Paper Mario: Color Splash

***Paper Mario: Color Splash*** is an action-adventure, turn-based role-playing game for the Wii U developed by Intelligent Systems. It is the fifth installment in the ***Paper Mario series***, succeeding ***Paper Mario: Sticker Star***, as well as the twentieth and final Mario game released for the Wii U.

## Story

One stormy night, Princess Peach and Toad meet Mario at his house to deliver a strange letter, a Toad drained of his colors. The stamp on the letter points to Prism Island where the three travel to. Upon arriving, they find the deserted Port Prisma full of spots drained of color. They also meet Huey, a mysterious 3D talking paint bucket, and find the cause of colorless spots to be Slurp Guys using straws to suck color out of things. Huey then asks Mario to squeeze him into paper form in order to use the power of paint to battle the Shy Guys and to repaint the colorless spots, including the local Toads. Discovering that the Big Paint Stars at Prisma Fountain are gone, Huey asks Mario to find them and return them to the fountain. However, the Koopalings are also on the island, either after the Big Paint Stars to get them for Bowser, or waiting for Mario to find and battle them.

After collecting the Big Red Paint Star from The Crimson Tower and returning to Port Prisma, Bowser shows up covered in black paint and reveals to Mario his plan to use the power from the black paint to take on the world and then flies off on an airship with the kidnapped Peach. From then on, Peach will secretly send Holo-Peaches to Mario, telling what she has found out from her location to Bowser's plans and strange behavior. As Big Paint Stars are saved, they show Mario and Huey their memories of what happened: Bowser jumped in the Prisma Fountain wanting to give his shell a rainbow hue, but by mixing up all the colors ended up creating black paint that possesses him. The Koopa Troop then attacked Port Prisma, draining its colors and using a Toad as a letter to get Mario and Peach to the island.

Upon rescuing all six Big Paint Stars, they create a path to Black Bowser's Castle, where Mario and Huey head off to via a kart ride from Luigi. Inside they discover a factory producing Banzai Bills loaded with black paint with the intention of using them as bombs. After destroying the factory, they escape the flood of black paint and find Bowser with Princess Peach drained of her colors. As Mario battles Bowser, Huey has himself turned back into his 3D-self to absorb the black paint off and defeat Bowser, who has no memories of the incident. Black Bowser's Castle proceeds to collapse as Mario restores Peach's colors. Mario, Peach, and Luigi return to Port Prisma while Huey stays behind to contain the black paint and release it where it cannot do any more harm, to the skies. Later, while celebrating at Port Prisma, Peach comforts Mario when he laments Huey's disappearance. When all Banners are achieved, Huey can be seen falling back into the Prisma Fountain in the end screen.

## Gameplay

***Paper Mario: Color Splash*** is an action-adventure RPG game that elaborates on the mechanics of ***Paper Mario: Sticker Star***. It is based on Mario using the Paint Hammer to paint colorless elements, characters and parts of the environment in order to progress in the game and collect Mini Paint Stars and Big Paint Stars. When a course is completed, several new courses may become available at once, and the number-based course naming that was seen in ***Super Paper Mario*** and ***Paper Mario: Sticker Star*** is gone (the game features a sort of 'world map' like the latter though).

Super Flags return as well, this time found in the main square of Port Prisma. The battles are based on Battle Cards that can be painted to increase their effect. Said cards can be bought at the Prisma Cardware. Once used, cards are discarded, it is however possible to buy them directly in battle using the Battle Spin and choosing one of the flipped cards. There are three types of cards. Basic Cards are used for various purposes, including attacking, healing and replenishing paint. Many attacks are similar to those featured in ***Paper Mario: Sticker Star***, with the hammer attacks now having a charging sign indicating at which point an "Excellent" attack can be obtained. Thing Cards, which do not deplete Mario's paint, are used to summon Things, both in battle and in the course to solve puzzles. Such cards can be obtained by directly squeezing Things into Thing cards. There is a shop in Port Prisma allowing the player to directly buy Things to squeeze them into Thing Cards, and there are Replica versions of Thing Cards as well. Finally Enemy Cards, dropped by defeated enemies, are used to summon an enemy into the battle as an ally. Only one ally can be present at a time. Such an ally attacks other enemies and, when the enemies attack, position itself in front of Mario to protect him, and stays in battle until defeated. However, it runs away in front of bosses. At the beginning of a battle, Kamek can sometimes appear and either flip all the cards or steal many cards, once the battle is won, all the stolen cards are regained and additional coins are obtained as well. The number showing the HP of the enemies as well as the number showing the amount of damage dealt in HP are both missing, while the health of each enemy is shown in the form of color that is gradually drained starting from the bottom.

Both the use of the Paint Hammer and the painting of most cards requires paint, whose levels are indicated by bars. After winning a battle, defeated enemies can drop coins, paint, Battle Cards and cardboard hammers called Hammer Scraps. They exist in four different varieties and are worth 1 point, 5 points, 10 points and 20 points, depending on how much the colors are saturated and on the amount of glittery parts. Such points are used to fill a bar that when fully filled, increases the maximum amount of paint that can be carried.

It is also possible to permanently increase the number of cards playable in a turn during a battle by collecting special power-ups. Similarly, the maximum amount of Mario's HP can be increased by collecting HP-Up Hearts that are obtained when saving a Big Paint Star. Each HP-Up Heart increases the maximum amount of HP by 25 and increases the power of the First Strike as well.