So glad I got a chance to play this, it certainly set the expectations for the Game Jam real high with being the first mod showcased on stream.  Strong recommend to fans of Bowser's Inside Story and there's even things for fans of the Mario and Luigi series as a whole to enjoy.  First and foremost, the writing is spot on, perfectly captures the spirit of the game and the characters in it. I can see the time and care that went into all the custom sprites for characters and enemies, along with the use of music from Bowser's Inside Story, as it shows in all of their animations and attacks. Making for some fun battles to climb through in this gauntlet. 

...that said the gauntlet style for battles have their pros and cons. Getting right into the action after some clever quips is appreciated but it does also bring up some of the weaker points of the mod.  Item management is key to survival as even with proper conversation of items, the mod is quite challenging. The final fight can range from catch you off guard, if not be impossible, if you don't properly time use of your healing items within the battle before.  Especially considering the context of the story, a full heal right before that part could have been implementing while still feeling natural to the narrative.  IMO, the mod would have greatly benefitted from save points in certain points. 

Speaking of areas perfect for adding a save point, the mod also has little intermissions where you are given a new ability and given an area to try it out in.  These abilities are very cool, but unfortunately feel pointless in the end as the majority of the mod is a battle gauntlet, and you never use these skills outside of the room introducing them. (Also the first room requires some very precise platforming for a skill you're just introduced to, part of the problem could be I'm just bad with it, but still worth mentioning)  Still it was a nice little diversion.

Random thought, but this is a mod that would benefit greatly from "multiple" difficulties, to appeal to a wider range of players.  For example, if the attack stat for everything was cut in half and you were given the option to equip double pain at the start, that would be a perfect compromise between giving more casual players a fighting chance, while still keeping the OG challenge for more experienced players or a repeat playthrough.

This is definitely a mod that could have benefitted with a bit more time in the oven, but for what it was made for a very fun experience.

Can we just stop and say the name first? "Paper Mario: BACK IN BOWSER!" It's hilarious! That sense of humor carries into the mod, I love it. The sprites are absolutely beautiful and I loved the new maps. New enemies and amazing custom effects such as displayed buffs under the HUD and new map powers. I never fully played Bowser's Inside Story but this one was really good!

Being Rain in the Paper Mario Modding server in 2022 must be difficult, I think I wasn't alone in having high expectations for this mod. While the result ended up being quite good, the crunch you two had to go through is very clearly visible and it's clear a lot of stuff was removed.

Let's start with the presentation, which appears to have been mostly MrN's territory. The sprites were all excellent. I absolutely love the Paper Mario-ified BIS enemies and NPCs. The writing was very in character and also quite funny, it's clear a lot of thought was put into that. Finally, which one of you was responsible for the battle theme? I've never heard custom music implemented this well in any Paper Mario mod.

On the gameplay front, the battles were fun but also very simplistic for the most part. The final battle against the M & L memories was absolutely stellar, though. The attacks were very creatively adapted from BIS and it was a good challenge.

Then there's the segments in between the battles, which is where Rain got a chance to flex a little bit. This is why I mentioned having high expectations, because Rain always manages to make really cool tiny additions to the game's mechanics using ASM. For this mod, the additions were quite minor.

The first segment deals with a Spin Jump, another idea taken from the Mario & Luigi series. It's a clever way to add some extra functionality to the spin jump, and there's some tricky challenges to go along with it. The second segment gives Mario a Hammer Throw ability to use in the overworld, and I can't stress just how happy I am that Rain finally brought that back after showing a short demo of it several years ago. Still, I was expecting a lot more, especially considering the cool stuff that he made for the Christmas Special which had a significantly shorter development time.

Overall, this mod was a short but really fun experience, and you get bonus points because I love Bowser's Inside Story so much.

This is by far my favorite from the jam, really well done, and to be honest, I can’t really think of any major flaws, really good presentation, maps, music, and sprites, there were moments while I was playing that I was like:

“Wait they added this too?!! and this?! and this?!!”

Really awesome, N8 & Rain definitely raised the bar in PM64 mods.

Oh man, this was a trip! BIS fans were eating good today!

This Hack is sorta a small side story that continues BIS in a fun interesting way in the PM universe.  This is a such a cool hack idea because it recreates the BIS feel so well and I was giddy for everything I saw. The returning NPCs, The baddies retooled into PM baddies and the boss was done so well! The mod even was able to capture the non-RPG moves for some small puzzles and platforming normally seen in the Mario and Luigi series. We just needed playable Bowser and it would have been 10/10 but seriously, it felt like everyone was done so perfectly, the maps and sprites were SO GOOD!

Was Great, would get eaten by Bowser again!