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Of course those only devices were the Science Guy and gaming as we know it. The N64 Ruled the console Wars and we didn't care how crappy or small our television sets were.\nHell, I can't even remember what kind of tv we even had because when you plugged in no matter how big or small that screen was you just entered the realm of the digital. Of course the N64 had a few years running on it by then but the outlets weren't all filled.\n\nWe had our share of the good slices Nintendo brought like Kirby 64, Banjo-Kazooie, Bomberman 64... I really want to make a list of all that nostalgia right now but we're just not cut out for that kind of time and input. I just was used to a certain way of gaming.\n\nBefore Paper Mario decided to poke it's head on the scene I had this form of RPG Abstinence. I didn't want anything to do with them. It may have been that one of my older brothers had an addictive problem to anything Final Fantasy and Diablo but there were other things.\n\nFor starters I hadn't understood the concept of patience. The definition was scratched out in the mental dictionary I was so desperately attempting to fill at the time. It was that hyperactive jet juice in my child brain. Couldn't keep still, always fidgeting.\n\nMost games could really just cut off that juice for at least an hour or two but when it came to RPG's it was like kryptonite...if kryptonite had the complete opposite ability of weakening you and somehow made you want to break stuff. Anti- Kryptonite!\nNeedless to say as mentioned in an earlier writing I enjoyed knowing less about a game before I got it. Oh no I liked peering in on gaming news magazines and following the hype but Commercials were off limits. You would be surprised how much those gaming articles left out back then.\n\nSo I got Paper Mario and I was so excited. MARIO WAS MADE OUT OF PAPER! Again I don't know what evil dark magic Nintendo uses to make the most pointless things sound like the second coming. A 2-D gaming experience with a hint of 3-D elements just to confuse the living hell out of me.\n\nThe moment I started up my first file I just fell in love. I still kind of am in love except most of my failing heart is just taken up now by my love for hate. It's good to be me. Even today I can swear to the heavens something about Paper Mario just does not look like any kind of RPG.\n\nDo you know what I mean? It's like this universal sign whenever a game releases you can just tell from something as simple as the Name and Art Style over the Title. That art style was the most deceptively dis alarming part of it all. I just expected...well...what Super Paper Mario is actually.\n\nSo it stands to reason that the kid who Breathed the fiery hate of the grind felt the instant stab of self betrayal when he found out Paper Mario was the kid friendly hard core version of the average Role Player. It wasn't a very good introductory either. Bowser ( God Bless that asshole. Every time anything fun happens, SWEAR TO GOD! ) just had to steal the princess.\n\nThis was when that sickle of realization I was actually playing a role playing game fully set on. Even worse I didn't know what the hell to do. If you've played it before you just know all too well the first battle is just impossible. Mario wasn't just being thrown out the window of that castle.\n\nWith him went any hope I was going to claim this game. It's a cliche tactic now that can sometimes be humbling but I was just pissed that I couldn't even win the first battle. The game did go on however because you just don't say no to Mario. You just don't. I'd started to gain my footing with things and even grabbed a partner.\n\nThen I came across my first mini Boss the Goomba King. Now of course I'm not really used to the turn based system as I should have been. Where games like Ocarina of Time tested my abilities, Turn based just cut off my legs and left luck to decide. So I wandered into this Battle expecting a slightly beefier challenge.\n\nI got my ass handed to me three times. Not even an actual boss, a freaking mini Boss was showing me hell's gates. I hated it, I absolutely hated it. I wanted to yank Mario to the side and ask with all seriousness \" Why can't you just side step the attack? \" but of course the truth was I just was never prepared.\n\nEverything about Paper Mario just silently implores you to keep on moving. It's that deceptive art Style that again makes everything look like it's going to be okay. IT WAS NOT OKAY! I want it to be known I did beat Paper Mario, and yes I did go on to beat The Thousand Year Door as well. Already mentioned Super Paper Mario so we have our bases covered.\n\nThe entire process of the first though was not a picnic when I just didn't get the obvious message. I should have slowed down and kept a steady pace. I was acting on impulse because I wanted to move on to the next big thing. Turns out when I finally got there I was overwhelmingly unprepared whether it was the wrong party member, lack of supplies or level.\nPaper Mario felt like the senile Grandpa who would just watch you play with the ant hill then whisper quietly under his breath \" Don't play with them ants..don't. Nope. Don't play with 'em. \" but just quiet enough for you not to hear because you're way too busy ruining their little ant lives. Then you get bit the fuck up because that's what happens.\n\nThen grandpa just laughs that maniacal death rattle because it's the one pleasure he has. You can move however fast you want to move but eventually you're going to either have a hard time struggling or you're going to full on hit a brick wall of pain. So you slow down. You start to prepare, you begin to invest in yourself and your abilities, learn to give the time.\n\nEven with all that in mind though that doesn't mean it's going to be easy. We're not talking about expecting a game over but we are talking about making sure you'll give one hell of a fight before you see that happen. Paper Mario was the first game that made me reach that conclusion and line of thought. Expecting the worst to come but prepping to face it in my best standing.\n\nI've heard a lot of things from a lot of people about the way I view multiple subjects and ways of life. I've been called a cynical, been told to lighten up when things were turning over bad or just not seeing the glass as half full. I'm that guy from Home Alone \" You think positive, I'll think realistically. \" not with the same force of absolute but I never exactly grow discouraged.\n\nThat's exactly the thing too. When we're kids we're all so busy running around and trying to figure ourselves out. We're given so long to just be kids and act out as kids without stopping to consider responsibilities and hardships around us but the danger will always be there. Eventually we hit that same brick wall when it comes flooding at us one day. Most of us are still those kids just hiding behind drugs, smoking and alcohol because we weren't ever ready.\n\nWhen you expect the worst and it doesn't come you breath the sigh of relief. It's a mind bending pleasure knowing you saw Winter coming and you already bought a coat. It's even better when the world comes crashing down on you in many ways whether it's your parents getting a divorce or you're expecting a bad report card. You're comprehending, expecting and doing your best to make the best of it so that when the struggles come you're not vulnerable.\n\nOf course even when you expect the worse it still hurts all the same. For the life of me I lost my mind of that volcanic Piranha Plant, anyone remember that guy? Of course it could have been easier. It all could have in many ways...if only I had just...\n\n- Read The Fine Print -\n\nI'd like to think Paper Mario tutored me in many ways. It smacked me on the head when I outspoken myself, that adventures can be the best when you're with friends, and that you can get your first weird boner over a ghost named Lady Bow. One of those things is not true, I dare you to try and think on which one. Now if I didn't make myself so clear earlier I'll be more forward, Paper Mario was my first actual RPG. I hadn't touched a single one before it and only caught glimpses of others many times.\n\nI lived in a world where the path was always straight forward. Even in the games like Majora's Mask it was all a simple matter of just finding things out and throwing yourself around. In Paper Mario that was the easiest way to waste your supplies and usually wind up dead. So of course I talked things over with my Magic eight ball and came to the conclusion I wasn't listening to jack shit the game was trying to tell me. Let's run ahead in time real quick where Thousand Year Door comes out.\nThe first Boss Battle had been the dragon, HookTail.\n\nGetting up to that point was murder for me but if there is anything I do remember it's how hard they beat the idea of a \" Weakness \" over my head until they broke my skull open. I say that with conviction because it was so bloody obvious the first time they said it I didn't need to be reminded like some....kid. Was I really that stupid and not interested in what games had to say back then? I'd pulled so many ideas, thoughts and feelings that\n\nwould turn any sane individual into a raving lunatic yet somehow I didn't have the time nor care to read a few sentence bubbles? Paper Mario may holds it's own weight with challenge and difficulty but I can say just about this much, rushing ahead will give you headaches but disregarding advice will ruin your whole game. It turns out that yeah, there were so many helpful things sprinkled about. I remember last year playing a little bit again and wondering how in the world it challenged me so.\nOh yeah...because I didn't read.\n\nYou ever do that as a kid? Feel that compulsion to just play? I'm sure some of us still roll our eyes when we hear long and drawn out dialogue but once upon a time even the sounds of text were like nails on chalkboard. I think Pokemon probably did me in with that compulsion since anything and everything anyone had to say in those games just made me want to break my gameboy in half if only to protect my brain.\n\nReally though, Paper Mario was that senile Grandpa of mine who was just cackling as he watched me struggle because he knew the answers, he was just whispering them because the years of smoking took away his sweet voice. So I got better over time and started listening. I didn't need highlighted text to point out what was and was not relevant. I took mental notes on what WAS important to me and to the continuing efforts I would not be spanked again as hard before the game was over.\nYou don't just grow lost if you're not taking the time or interest, you're just slowly inching yourself to an eternal Game Over because impatience and the lack of caring make one hell of a bad combination.\n\nIt's that same trail of thought to this day that has me reading over and over the worlds I find, the rights I have to the products I subscribe or purchase, even the freaking food I eat. It's even given me the patience to ascertain the right credit line with my interests in hand.\n\nYeah I know that all sounds like some boring stuff but it kind of falls back to how unprepared we are as kids. So little consequence than the usual punishments. When the real threat comes knocking at our doors we may and may not know why it's there to begin with. When I finished with Paper Mario I at least started to grasp the concept I needed to pay attention more or I'd be facing a life of being bent over by my own stupid choices and the ignorance that made it.\n\n- Failure Isn't always A Bad Thing -\n\nI've been on this kick writing about how certain games taught me things and made me think. Just think. I'd learned a lot of other things too outside of my living room console. Just not so much the things that may have been right or had a meaningful point. Games were my way of escaping the rules that I had to follow and the strange consequences that came along with them. The one thing that stuck in my mind though was that I hated being wrong. I hated feeling wrong and being told how wrong I was.\n\nYou get told that a lot when you're still so unsure of yourself and you've every right to be. You also come to find failure in many area's whether it is your social life, your school courses and even your dreams. If there is any lesson I've learned from everybody it's that failure is the worst thing in life because it's so easy to just give up. It hurts, it disables the parts of us we feel most secure in. I want to say that I find that insight to be complete garbage. My parents taught me it and so did my teachers\n\nand it's still garbage. Well yeah it sucks and sometimes there just is not going back but that doesn't mean the concept of failure is one universally soul crushing event that unhinges our very way of living upon it coming. ( And oh yes it will come, it always does eventually. ) I'd just been raised with so many others on the belief that I never wanted to be wrong and that if I lost anything it was the worst thing that could happen. Also take note if you've read my previous post of all of us being raised on the notion of being the next Jesus.\n\nA lot of games at that same time were slowly pushing their way out of their roots and ground to become blossoming in their complexity and challenge. I can remember often that the worst things players faced was bad programming not intentional in your face hardship. Paper Mario had a whole lot of me failing in it and that was the one activity I just did not want to feel that way in. Even Majora's Mask has a fail safe time travel. You get frustrated and don't want much to do with it but why? I remember fighting for my life and nearly giving up on Paper Mario when I couldn't get passed Huff N. Puff.\n\nThat cloud was a dick. That didn't mean I had to stop attempting to hopefully beat his face in the next try. No one wants to be wrong but when it came to that game I was the only one who was doing wrong. I was impatient, I didn't read the fine print and I wasn't accepting that I had opportunity for better things, I just needed to think and act differently. That in it's own is the challenge when you're so used to a certain way of life and how you view things getting done. Have you ever heard the term \" When one door closes another opens \"? I don't believe in that.\n\nI believe that when one door opens an entire hallway , no, an entire spectrum of doors with so many possibilities opens up. I'd just been so focused on the hardship and the failure that I wasn't seeing the opportunity. There is almost always opportunity. Unless you're dead. Then you're most likely someone else's opportunity * shudder *...hey...that could totally be the title for some Lady Bow Fan fic- I'm getting off subject. So I tried again and began to adapt, to think in different ways than I was used to and trying different combinations that I felt were abnormal.\n\nI may have been playing by the game's rules but I was also discovering that I was breaking both them and I my own in time. Failure is a chance just as success is. Both of them intermingle in that thing we can Luck and probability. It's not just so simple and clean cut though as black and white. There is always more to it and the only way we find more is if we stop thinking so little. That we detach ourselves from that crazy set of reactive we call emotions and do our best to see things clearly in more than just two ways.\n\nThe most important thing I learned from Paper Mario was letting go of my anger and disappointment and just focusing on how my next chance was going to be better because the experience was key to my victory but so was my willingness to never succumb to the failure. That is of course until I played Final Fantasy 8, in which all of this just came tumbling down and I was crushed to death beneath my own words. I'm just ghost writing now....speaking of ghosts...anyone want to read some Lady Bow Fan Fiction?\n", "description_bbcode_parsed": "What Paper Mario Taught Me


- Expect The Worst, Prepare For The Best -

Back in the hazy days of childhood I had a lot of time to my own devices. Of course those only devices were the Science Guy and gaming as we know it. The N64 Ruled the console Wars and we didn't care how crappy or small our television sets were.
Hell, I can't even remember what kind of tv we even had because when you plugged in no matter how big or small that screen was you just entered the realm of the digital. Of course the N64 had a few years running on it by then but the outlets weren't all filled.

We had our share of the good slices Nintendo brought like Kirby 64, Banjo-Kazooie, Bomberman 64... I really want to make a list of all that nostalgia right now but we're just not cut out for that kind of time and input. I just was used to a certain way of gaming.

Before Paper Mario decided to poke it's head on the scene I had this form of RPG Abstinence. I didn't want anything to do with them. It may have been that one of my older brothers had an addictive problem to anything Final Fantasy and Diablo but there were other things.

For starters I hadn't understood the concept of patience. The definition was scratched out in the mental dictionary I was so desperately attempting to fill at the time. It was that hyperactive jet juice in my child brain. Couldn't keep still, always fidgeting.

Most games could really just cut off that juice for at least an hour or two but when it came to RPG's it was like kryptonite...if kryptonite had the complete opposite ability of weakening you and somehow made you want to break stuff. Anti- Kryptonite!
Needless to say as mentioned in an earlier writing I enjoyed knowing less about a game before I got it. Oh no I liked peering in on gaming news magazines and following the hype but Commercials were off limits. You would be surprised how much those gaming articles left out back then.

So I got Paper Mario and I was so excited. MARIO WAS MADE OUT OF PAPER! Again I don't know what evil dark magic Nintendo uses to make the most pointless things sound like the second coming. A 2-D gaming experience with a hint of 3-D elements just to confuse the living hell out of me.

The moment I started up my first file I just fell in love. I still kind of am in love except most of my failing heart is just taken up now by my love for hate. It's good to be me. Even today I can swear to the heavens something about Paper Mario just does not look like any kind of RPG.

Do you know what I mean? It's like this universal sign whenever a game releases you can just tell from something as simple as the Name and Art Style over the Title. That art style was the most deceptively dis alarming part of it all. I just expected...well...what Super Paper Mario is actually.

So it stands to reason that the kid who Breathed the fiery hate of the grind felt the instant stab of self betrayal when he found out Paper Mario was the kid friendly hard core version of the average Role Player. It wasn't a very good introductory either. Bowser ( God Bless that asshole. Every time anything fun happens, SWEAR TO GOD! ) just had to steal the princess.

This was when that sickle of realization I was actually playing a role playing game fully set on. Even worse I didn't know what the hell to do. If you've played it before you just know all too well the first battle is just impossible. Mario wasn't just being thrown out the window of that castle.

With him went any hope I was going to claim this game. It's a cliche tactic now that can sometimes be humbling but I was just pissed that I couldn't even win the first battle. The game did go on however because you just don't say no to Mario. You just don't. I'd started to gain my footing with things and even grabbed a partner.

Then I came across my first mini Boss the Goomba King. Now of course I'm not really used to the turn based system as I should have been. Where games like Ocarina of Time tested my abilities, Turn based just cut off my legs and left luck to decide. So I wandered into this Battle expecting a slightly beefier challenge.

I got my ass handed to me three times. Not even an actual boss, a freaking mini Boss was showing me hell's gates. I hated it, I absolutely hated it. I wanted to yank Mario to the side and ask with all seriousness " Why can't you just side step the attack? " but of course the truth was I just was never prepared.

Everything about Paper Mario just silently implores you to keep on moving. It's that deceptive art Style that again makes everything look like it's going to be okay. IT WAS NOT OKAY! I want it to be known I did beat Paper Mario, and yes I did go on to beat The Thousand Year Door as well. Already mentioned Super Paper Mario so we have our bases covered.

The entire process of the first though was not a picnic when I just didn't get the obvious message. I should have slowed down and kept a steady pace. I was acting on impulse because I wanted to move on to the next big thing. Turns out when I finally got there I was overwhelmingly unprepared whether it was the wrong party member, lack of supplies or level.
Paper Mario felt like the senile Grandpa who would just watch you play with the ant hill then whisper quietly under his breath " Don't play with them ants..don't. Nope. Don't play with 'em. " but just quiet enough for you not to hear because you're way too busy ruining their little ant lives. Then you get bit the fuck up because that's what happens.

Then grandpa just laughs that maniacal death rattle because it's the one pleasure he has. You can move however fast you want to move but eventually you're going to either have a hard time struggling or you're going to full on hit a brick wall of pain. So you slow down. You start to prepare, you begin to invest in yourself and your abilities, learn to give the time.

Even with all that in mind though that doesn't mean it's going to be easy. We're not talking about expecting a game over but we are talking about making sure you'll give one hell of a fight before you see that happen. Paper Mario was the first game that made me reach that conclusion and line of thought. Expecting the worst to come but prepping to face it in my best standing.

I've heard a lot of things from a lot of people about the way I view multiple subjects and ways of life. I've been called a cynical, been told to lighten up when things were turning over bad or just not seeing the glass as half full. I'm that guy from Home Alone " You think positive, I'll think realistically. " not with the same force of absolute but I never exactly grow discouraged.

That's exactly the thing too. When we're kids we're all so busy running around and trying to figure ourselves out. We're given so long to just be kids and act out as kids without stopping to consider responsibilities and hardships around us but the danger will always be there. Eventually we hit that same brick wall when it comes flooding at us one day. Most of us are still those kids just hiding behind drugs, smoking and alcohol because we weren't ever ready.

When you expect the worst and it doesn't come you breath the sigh of relief. It's a mind bending pleasure knowing you saw Winter coming and you already bought a coat. It's even better when the world comes crashing down on you in many ways whether it's your parents getting a divorce or you're expecting a bad report card. You're comprehending, expecting and doing your best to make the best of it so that when the struggles come you're not vulnerable.

Of course even when you expect the worse it still hurts all the same. For the life of me I lost my mind of that volcanic Piranha Plant, anyone remember that guy? Of course it could have been easier. It all could have in many ways...if only I had just...

- Read The Fine Print -

I'd like to think Paper Mario tutored me in many ways. It smacked me on the head when I outspoken myself, that adventures can be the best when you're with friends, and that you can get your first weird boner over a ghost named Lady Bow. One of those things is not true, I dare you to try and think on which one. Now if I didn't make myself so clear earlier I'll be more forward, Paper Mario was my first actual RPG. I hadn't touched a single one before it and only caught glimpses of others many times.

I lived in a world where the path was always straight forward. Even in the games like Majora's Mask it was all a simple matter of just finding things out and throwing yourself around. In Paper Mario that was the easiest way to waste your supplies and usually wind up dead. So of course I talked things over with my Magic eight ball and came to the conclusion I wasn't listening to jack shit the game was trying to tell me. Let's run ahead in time real quick where Thousand Year Door comes out.
The first Boss Battle had been the dragon, HookTail.

Getting up to that point was murder for me but if there is anything I do remember it's how hard they beat the idea of a " Weakness " over my head until they broke my skull open. I say that with conviction because it was so bloody obvious the first time they said it I didn't need to be reminded like some....kid. Was I really that stupid and not interested in what games had to say back then? I'd pulled so many ideas, thoughts and feelings that

would turn any sane individual into a raving lunatic yet somehow I didn't have the time nor care to read a few sentence bubbles? Paper Mario may holds it's own weight with challenge and difficulty but I can say just about this much, rushing ahead will give you headaches but disregarding advice will ruin your whole game. It turns out that yeah, there were so many helpful things sprinkled about. I remember last year playing a little bit again and wondering how in the world it challenged me so.
Oh yeah...because I didn't read.

You ever do that as a kid? Feel that compulsion to just play? I'm sure some of us still roll our eyes when we hear long and drawn out dialogue but once upon a time even the sounds of text were like nails on chalkboard. I think Pokemon probably did me in with that compulsion since anything and everything anyone had to say in those games just made me want to break my gameboy in half if only to protect my brain.

Really though, Paper Mario was that senile Grandpa of mine who was just cackling as he watched me struggle because he knew the answers, he was just whispering them because the years of smoking took away his sweet voice. So I got better over time and started listening. I didn't need highlighted text to point out what was and was not relevant. I took mental notes on what WAS important to me and to the continuing efforts I would not be spanked again as hard before the game was over.
You don't just grow lost if you're not taking the time or interest, you're just slowly inching yourself to an eternal Game Over because impatience and the lack of caring make one hell of a bad combination.

It's that same trail of thought to this day that has me reading over and over the worlds I find, the rights I have to the products I subscribe or purchase, even the freaking food I eat. It's even given me the patience to ascertain the right credit line with my interests in hand.

Yeah I know that all sounds like some boring stuff but it kind of falls back to how unprepared we are as kids. So little consequence than the usual punishments. When the real threat comes knocking at our doors we may and may not know why it's there to begin with. When I finished with Paper Mario I at least started to grasp the concept I needed to pay attention more or I'd be facing a life of being bent over by my own stupid choices and the ignorance that made it.

- Failure Isn't always A Bad Thing -

I've been on this kick writing about how certain games taught me things and made me think. Just think. I'd learned a lot of other things too outside of my living room console. Just not so much the things that may have been right or had a meaningful point. Games were my way of escaping the rules that I had to follow and the strange consequences that came along with them. The one thing that stuck in my mind though was that I hated being wrong. I hated feeling wrong and being told how wrong I was.

You get told that a lot when you're still so unsure of yourself and you've every right to be. You also come to find failure in many area's whether it is your social life, your school courses and even your dreams. If there is any lesson I've learned from everybody it's that failure is the worst thing in life because it's so easy to just give up. It hurts, it disables the parts of us we feel most secure in. I want to say that I find that insight to be complete garbage. My parents taught me it and so did my teachers

and it's still garbage. Well yeah it sucks and sometimes there just is not going back but that doesn't mean the concept of failure is one universally soul crushing event that unhinges our very way of living upon it coming. ( And oh yes it will come, it always does eventually. ) I'd just been raised with so many others on the belief that I never wanted to be wrong and that if I lost anything it was the worst thing that could happen. Also take note if you've read my previous post of all of us being raised on the notion of being the next Jesus.

A lot of games at that same time were slowly pushing their way out of their roots and ground to become blossoming in their complexity and challenge. I can remember often that the worst things players faced was bad programming not intentional in your face hardship. Paper Mario had a whole lot of me failing in it and that was the one activity I just did not want to feel that way in. Even Majora's Mask has a fail safe time travel. You get frustrated and don't want much to do with it but why? I remember fighting for my life and nearly giving up on Paper Mario when I couldn't get passed Huff N. Puff.

That cloud was a dick. That didn't mean I had to stop attempting to hopefully beat his face in the next try. No one wants to be wrong but when it came to that game I was the only one who was doing wrong. I was impatient, I didn't read the fine print and I wasn't accepting that I had opportunity for better things, I just needed to think and act differently. That in it's own is the challenge when you're so used to a certain way of life and how you view things getting done. Have you ever heard the term " When one door closes another opens "? I don't believe in that.

I believe that when one door opens an entire hallway , no, an entire spectrum of doors with so many possibilities opens up. I'd just been so focused on the hardship and the failure that I wasn't seeing the opportunity. There is almost always opportunity. Unless you're dead. Then you're most likely someone else's opportunity * shudder *...hey...that could totally be the title for some Lady Bow Fan fic- I'm getting off subject. So I tried again and began to adapt, to think in different ways than I was used to and trying different combinations that I felt were abnormal.

I may have been playing by the game's rules but I was also discovering that I was breaking both them and I my own in time. Failure is a chance just as success is. Both of them intermingle in that thing we can Luck and probability. It's not just so simple and clean cut though as black and white. There is always more to it and the only way we find more is if we stop thinking so little. That we detach ourselves from that crazy set of reactive we call emotions and do our best to see things clearly in more than just two ways.

The most important thing I learned from Paper Mario was letting go of my anger and disappointment and just focusing on how my next chance was going to be better because the experience was key to my victory but so was my willingness to never succumb to the failure. That is of course until I played Final Fantasy 8, in which all of this just came tumbling down and I was crushed to death beneath my own words. I'm just ghost writing now....speaking of ghosts...anyone want to read some Lady Bow Fan Fiction?
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