Paper Mario: Royal Radiance

Paper Mario: Royal Radiance is a 2012 role-playing video game developed by Intelligent Systems and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo 3DS, it is the fourth instalment in the Paper Mario series as well as the first installment released for a handheld console. It succeeded Super Paper Mario from 2007. This game follows Mario on his adventure to defeat Bowser after he steals the Royal Stickerbook from the Star Library for his son Bowser Junior. Along the way, Mario and his partner, Kersti end up tangling with a group of mobsters named the Golden Suckles who plan to rip off Mario's mustache as a replacement for their newest member's stolen hairpiece. 
The game returns to the general gameplay style of the first two Paper Mario games. Mario traverses through an overworld and battles enemies through turn-based combat, lifted directly from Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door. 
== Story ==
During the early days of life, when the world was new, a thing called the Sticker was created by the Star Spirits, it's purpose was to show emotions of what non verbal people think all the time, make people laugh with how absurd they were, be marketable, and so on and so on. All of those stickers created after the first one, were put into an album, called the Royal Stickerbook. And because of how tight for space the Star Haven is now, the spirits placed it in the Star Library.
To this day, they made so much money off of it, but of course, something has to put a halt to that progress.
One day, Bowser breaks into the Star Library to steal the book for his son's birthday, hoping that he will like as recently, they haven't been getting along. Hearing about this, Toadsworth alerts Mario about it saying that that book is a cherished relic and that it would be greatly appreciated if he could get it back. Receiving the letter, Mario and Luigi set out on the adventure to Bowser's Castle. 
Walking through Koopa Village, the brothers find a group of Toads hunting for stickers, one of whom who runs into them and drops a special sticker. The sticker floats to Mario's head height and accuses Mario of stealing the book. Luigi jumps in and gets in the sticker's face, threatening to hit it, saying that they're on a mission to retrieve the book from Bowser, commenting that they've been doing it for three decades. Taking all of this in, the sticker calms down and introduces itself as a she, with her name being Kersti. 
== Gameplay ==
Paper Mario: Royal Radiance continues the original trend of RPG style gameplay seen in the first two Paper Mario games, especially The Thousand Year Door. The player controls a two-dimensional version of Mario and explores a variety of worlds designed to look like paper. In these locales, he is tasked with collecting the five Royal Stickers which involves Mario completing puzzles and defeating enemies to proceed.
In the overworld, the player can find items that can be used in and outside of combat. The effects of these items range from healing Mario or his partner to damaging the opponent. Mario can also purchase "badges" from non-player characters (NPCs), find them hidden in the environment, or occasionally obtain them from defeated enemies; each badge requires a certain amount of Mario's badge points (BP) in order to be equipped. When equipped, these badges can permanently enhance a particular skill or aspect, or, in some cases, give Mario new abilities. 
Throughout the game, Mario builds up a party of characters that can help him, these being called Party Members. One character is present alongside Mario at any given time and can be switched out at any point. Each character has a specialized skill, some of which are required to solve puzzles. These skills include activating switches and removing physical barriers. Unlike the first three games, the total number of Party Members that join Mario, has been decreased from six-seven, to four. 
=== Combat ===
Much like The Thousand Year Door, the combat follows a turn-based battle system. When Mario comes into contact with an enemy in the overworld, the game transitions to a battle screen, taking place on a stage. The player controls both Mario and his currently selected partner, and chooses actions for each of them, which include attacking an enemy, using an item, or swapping the partner with another. Attacking and defending can be enhanced by executing timed button presses. For example, pressing the button when Mario jumps on an enemy causes him to jump on it a second time. Enemies have advantages based on their position on the stage or on their qualities. Some player attacks, such as Mario's hammer, can only target enemies on the ground, and enemies with spiked heads will instead damage Mario if he jumps on them. 
Each character has its own heart points (HP) that decreases each time it is attacked by an enemy. When a partner's HP is reduced to 0, the partner becomes inactive and cannot be used until revived. If Mario's HP is reduced to 0, however, the game ends and the player must start again from the last saved point. Stronger attacks require Flower Points (FP) to execute and are shared among Mario and his partners. Special attacks, which are unlocked each time the player acquires a Royal Sticker, are more powerful and require varying amounts of Sticker Power to execute. If the player wins the battle, the player is awarded Star Points; for every 100 Star Points, the player levels up and chooses to increase his maximum HP, FP, or BP.
Also during battle, a spectating audience will react to how well the player performs. If the player performs well, the audience's cheers will replenish Sticker Power. Conversely, the audience may throw damage-causing items at the player or leave if the player performs poorly in a battle. The audience starts with a maximum size of 50 and can grow up to 200 as the player levels up during the game. 
One new thing added to the system is the addition of the Battle Spinner, To activate it, the player must spend three coins. By matching symbols, the Battle Spinner can allow Mario or his partner to attack three times in one turn, gain coins, or increase the diversity of the people in the audience. 
==== Shine Sprites ====
Shine Sprites act as items that can be used to upgrade Mario's partners' abilities. The price of upgrading a partner is always three Shine Sprites. There are 24 Shine Sprites altogether in the game. Upon upgrading the partner they will be given a set of two new abilities that cost a certain number of FP and their HP and FP will be increased. 
== Characters ==
=== Playable ===
File:Mario 1 PMTMO.png|Mario
File:Luigi-1.png|Luigi
=== Party Members ===
Chain Chomp	Bob-omb	Captain Mack	Rex
==== Supporting ====
File:Peach SPM.png|Princess Peach
File:ASSS.png|Toad
File:Toadsworth PM2.png|Toadsworth
File:Kersti paper style by dpghoastmaniac2-d5l4d2z.png|Kersti
File:Star spirits.gif|Star Spirits
File:SPM Merlon.png|Merlon
==== Antagonists ====
File:PMTTYD Bowser Artwork.png|Bowser
File:PMOK Bowser Jr.png|Bowser Junior
File:Spud.png|Spud
File:Kammy Koopa!!!.png|Kammy
== Items ==
== Enemies ==
== Badges ==
== Star Pieces ==
== Shine Sprites ==
== The Pit of 100 Trials ==
== Development ==
In a 2007 interview with Nintendo Power magazine, when asked about the future of the Paper Mario series, Super Paper Mario director Ryota Kawade stated that he was uncertain whether the next game would follow Super Paper Mario's gameplay style, return to the style of the previous games, or be based around a new concept. However, he also stated that the team "always feel that we want a challenge and to take on new things." Producer Kensuke Tanabe also stated, "I don't think we'll ever go back to the exact same game style as before," and that, "I also would like to look for another new and different style."
Development for the game started in late 2009 when plans for the Nintendo 3DS were revealed, the team felt that Paper Mario would be a nice fit for a handheld instalment. Early in development, Miyamoto also encouraged the developers to dial the tone back and only use pre-established Mario characters. The decision to not focus on the storyline was influenced by results gathered from Super Paper Mario's Club Nintendo survey, which had less than 1% of the respondents citing its plotline as a strong point. The decision for using pre established Mario characters was to give the developers a challenge of humanizing the same way they humanized the original characters from the first three games.
Originally the game was to use the Nintendo 3DS's stereoscopic 3D display capabilities with certain puzzles, however the developers found this to unnecessary considering that it could've been treated as nothing more than a visual treat instead of a mechanic. 
Category:Paper Mario Games
Category:Paper Mario (series)