Paper Mario: Color Splash

Paper Mario: Color Splash brought the paper series to Wii U and continued the direction already set by Sticker Star — a move away from classic RPG mechanics with dedicated stats toward action-flavored turn-based battles built on collecting cards. This time Mario travels across Prism Island, from which the evil Bowser has drained all color, and must gradually paint the world back using the magical Paint Star brush.

In battles, the player selects a card with a weapon or item from hand and colors it with paint collected in the world before using it — the more saturated the color, the stronger the hit. Outside of combat, the game offers plenty of environmental puzzles where you need to find the right item, turn it into a card, and use it in the right place, bringing the game closer to a logic adventure than a traditional RPG. The humor remains excellent — dialogue is full of wordplay, and the distinctive paper NPCs react to the player's actions with comical animations, with many side characters having their own short gags tied to how much the player helps color their surroundings.

Visually, the game fully embraces its paper aesthetic — the environments look like a hand-cut diorama, individual objects can be peeled off and reattached, and the Wii U renders detailed, richly colored environments without trouble, including an effective transition from faded gray to full color once an area is solved. The music is cheerful and light, typical for the series, and changes according to how much color has already returned to a given place. Contemporary reception was mixed — many longtime fans missed the return of the partner and experience-point systems from earlier entries, while others praised the inventive puzzles and humor. Today the game is seen as an interesting, if controversial, experiment within the series, illustrating how long Nintendo kept searching for the right balance between adventure and RPG within the Paper Mario brand.

Why play: Thanks to inventive puzzles, humor, and a paper aesthetic with an effective transition from gray to color, this is an interesting, if controversial, chapter of the series for players who don't mind the absence of a traditional partner system.