. Going to the menu to switch from the bomb attack to the butt stomp or the throw gets really annoying after a while.

I disagree. With the Wii-mote and the Nunchuck (a common control scheme on the Wii) you have 7 buttons, an analog stick, and the directional buttons. The directional buttons can be used as buttons instead of movement controls (Zelda). On top of that you have motion controls, such as shaking the nunchuck to reload (Godfather), or "slicing" the Wii mote to attack (Zelda), which are alternatives to buttons. Have you played Zelda or Godfather? In my opinion these are both good examples of how versatile the Wii-mote / Nunchuck combo is.... and lets not forget that there are the possibilities for even more attachments -- which I think makes the Wii-mote controls even more versatile than the PS3 and 360.

Your criticisms of the SPM controls have more to do with design choice than control limitations. I would have prefered a Nunchuck/Wii mote combo for SPM, but I think they wanted it to have a "classic" feel.

I haven't played Super Paper Mario but I'm going to second what Dodging Cars says. The developers could have easily done this as a nunchuk/wiimote combo game and there would be enough buttons to differentiate attacks. So it sounds like a design decision to me.

As someone who quit playing games for a long time after the NES, I can honestly say that one of the biggest reasons why it took me so long to buy a PS2 and play games again was because all of the buttons and combinations intimidated the hell out of me. Even still, I often find that there seems to be more buttons and actions I can do than I can remember.

I'm not meaning to knock the traditional consoles in saying that. There's still a great place for those, but I have seen many of my friends who never could get a firm understanding of video games (like one friend who has major problems even playing Super Mario Bros. for the NES) really take to the Wii because it's so simple. I guess it's obviously a bit of a tradeoff though.

I also haven't played for the new Mario game, but DodgingCars makes a very good point that I hadn't even thought about. You definitely could program in more "buttons" with the nunchuk or other attachment. Also, wasn't this originally supposed to be a Gamecube game? Maybe some of the design weren't thought through as thoroughly because of the time crunch to get it out.

And actually, I was wrong. There would be 8 buttons. C and Z on the nunchuck. A, B, 1, 2, +, - on the Wii mote.

No. Paper Mario uses the D-pad for movement and you hold the Wiimote like a NES controller with the D-pad on the left, and the 1 and 2 buttons are treated like A and B buttons, and the A button is used for the 2-d to 3-d mechanic. You can also point the Wii-button at the screen to do a Metroid Prime style scan, and reveal hidden items, and shake the controller for style points.

You can't really map platforming elements to the 1 and 2 buttons when you are holding the wiimote with one hand. So you'd have the A and the Z, and the 2 buttons on the nunchuck available, which means you could potentially gain you one button and possibly something mapped to shaking the nunchuck. But then you end up having to use the stick to control a game that is primarily a 2D platformer, which would not feel as good as the D-Pad.

Try holding the wiimote in one hand and figure out how well a mario game would play with the butt stomp mapped to the 2 button.

Once you get the hang of it, it is much better to have 8 functions mapped to 8 buttons than to have one button and a menu with 8 functions on it.

But not everyone makes it through the "getting the hang of it" phase. Why not have an alternative that controls a bit differently and might be easier for those type of people?

I think the analog stick would work fine for a 2d platformer. But you are still leaving things out. You have the 4 easy to reach buttons with the combo. C/Z, A/B. This gives you 4 "action buttons", then you have an additional 4 buttons to use for items/specials/etc. Plus the directional pad. Plus motion controls. And actually the directional pad is "easy to reach" so if you used them as button, you could have 4 additional buttons. It was all a design choice.

I guess we'll see with Mario Galaxy which is a 3D action platformer. I think it will be more than fine.

Considering how the story is playing out, I imagine the pixels where included from the beginning. This was suppose to be a Gamecube game.

So ... one game makes you think the controller is limited? As others have mentioned, the transition from GameCube to Wii may be what caused some of these weird choices (yes, going to the menu is annoying to switch), but other games feel right at home with the remote.

I hardly think the "Wiimote concept" is flawed, more just the development cycle. If a developer wants to map 12 commands to buttons, maybe their gameplay style is not suited for the Wii. However, I've played plenty of games that did not require a lot of buttons to be a brilliant game. Add into that the motion control and there are new opportunities.

Just like any system, it will take a good developer thinking creatively to make a good game.

I rented Mario last week and loved it. Will have to buy it soon.

I never really found the controller limited. infact it gave me that warm fuzzy glow like when i first held a nes controller

I mostly quit playing games around the time of the ps2 but the DS and Wii have slowly gotten me back.

I think your issues have to do with game design itself and not the wiimote. Paper Mario isn't meant to be a platformer, its roots are RPG where going to a menu to do basically everything is the norm. I think Paper Mario kept its roots* while adding a kick-ass platforming element to it.

*from what I've read. I've not played any of the other titles in the series.

I think it sucks personally. It was a reason I hated the Gameboy Player....hated 2D games with the Analog stick and the d-pad on the GC controller was terrible.

I do agree most of Scandal's complaints are design related, but one does have to wonder if the design would have been the same had Super Paper Mario remained a GC title rather than getting ported over. I kind of doubt it, you probably would have been able to equip at least 3 pixels at a time and had jump mapped to one face button and the other 3 moves to the other 3 buttons.

Personally I think they should have designed that way and just required a GC controller or the Classic Controller to play it on the Wii. Annoys me enough that I'm in no hurry to buy it, and will probably wait until a price drop and just let my Wii continue to gather dust.

But in general I think the Wiimote will be fine once developers get a handle on how to best use it, but I do think 2D platformers will never work well on it unless someone just forces the CC or GC controller. But that's kind of moot as 2D platformers are dead on consoles anyway aside from the classic downloads.

it seems pretty obvious to me that you haven't played any of the other Paper Mario titles, or even Mario RPG for the SNES...

these "issues", as you would call them, are specific to the game, and have been as such since it's inception. You could argue that they could have made a better control scheme, but the fact remains that they were continuing a trend. If anything, it would reflect poorly on the series, as opposed to the wiimote.

But really, how fucking hard is it to hit "+", then "down", then "2".....BLOW, new character/pixl

I think the problem is that they made this Paper Mario game more of a Platformer than past games, and going in the menu to pick moves is more annoying in that setting.

Point being for some, this new direction just isn't going to work as they are going to want to play it more like a normal platformer and that stuff is going to seem out of place. While in the past games it was fine as it was full on RPGs (just simplified RPGs).

I agree with what you're saying in regards to SPM. Especially the character switching and what-not, but it was a design decision because it is primarily a 2-D platformer as you said and the D-pad is the right way to go.

Using the analog stick in 2-D would suck. But it also sucks right now to use the D-pad in 3-D. I hate trying to walk circles around those Eyeballs with just that input, for example. Even jumping on 2-D enemies in 3-D is a pain in the ass.

But, I think they did an admirable job with what they had available especially since the B button is lost to the nature of the control scheme and they've made this game on essentially an NES controller.

Totally. Yet another reason it should have used the GC controller and/or Classic controller.

They we could have used the d-pad for two D and the analog stick for 3D parts.

Yeah... The classic controller would have worked better.

I mentioned this complaint to my wife (about switching characters/pixels). She didn't get it. She doesn't even play that many RPGs, but she did play Super Mario RPG and parts of Paper Mario Thousand year door.

I saw her change characters and didn't get the complaint. I've got a background in RPGs and I'm used to switching to a menu to do stuff.

Why make a button for it when you can switch to the menu and do it. The menu is a lot more user friendly and only takes a second or two. It's not like the menu has load time.

Since we've derailed this thread entirely into a SPM one, I'll continue.

I don't mind the menu switching, but it seems out of place in SPM since it isn't an RPG but a platformer. A platformer with way too much story and dialog to wade through. Too many pauses in the action to watch nonsense, but that's beside the point.

Switching characters isn't that big of a deal until the final chapter or two. Then you're constantly switching to Mario so you can go 3-D to get around a block, switch to Peach so you can float for a bit, switch to Bowser so you can light some shit on fire, switch to Mario so you can get back around the block, switch to Luigi to jump up high.

It's all very forced and not really puzzle-solving IMHO. I wanted to enjoy the game much more than I did (and I'm only up to 8-3), but it seems to be an exercise in the mundane.

I enjoyed the hell out of Mario RPG, Paper Mario, TTYD, the M&L games, and all the platforming Mario games and I wanted to love this but it just doesn't know what it wants to be and doesn't deliver on either.

actually, im quite the opposite preferring this title over the rest of them

I played Thousand Year Door, and that game had a bunch of characters each with an ability, but Mario had more abilities, and if I remember correctly, you had access to at least two character abilities at a time. You definitely had to use your different abilities to solve puzzles, and I don't remember thinking while playing that game "I have to go to the menu inordinately frequently."

I have to admit, I don't like shaking the nunchuck to spin attack in Zelda very much either, and that feels very much like a "we ran out of places to map that" rather than a deliberate choice.

I'm really hoping Mario Galaxy and Metroid, which were designed from the ground up around the controller, break some new ground.

I agree with you ScandalUMD. After having used the wavebird for the last few years (which I think is perfect in every way), playing with the sideways remote seems like a big step back. It feels very clumsy and does not seem to suit Super Paper Mario. The remote works great for the mini-games in Wii Sports and Wii Play, but I haven't been too impressed with the other games I've played so far (Zelda and Paper Mario). Maybe adding the nunchuck attachment would've improved things for Paper Mario. Hopefully Mario Galaxy will control better. I have also heard good things about the Godfather game, but haven't had the chance to try it yet.