Angelo Ledda ’24
On December 10, 2021, Paper Mario was added to the Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pass as a game you can play. The Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pass has already caused a lot of controversy due to its bad emulation. The bad emulation issues include an input lag with most of the games and a lot of glitches in some games such as The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Now with the addition of Paper Mario, the controversies got worse due to problems with the game. These problems led to an increase in controversies because Paper Mario was a very anticipated title for the Expansion Pass and is claimed to be one of the best Nintendo 64 games by many people.
The glitches that came with Paper Mario on the Expansion Pass range from being slight annoyances to very severe that can cause progress in the game to be deleted. The main glitch that I noticed when playing the game is that there is a severe lag when pausing the game. The game will be running smoothly until you hit the pause button which causes a lag anytime you move in the pause menu. This glitch is obnoxious, but isn’t too worrying because it fixes itself when you unpause. However, it does occur every time the game is paused which happens a lot in Paper Mario.
The bigger glitches in the game on the Expansion Pass cause a deletion of progress in save files. It has been noticed by many people that if you lose to certain bosses at specific points in the game, you get sent back to previous chapters. This makes it so that you have to replay all of those chapters again just to get back to the previous point you were in if you did not use save states. The article “Nintendo Switch Online Glitch Deletes All Paper Mario Progress Since You Opened the App?” elaborates on this topic further and states, “if you lose the battle to General Guy, apparently all your save data from last opening the app is just gone forever.” The glitches in Paper Mario on the Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pass can be slight nuisances or can have severe damage on someone’s save data and enjoyment of the game which has sparked a multitude of controversies among the players and the people who want to invest in the Expansion Pass.
The Salesian Spectator 