Effective story delivery in a Mario game

[Evil Yoshi Toes]

I agree completely. Some people don't like the gameplay of Super Paper Mario, and I can understand that as its formula doesn't always work too well. The story, though, was delivered so effectively that I find myself enjoying the game almost as much as the first two. It has a lot of real emotion and development that I wouldn't even expect form a Mario RPG, and, while I don't love the way the characters of the new dimension look, all the character personalities are quite memorable even from common NPCs. That was sorely missing in Sticker Star and Color Splash.

In terms of a 2D game, I'd rather there be more story than the NSMB games just to keep things fresh, but the platforming fun is the heart of those games and I don't want blocks of text to get in the way of that. Something simple but unique works best, like how Super Mario World brought Mario and co. to a dinosaur island and Bowser got his cool clown helicopter. The world building can then happen inside the levels at a fast pace, through new items (Yoshi) and enemies (the dinosaur enemies). In the 3D games I'd expect world building to happen a little slower but not at the pace of an RPG, like how Sunshine built it through short cutscenes and optional dialogue with characters (Sunshine really did a great job at world building!), but it never felt like you were being taken away from the action for longer than you wanted to be. It also helped that Isle Delphino was a brand new setting.